The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer

When the Classics Circuit featured Georgette Heyer in the author spotlight back in 2010, I pooh-poohed the Regency romances and chose a mystery instead.  It was good but not nearly on the level of Agatha Christie, so I kind of gave up on her -- I'm not much of a romance reader and I'd heard that the Regency stuff was Jane Austenish, and I am a total snob when it comes to Austen.  I rarely read any of those sequels/prequels/readalikes, et cetera.  They just never measure up to my beloved Jane, and I get annoyed when authors borrow characters that someone else has created.  [Note:  I'm not trying to belittle anyone who does like such books, it's just my little quirk].

Anyhow, my Jane Austen book group is meeting this weekend, and this time around we decided to try some of Heyer's Regency books.  Honestly, we have to be really creative to keep it fresh -- Austen only wrote six complete novels, and we've been meeting every month for almost three years, so you do the math.  I don't think we've repeated a book yet -- we stretch it out with movie viewings, related books, and, yes, the occasional sequel.  The library didn't have enough copies of any single novel, so just for fun we decided to each just pick one and we can do a general discussion, kind of like a series of mini-booktalks.  So I chose The Grand Sophy, which is supposed to be one of the best.  And I am SO sorry I didn't read Heyer before, because it was a hoot!!  I was delighted.

In a nutshell:  Sophy Stanton-Lacy is the twenty-year-old daughter of Sir Horace, a widower and some sort of British diplomat.  After years of dragging his only child around the continent, he's going off to Brazil and can't take her along or leave her unattended, so he foists her off on his sister, Lady Ombersley, who lives in London with her spendthrift husband and a gazillion children, some of whom are about Sophy's age.  They're hoping they can get Sophy married off before he returns from Brazil, and Sir Horace has plenty of cash to foot the bill.

However, Sophy is no shrinking violet.  Within weeks of her arrival, she has turned the household upside-down and is rearranging everyone's lives -- she's trying to prevent two of her cousins from making unsuitable matches -- her cousin Cecilia is in love with a poor but aristocratic Byronic-type poet wannabe, and her older cousin Charles from marrying a shrew named Eugenia.  Charles is independently wealthy since his great-uncle made him the heir, so he's paid off all his father's debts and is calling all the shots.  Naturally, he and headstrong Sophy clash from the beginning.   Will this be a Darcy/Lizzie romance?  Will Sophy find a suitable husband for Cecilia?  All will be revealed, naturally!

Sophy reminds me a lot of Emma Woodhouse -- if Emma was in London and had moved in with, say, Mr. Darcy's family (with way more kids) -- and if he was engaged to Caroline Bingley!   Naturally, the writing is not on par with Austen's satire, but it's pretty funny, and Heyer packs in a lot of Regency vocabulary which shows how much research she did on the period.   Her attention to detail is very impressive.

The plot itself was fairly predictable, and I found the characters a little flat.  And I have to admit the ending was a little silly -- it sort of reminded me of a Regency screwball comedy, a bit like an Oscar Wilde farce.  However,  I really enjoyed spending time with the characters in Sophy's world.  It was a fun, light read, and a nice contrast to the rather depressing Zola novel which I finished the week before.  It's definitely a potato chip book, but a very high-class one. So, I guess you could call it a quality potato chips book.  Quality Regency potato chips?  Anyway,  I can see why her books were so popular, and why they've endured.  Heyer wrote more than 30 other Regency romances, most of which are available at my library.

The Great Husband Hunt by Lauren Graham

Several years ago I had the good fortune to live in Japan, which was great. However, one of the few things I really missed was good bookstores.  We lived on a military base, and the selection at the BX was pretty much limited to bestselling mass-market paperbacks and whatever Oprah was currently recommending.  And the library's collection was a little sad (too bad I hadn't gotten into classics yet, I could've finished the entire works of Dickens). 

Of course there was online shopping, but there's something so wonderful about just discovering an intriguing book.  So the result was that I became a book hoarder.  Any trade paperback I saw at the BX was snatched up, no matter what; I had to buy them right away, because next time they'd be gone.  So I ended up with a lot of books I might not have tried otherwise, and many of those books are still waiting to be read,  like The Great Husband Hunt, which was definitely an impulse purchase.  I finally grabbed it off the shelf the other day because I felt the urge for a light, quick read, and I was pleasantly surprised.

I was convinced this book was going to be fluffy chick lit (and I admit I have read my share).  I wouldn't classify with Sophie Kinsella or Emily Giffin (i.e., young singleton moves to the big city, works in publishing and finds a man to love her) but it's definitely not a heavy literary read.  There's enough substance here to merit consideration for a book discussion group (which I'm sure the publishers intended as they were thoughtful enough to include a Reader's Guide in the back).  Basically, this book spans most of the 20th century and is the story of Poppy Minkel, a young mustard heiress.  It starts in 1912, when Poppy's father dies on the Titanic.  The first line of the book is pretty intriguing: 

It was just as well I had ripped off my Ear Correcting Bandages.  Had I been bound up in my usual bedtime torture-wear, I would never have heard my mother's screams.

Fifteen-year old Poppy's ears are bound up nightly by her mother, one of many procedures she suffers in the hopes that she will actually catch a husband someday and not end up an Old Maid.  Poppy is the ugly duckling of the family, and spends her youth disappointing her mother and overly critical aunt.  Her life perks up when the U.S. is pulled into the Great War and everyone needs to do their part.  Poppy finally gets out of her sheltered New York apartment and gets a taste of what life is like.  When she comes into her inheritance at twenty-one, life really begins -- the roaring 20s, Prohibition, living as an ex-pat in Europe, and then the outbreak of WWII.  The story ends up in the 1970s, when she retires.

I found myself quite enjoying this book.  Parts of it are pretty funny, and I liked reading about life during the wars and Prohibition -- needless to say, it's pretty sanitized because Poppy isn't really exposed to the harsh realities of life for most people at that time.  But it was kind of fun to read about her life once she took control of her own life.  I was expecting more about her search for a husband, that's only a small part of the book. 

My biggest complaint is that Poppy doesn't really develop very much as a character -- she's pretty selfish and is a terrible parent.  She is pretty spunky and doesn't seem to give up, despite some of the setbacks she endures, and she's clever enough to reinvent herself.  (The author's notes mention that Poppy was very loosely based on heiresses Barbara Hutton and Peggy Guggenheim.)  However, it was interesting enough for me to finish and recommend with reservations.  It isn't great literature, and it isn't for everyone, but it wouldn't be a bad book on a long flight or by the beach.  It's definitely a step up from a lot of summer reads.