A Regency Feast - thank you Georgette Heyer!

When it comes to comfort reading, reading to escape everyday life for something a little more glamourous and romantic, nothing beats a Georgette Heyer regency novel. Heyer was hands down the best at creating enchanting regency fairytales with intelligent, sensible heroines and dashing beaus. Some Heyer novels are better than others though - which makes sense when you consider how many she wrote... So here are my three Heyer favourites:

"Regency Buck" 
Set in 1811-1812, this is the story of the calm, cool and collected heiress Judith Taverner who comes to London to become part of the ton. She is set at being a success, even if she has to battle her formidable guardian, the fashionable Earl of Worth, who has very little interest in introducing Judith and her brother Peregrine into society.
Judith Taverner is a classic Heyer heroine; full of courage and determination with plenty of intelligence but also with a warm heart. She's an It-girl and a trendsetter and her story is captivating - I've read it at least five times and it remains a favourite.

"The Grand Sophy"
The Grand Sophy is the nickname of a young lady who has grown up on the continent but is sent to family in London in time for her coming-out. Sophy is different from the other girls in the city, her childhood has been one of freedom to do or speak as she wants and she continually shocks her surroundings with her free spirit. Like Judith Taverner, Sophy is a woman with a tremendous personality and a chic taste in attire and in this novel, Heyer shows this even more clearly by giving Sophy an adversary whose virtues are in line a more traditional female ideal of demure femininity.

"The Nonesuch"
The heroine of this Heyer novel stands apart from the society beauties of "Regency Buck" and "The Grand Sophy" - Ancilla Trent is a genteel 26-year-old woman who has fallen on hard times and has taken up a role as a governess in Yorkshire. She is gentle and intelligent, reserved and self-confident without the outgoing liveliness of Judith and Sophy. When the Nonesuch, Sir Waldo Hawkridge comes to the neighbourhood with his nephew, Ancilla's young charge, the beautiful but cold Tiffany Wield, wants the attentions of both gentlemen. The differences between Ancilla and Tiffany are what drives this novel with Sir Waldo being the catalyst showing how all that glitters isn't gold and not all gold glitters.

Of the three heroines, Judith Taverner is the woman, most of us would want to be, Sophy is the girl we'd admire and try to live up to and Ancilla is the one we would tell our deepest secrets. Heyer is a fabulous talent for bringing interesting and engaging women to life in stories and if you are looking for new fiction-friends, I suggest you start here!

Review: "Untold Story" by Monica Ali

There is something about book based on real persons... By using figures that are essentially real, they inhabit a strange land inbetween fiction and non-fiction and I have always found this grey-zone really interesting. One of the books that I found does this really well is "Life Mask" by Emma Donoghue about the actress Eliza Farren and the sculptress Anne Damer - it had me heading straight for the National Portrait Gallery to see sculptures.


"Untold Story" by Monica Ali is pure fiction but it is based on Princess Diana. The Diana. Princess of Wales. And to be honest, I had no idea to how to handle this. Is it wrong, is it right? Is it disrespectful or is  she making use of the artistic right of an author?
In "Untold Story", Ali speculates what would have happened if Diana if she had survived the car crash in Paris and had instead staged her own death to flee to a small town in America to live a normal life. Lydia is the name that Princess Diana takes on as she lives what is a typical life, working at a dog shelter and spending time with her girlfriends who think that she has fled from a powerful husband. It is American surburbia at its finest that has replaced the role of Kensington Palace.


As the story evolves we get the story from Lydia herself and from her former secretary who is the only person she has trusted with her secret. It is the story of a women so fed up with the difficulties of life in the spotlight that she is willing to give up everything, including her children, to start over. It is a choice that comes at a price, a high price and when a British paparazzi surfaces in this oh-so-normal American backwater (incidentally also called Kensington), it could all have been for nothing.

It is an interesting read - the story itself somehow does not come across as dramatic. It is very well-written but the beautiful literary style is very much at odds with the content. Because as much as I enjoyed reading Ali's well-crafted sentences and stylistically superior prose, I did not enjoy the use of Diana's name. The story could have been told just as well had it been based on a fictional character and I have to admit that I found the book an invasion of privacy. This feeling of partaking of something not quite right ruined the reading experience for me and the insensitivity in using the Diana icon overshadows what could have been a good read.