Author of over fifty books, Georgette Heyer is the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists, who made the Regency period her own. Her first novel, The Black Moth, published in 1921, was written at the age of fifteen to amuse her convalescent brother; her last was My Lord John. Although most famous for her historical novels, she also wrote eleven detective stories. Georgette Heyer died in 1974 at the age of seventy-one.

2008-06-16 Pure frothy, frivolous fun!

This is the first of Heyer's non-romances I have read and while I wasn't completely sure about it in the first chapter, the book improves enormously once all the preliminaries are out of the way.

Elinor gets into the wrong chaise and instead of arriving at her new governess job, she instead finds herself in a gothic and run-down mansion where a well-dressed and spoken gentleman persuades her to marry his dying cousin so that Carlyon himself cannot be accused of wanting him dead to inherit his estate. Elinor does it (without quite knowing why) and by morning finds herself a widow with an old house and an estate.

It's from here that the plot really takes off: Carlyon's university-age brother Nicky (who accidently murdered Elinor's husband!) discovers a secret staircase into the house and a nest of French spies desperate to find a hidden memo detailing the Duke of Wellington's battle plan and romps in to solve the mystery adopting Elinor as cousin along the route while protecting her with his large and very disobediant dog.

Carlyon and his brother John also take it upon themselves to find the document, while Elinor and her game old nurse Beccy act suitably female alternating between scolding the men and articulating their fear. The arrival of Francis Cheviot, another cousin, who might, despite his fear of colds and care of his clothes, be involved in the French plot only adds to Elinor's problems.

The plot romps along merrily with assorted spies, murders, people being hit over the head, hidden letters and hiding places with a bit of romance thrown in too and an obligatory happy ending. This won't surprise you or win any prizes but it will make you giggle on a wet Sunday afternoon with a feel-good, old-fashioned and yet still funny story.