Review: Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer

Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer

☆ ☆ (Just okay)

This is the first book to be read for my Georgette Heyer 2011 Reading Challenge.

Book source: My own copy
Genre: Regency Romance

Book Synopsis: Abigail Wendover, on the shelf at 28…is determined to prevent Fanny, her pretty and high-spirited niece, from becoming attached to Stacy Calverleigh, a good-looking town-beau and an acknowledged fortune-hunter of shocking reputation.

Miles Calverleigh, the Black Sheep of his family…is enormously rich from a long sojourn in India, has a scandalous past, and is not at all inclined toward good manners. Could he be Abby’s most important ally in keeping her niece from a most unfortunate match? But Miles turns out to be the most provoking creature Abigail has ever met with a disconcerting ability to throw her into giggles at quite the wrong moment…

Review: This is the first book by Georgette Heyer I’ve read. I was so excited to read this book because I have only heard good things about her work. Unfortunately, I was lost from the very beginning. I had to go back and re-read the first 5 pages or so just to understand what was going on. I think what confused me in the beginning was how the story is told. This book is told in the third person point of view and it kept skipping from one character to the other, which caused me to get lost a number of times throughout the book. Also, regency romance is not the genre I tend to read and so the old fashioned wording really through me for a loop. For example on page 106

“You don’t favor your father much: for one thing, he wasn’t a dapper-dog. Hadn’t the figure for it. I collect that yellow calf-clingers are now all the crack?”

Due to the narrative and the old fashioned wording, I found myself drifting off and then coming to and realizing I have no idea what I’ve just read. This was really frustrating. However, once the story started to pick up and I got more used to the wording I began to enjoy the book more.

One other thing that I didn’t much care for was the characterization. I never could really connect to the characters of the story. They weren’t very developed and I never really got a since of who they were with the exception of Abby Wendover and Miles Calverleigh. I got to know who Abby was right from the beginning whereas Miles’s character was being developed throughout the entire book. He was sort of a mystery character and bits and pieces of him were revealed to the reader throughout the story.

Overall, the book was just eh for me. I never got the urge to rush back to it to see what would happen next. There were some highlights throughout, such as Abby’s and Miles first meeting but overall I was disappointed. I hope Heyer’s historical fiction novels will do more for me than her regency romance novels. I would only recommend this book to someone who loves regency romance and understands their jargon otherwise you may be bored at times if you are like me and like the fast-past plots that keep you wanting more. 

Here's the link if you would like to sign-up for this challenge: Georgette Heyer

Georgette Heyer 2011 Reading Challenge

My Mr. Linky link messed up and I lost those links. So please sign up in the comments area from now on.

So it's already December, which means it's almost time for the 2011 Reading Challenges!!

I've decided to host some of my own reading challenges for the 2011 year and the first challenge I've decided to host is a Georgette Heyer Reading Challenge. This is going to be a laid back challenge with not very many rules because it's just for fun. A while ago I set a goal for myself and that was to try and read all Georgette Heyer's Historical Fiction novels in two years. So I thought this challenge would motivate and help me complete my personal goal. So if you want to join in with me please feel free to do so! This challenge is open to EVERYONE you don't have to have a blog to participate. Have fun!

Rules:

• The book must be by Georgette Heyer obviously and it must be HF. It can't be one of her mystery novels.
• You must read at least 3 books and they can't be one's that you've already read because that sort of defeats the purpose.
• This is a year long challenge so you have until January 1st of 2012 to finish your personal goal.
• It's not mandatory to post a review but it would be nice so other people can read them but Non-bloggers please include your information in the comments below.
• When you sign up under Mr. Linky, put the direct link to the post about the the Georgette Heyer Challenge. Include the URL so that other participants can find join in and read your reviews and post.

My Goal is to read 5 books but that may change depending on how busy or not so busy I am. I will post my book list here along with a link to my reviews. Enjoy!

1. Black Sheep Read Review
2. The Conqueror
3. An Infamous Army
4. Royal Escape

Friday: Author in the Spotlight featuring Georgette Heyer

Welcome back to another Friday Author in the Spotlight here at All Things Historical Fiction!

I contemplated all this week as to which author I would shine the spotlight on and I stumbled upon Georgette Heyer, a well known and respected Regency Romance Historical Fiction author during the early 20th century.

Heyer has written over 40 historical fiction novels and a dozen detective novels in her lifetime. Her novels are being republished by Random House Publishers under the New Arrow Publications. I love how her books are being republished so that a younger generation of Historical Fiction lovers can also enjoy her work.

Georgette Heyer was born on August 16, 1902 in Wimbledon. She married George Ronald Rougier in 1925. Her husband was mining engineer and who moved around a lot do to the nature of his job. For three years she and her husband lived in East Africa which inspired her to write her famous essay 'The Horned Beats of Africa.'

Heyer wrote her first novel, The Black Moth, when she was only 17 years old. It was her father’s persistence that led her to send it off to an agent and it was eventually published in 1921 right after she turned 19. She was immensely inspired by Jane Austen and so like Austen, Heyer’s heroines always found a suitable husband at the end and they shared a similar ironic tone when it came to their writing styles.

One of the interesting things I found about Georgette was that she really kept to herself. From the beginning of her career, she didn’t like being in the public eye and, therefore, refused to give an interview. Also, Heyer was occasionally beaten down by feminist novelists. They argued on the fact that the women in her books concentrated entirely on the business of getting married like Austen's heroines, and they show intelligence and strong will. Despite being criticized, Heyer actually influenced some novelists such as Jane Aiken Hodge who later went on to write Georgettes biography titled The Private World of Georgette Heyer.

On a sad note, Georgette died in 1974 from lung cancer. In my opinion, what made Georgette Heyer such an amazing historical novelist and why Historical Fiction readers are still reading her work today is due to the fact that her work was so well researched. She hardly ever made mistakes and her characters were so well developed and believable.

Here's a list of her entire work:

Series

Alastair Trilogy
1. These Old Shades (1926)
2. Devil's Cub (1932)
3. An Infamous Army (1937)
The Alastair Trilogy Boxed Set (omnibus) (2006)

Inspector Hannasyde
Death in the Stocks (1935)
aka Merely Murder
Behold, Here's Poison (1936)
They Found Him Dead (1937)
A Blunt Instrument (1938)

Inspector Hemingway
No Wind of Blame (1939)
Envious Casca (1941)
Duplicate Death (1951)
Detection Unlimited (1953)

Novels
The Black Moth (1921)
The Transformation of Philip Jettan (1923) (writing as Stella Martin)
aka Powder and Patch
The Great Roxhythe (1923)
Instead of the Thorn (1923)
Powder and Patch (1923)
Simon the Coldheart (1925)
Helen (1928)
The Masqueraders (1928)
Beauvallet (1929)
Pastel (1929)
Barren Corn (1930)
The Conqueror (1931)
Footsteps in the Dark (1932)
Why Shoot a Butler? (1933)
The Convenient Marriage (1934)
The Unfinished Clue (1934)
Regency Buck (1935)
The Talisman Ring (1936)
Royal Escape (1938)
The Corinthian (1940)
aka Beau Wyndham
The Spanish Bride (1940)
Faro's Daughter (1941)
Penhallow (1942)
Friday's Child (1944)
The Reluctant Widow (1946)
The Foundling (1948)
Arabella (1949)
The Grand Sophy (1950)
The Quiet Gentleman (1951)
Cotillion (1953)
The Toll-Gate (1954)
Bath Tangle (1955)
Sprig Muslin (1956)
April Lady (1957)
Sylvester (1957)
aka The Wicked Uncle
Venetia (1958)
The Unknown Ajax (1959)
A Civil Contract (1961)
The Nonesuch (1962)
False Colours (1963)
Frederica (1965)
The Black Sheep (1966)
Cousin Kate (1968)
Charity Girl (1970)
Lady of Quality (1972)
My Lord John (1975)

OmnibusDevil's Cub / False Colours (1966)
The Georgette Heyer Omnibus (1973)
Arabella / Bath Tangle / Nonesuch (1991)
Pistols for Two / April Lady (1998)