10 Reasons to Love "Mennonite In A Little Black Dress"

There are a lot (a lot!) of reasons to love "Mennonite in a Little Black Dress" by Rhoda Janzen but here I will pick out ten in the hope that this will convince to read this brilliant book:

1) Janzen grew up in a Mennonite community, left it to become an academic and then went back home to cook and write a fantastic memoir when her hapless husband Nick left her for a guy named Bob that he met on gay.com. She rocks.

2) This quote from page 24: "I hope it's clear by now that the Mennonites wouldn't want me. The only reason they're nice to me is that my dad is famous, my mom makes great pie, and I babysat their kids when I was twelve."

3) Her take on men (from page 62): "Hannah's husband was fabulous. Among Phil's many excellent qualities was the expression of zero interest in leaving his wife for a guy he had met on Gay.com."

4) She manages to make Germanic food such as Platz, Borscht and persimmon cookies sound oddly attractive and I did actually buy persimmons to try the recipes at the back of the book. Thanks Rhoda's mom!

5) Her musings on modern womanhood (page 166): "Consider how impossible it is, for example, to aspire to the role of virtuous woman when professional commitments dramatically interfere with jam delivery to oldsters."

6) Her musings on what makes a man sexy (page 203): "In my opinion, sexiness comes down to three things: chemistry, sense of humour, and treatment of waitstaff at restaurants."

7) Her observations on the sorority that she is faculty adviser to (page 210): "One twelve-degree evening in February, when there was eight inches of snow under a layer of slippery drizzle, my sorority gals celebrated their fellowship by donning denim minis, pink tights, and stilettos."

8) Her explanation of the difference between Amish and Mennonite (page 226): "But the Amish cut away from the Mennonites in 1693 because the rest of us were too liberal. That's rich, no? A liberal Mennonite is an oxymoron if ever there was one."

9) The way she manages her mother who is a typical, practical Mennonite woman who at times approaches life in a different way: "If your mother takes a frozen uncooked chicken in her suitcase to Hawaii, all bets are off. You just go with the flow."

10) The fact that she manages to tell a tragic story about a woman who looks after and takes care of her mentally frail husband who then leaves her when she herself is at her most fragile without letting the grief and the unfairness take over. Instead she turns it into a story about life,  hope and looking towards the future, she is an inspiration.

Review: "A Vision of Loveliness"

The people who say that the world was a simpler place back in the days before internet, mobile phones, waterproof mascara and Topshop haven't read "A Vision of Loveliness" by Louise Levene. Or "The Rules of Civility" by Amor Towles. Or "The Group" by Mary McCarthy". Or "The Best of Everything" by Rona Jaffe. Books about women in the pre-waterproof mascara days essentially. 

But back to "A Vision of Loveliness". It's London in the 1960s and Jane is an intelligent and ambitions young lady who studies everything from Paris catwalking manuals to books about etiquette. She's eager, more than eager, to leave her life in boring Norbury behind and enter another, more glamourous world. So when she spots her ticket to this world, an expensive handbag left behind in a pub, she is not slow to grab it and she makes fast friends with the owner of the handbag, the radiant, beautiful Susie. 

Susie lives a life of champagne, expensive dinner and jewelry on the surface but beneath is a life in a dinghy, dirty flat, working as mannequin wearing sweat-stained dresses and trading "favours" for furs. To Jane, this looks like the glamourous life that she has dreamed of for so long - miles away from the Scotch eggs and economical dresses of her aunt's house in Norbury where there's a distinct lack of both money and love. 
At least in Susie's world there's money, even if love is thin on the ground... 

This is the story of London girls using their beauty and body to make a living in a time long before the glamour models and reality stars. Nothing comes for free, it is hard work staying beautiful for these girls and even at 19, they are aware that there is a sell-by date only a few years in the future. So they put everything on the line to get to where they want to be. They risk it all in the hope of hitting jackpot, of marrying a rick, upper class man. 

Read it if: You like Mad Men and the 1960's and the idea of Swinging London. If you enjoyed "The Group" or "The Rules of Civility" or "The Best of Everything"

Black Sisters in a Cold World

There are books that you almost fear to read because you expect them to be difficult, emotional, unpleasant or all of the above. This is sort of how I felt about "On Black Sisters Street" by Chika Unigwe. I had no idea what to expect from it - I liked the title but for some reason I didn't expect to like it, possibly because it deals with a wholly unpleasant subject. 

Sisi, Efe, Joyce and Ama are all African women who have been trafficked to dark, cold Antwerp to take up places in bars and windows as sex workers, second-class citizens in a country where they have no friends and no family. They have come to seek a better future for themselves and for those at home in Lagos and to reach this goal, they are willing to sacrifice anything. They have only each other and though they have little in common, they are bound together by their misfortunes and tragedies. 
Sisi is a university graduate who dreamed of  cushy job in a bank, enabling to support her family. When the dream turns to dust, she takes fate into her own hands and sets sail for Europe. Efe is a teenage mother who has to leave her son behind to pay for his school fees. Ama is met with lust instead of love by her Christian step-father and Joyce is a refugee of war. 

Unigwe tells the stories of these four, strong, tragic women who have met with so much pain, so much rejection and hurt, yet they still have compassion, they still dream of romance and of happiness. She weaves their stories together, braids them into one story of hope and human unkindness. It is deeply moving but without playing on your emotions. Elegantly written, it tackles difficult subjects - subjects that are violent, evil, in a dignified manner where the violence is present yet not overwhelming. The focus is on the women and the way they are shaped by their experiences. The way they survive it and come out on the other side. It is almost hopeful, but only almost... 

Read it if: You dare to confront the dark realities of the world by want to do so while reading a beautiful piece of literary fiction. 

A Prostitute, A Highwayman and A Pirate Walks into a Bar...

I have officially become a convert to the fandom of Erica Jong. Before I brought "Fear of Flying" with me no holiday and realised that Jong is a genius, I was terribly prejudiced and sure that she was one of those horribly 1970's shouting feminist, burning bras and condemning the use of mascara. How very wrong I was, this is one cool woman! I love her books and currently, I'm working my way through her many great novels.

On the menu this weekend was "Fanny", a novel that sounds like it was a bit of project for Jong. This is not just any old novel, it is a novel published in the 1980s but written 18th century style yet with a very modern heroine.

Fanny Hackabout-Jones is a fierce young woman who has to go through an awful lot at a terribly young age.
Orphaned at birth, she was left in the care of Lord and Lady Bellars at Lymeworth and grew up as a child of the household. The rakish Lord Bellars is never at home, preferring the parties and women of London but when he returns to Lymeworth after a two-year long absence, he falls violently in lust with the beautiful 17-year old Fanny. All red hair, white skin and large bosom, the beauty is both Fanny's best asset but also her downfall. Raped by her stepfather, she flees Lymeworth to seek her fortune in London, hoping to make it as a female bard, a writer. Quite a dream for a girl of her age and her time and as in all good fairytales, she has to go through an awful lot of ... well ... awful stuff before she can fulfill her destiny.
On her way to London she takes part in a witches' ritual, loses a close friend and is robbed by highwaymen who abduct her. 
Eventually she makes it to London where she has to make a living in the oldest way possible... From there her adventures become more and more daring and dangerous and along the way she meets secret societies, sadistic sea captains and honourable pirates. 

This is a romp through another time. Full of rump. Like a Georgette Heyer with more sex and more drama. The plot is not believable at all but that's the point - it's not about the plot, it's about the spirit. And if there's something that Fanny is full of, it's spirit. She's a feisty young lady with plenty of courage and her story is well worth a read. 

Read it if: You like your women like you like your chili pepper: redheaded, fiery and full of power. 

So what do modern women want?

Everyone wants the answer to that question - from men to marketing companies, there are plenty of people who would pay big money for the answer. I don't have it but this summer I've been reading through a whole bunch of feminist, modern-womens books in the hope of finding the answer to this and other equally important questions. And I think there's a book I will need to have for my journey, a guide books of sorts. Namely "The Feminist Bestseller: From Sex and the Single Girl to Sex and the City" by Imelda Whelehan. 

This is what it says on amazon.co.uk: 
Imelda Whelehan provides an overview of popular women's writing from the late 1960s to the present, looking at how key feminist texts such asThe Women's Room, Kinflicks and Fear of Flying have influenced popular contemporary fiction such as Bridget Jones' Diary and Sex and the City. Whelehan reconsiders the links between the politics of feminist thought, action and writing and creative writing over the past 30 years and suggests that even so-called 'post feminist' writing owes an enormous debt to feminism's second wave.

Have you read it and can you recommend it? 

Fear of Flying, Fondness of F......

Did my headline seem like a bit much? If so, I'm sorry. Well, not really. If I'm being totally honest, it sums up "Fear of Flying" by Erica Jong rather nicely, I think.


This is not the kind of sex that you find in "50 Shades of Whatever" and its counter-parts. It's dirty, yes, but mostly because the people taking part in the sexual acts haven't had a shower in days... The sex in "Fear of Flying" is more real, not stylized in any way and way cooler than a lot of the drivel in the market at the moment. 


Isadora Wing is a 29-year old divorced and remarried author. Having married and divorced her clinically insane college boyfriend, she is now married to psychoanalyst Bennett and together they are attending a psychoanalysts' conference in Vienna. What better setting for a comedic drama than a room full of psychoanalysts all peddling their individual interpretation of Freud and Jung? While in Vienna, Isadora falls in lust with the psychoanalyst (yes there are a lot of them in this book, somewhere close to 120) Adrian Goodlove who appears to Isadora to be able to supply her with something that she has always wanted: the zipless fuck. As in an anonymous, non-commital, passionate roll in the hay. 
This is a love triangle unlike any I've come across in a novel before, especially as it is terribly short on love, and it causes Isadora to think back and consider her history with men in particular and with her own sense of self in general. 


As a main character, Isadora is interesting because she's bloody annoying. She is indecisive and does not know her own mind. She's frustrated with her sisters for looking down on her for not having children, yet condescends their life decisions. She is passive when she should be proactive, then stumbles mindlessly into trouble when she should be considering the best line of action. Yet somehow, she is also likeable, probably because she puts herself through an awful lot in the hope that things will end up right. Some will be appalled by what has been deemed her promiscuity but sex for Isadora is about more than the physical act, for her it seems to be a tool used to explore her own identify. She is on a journey of self-discovery and her fear of flying is not only literal but also a symbol of her fear of searching for herself and for her own identity instead of searching for a man whose identity she can mould herself on.   


It could all get a bit stuffy (especially as so many psychoanalysts are involved) but actually it is a really funny book, particularly the parts involved Isadora's sisters who really are quite a bunch. When it comes to dumb remarks and stupid decisions, they are up there with the Bennett sisters from "Pride and Prejudice". 


This is the thinking young woman's book. If you are a 18 to 20-year-old considering whether to spend your money on 50 Shades, please pick up "Fear of Flying" instead. It'll give you much more to think about and to consider, about yourself and your generation, about your mother's generation, about men and about sex.


Read it if: You're a woman between the ages of 18 and 60 with a sense of humour and an appetite for passion. 

Women in a Time of Change

A while back I read "The Best of Everything" by Rona Jaffe and my review was pretty raving: I loved it! So when I heard that others who like "The Best of Everything", also liked Mary McCarthy's "The Group", there was no way around it. I had to have it. Last week, when my boyfriend and I went on vacation, I started reading "The Group" on the train to Gatwick airport and pretty much from the first page, I was hooked. 


"The Group" is a eight young women, all graduates of Vassar, who become close friends during their college years. The novel follows them as they leave their college days behind to pursue love, careers and plans for the future. As characters, they are very different and the focus of the novel shifts from one girl to the next so that we get to understand their individual stories one at a time while glimpsing the all of them in each others stories. It is a genius way to to tell the story of this group of girls and it kept me reading furiously, as I tried to understand how their lives interwove and how their actions impacted each other. 


What becomes very clear from the stories of these girls is, that they are living in time of change. World War I, the depression, the changing roles of women, of marriage, of sex. These are a generation of women who have to find their own way in life because the world has changed tremendously since their mothers were young. They are all keen to make a difference, to do something meaningful with their lives in a world where nothing is as it once was. As a historical novel, it works beautifully. 


For me, however, the history aspects were an advantage but not the main advantage. I found that one of the best things about "The Group" is that there are no clear goodies or baddies emerging from the stories, each of us readers will root for a different girl and who we root for might change. Personally, I found the bohemian "women who loves too much" Kay slightly exasperating and Priss made me want to shake some sense into her. However, I suspect that many others will see Kay as a hero because of her fierce pursuit of her ambition to "do good" in New York. 


My favourites changed a bit as I read but at the end of the book, I was found that three girls had made most impression on made and had come closest to my heart: 


Dottie for her robbed innocence and her steely character as she realizes that sometimes the happy ending will look different to what we imagined. 


Polly for her maturity and her insistence that what counts is that she is happy - not other peoples perception of her or her circumstances in life. 


And last but not least the beautiful and fascinating Lakey who is understood to live a charmed existence in glamorous Europe but who turns out to be the girl who may have most to fight for. 


Read it if: You like "The Best of Everything" by Rona Jaffe, "Valley of the Dolls" by Jacqueline Susann. You wouldn't mind going back in time and visiting 1930s New York. 

Review: "Seventh Heaven" by Alice Hoffman

I can't remember the first time I read "Seventh Heaven" by Alice Hoffman but I have a feeling that it must be approximately 13 years ago. It was definitely when I was in my early teens and I loved loved loved Alice Hoffman. She was my favourite writer. Every week I would go to the school library or convince my parents to take me to the library in our village and the best days were when I borrowed an Alice Hoffman novel. 
Alice Hoffman does magical small-town America in a way that no other writer can. She imbues the small everyday things with a magical, beautiful qualities and remind us that even the most ordinary things are sometimes more magical than what we call miracles.


"Seventh Heaven" was one of my favourite books at the time and the other day I decided to revisit it and see if the magic would still work on me and it did. Though I was not as enthralled as I was when I first read it, I still thoroughly enjoyed the story. 


"Seventh Heaven" takes place over a year from the summer of 1959 to the summer of 1960 and this timing has been chosen for a reason - it symbolizes the end of an era and the arrival of a new time. 
Nora Silk is a divorcee and single mother of baby James and eight-year-old Billy. She has been left by her charlatan of a husband and in an attempt to give her boys a stable, traditional, middle class upbringing, she moves from New York to the New Jersey suburbs to a newly built neighborhood. This is small-town America in the 1950s, full of white picket fences, newly mowed lawns, kids with clean teeth and ironed clothes and mothers who cook, clean and gossip. To them, the newcomer is a disturbance, an unwelcome interruption in the Stepford Wives-ish, surburban paradise so of course they shun her. Nora's insistence on fitting in, her attempts at making friends and making Billy part of the community are all in vain as she is increasingly isolated by her cold neighbors. 


The turning point comes when Nora begins to remember her roots and stops attempting to be like the other women, when she recalls the wisdoms of her grandfather, things start to change. Not only for Nora but also for the people around her. The prom-queen-wannabe Rickie Shapiro and her valedictorian-to-be brother; Jackie McCarthy the bad boy and aspiring criminal; Donna Durgins overweight and unhappy housewife and not least policemen Joe Hennessy and schoolboy Ace McCarthy. 
Their lives weave in and out of each and they are all changed by the magic Silk family just as Nora and her children are changing as they adjust to life in suburbia.


Read it if: You are nostalgic after 1950s, headbands and white picket fences. You grew up in suburbia. You like the movie "American Beauty". 

Review: "Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady" by Florence King

One of the strongest American stereotypes most be the Southern Belle. If you have ever read "Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell, you know exactly what I mean. It is a way of life, an identity oozing overpowering feminine charm and delicately wrapped female vile. It is the exact opposite as being one of the boys.


"Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady" is Florence King's tale of growing up in a Southern family, ruled by the soft and well-manicured yet steely hand of her grandmother. Granny has aspirations to be a grand lady and she dreams of raising a Southern belle - however, her own daughter is more of a man than a woman really, loving baseball and suits, so when a granddaughter comes into the world, Granny does everything in her power to turn her into a real lady. Growing up in a bohemian household with Granny, mama and a book-loving Englishman for a father means that Florence has a childhood far away from the norm. From day one the three main adults in her life has three very different agendas and Florence has to find her own identity from a young age.


I read about "Confessions..." at one of the blogs I follow and loved the sound of it. I wasn't really sure what to expect but from the first line of the first page, I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Florence King has a talent for observing the awkward and funny, the little humorous gems of an extraordinary life. Her observations on the American female of the 1950s are both disturbing and hilarious - I was appalled and fascinated at the fact that all of the other girls in her sorority at college took a marriage prep class. Homework involved washing their boyfriends socks!


To describe these girls who are forever worrying that no-one will marry them and depend on guys to give them self-esteem and self-worth, Florence and her father comes up with the word "malkin". A fantastic word that I will definitely keep in my vocabulary. Is is bound to come in handy.
Florence herself was far from a malkin - though she looked like the perfect young Southern lady, inside her there was a real academic mind hungering for books as well as a sexual creature hungering for, well, sex. The story follows her battles to study French (she ends up studying history instead) and to lose her virginity without falling pregnant. Quite rebellious pursuits in the South in the 1950s but Florence has courage and is not afraid to go after the things in life as she wants.


The book is written with intelligence and personality, it is full of anecdotes and scattered words of wisdom and it poses questions about femininity and the role of a woman that are as relevant as they were in the 1950s. Because what defines you as a lady? They way you look or sound? A ring on your finger or who you sleep with? It is probably a question that each of us have to answer for ourself just as Florence King did. And as she herself says in the book - she may have gone to bed with both men and women but she never ever smoked on the street.

Review: "The Summer Without Men"

Summer is most definitely over now - october has set in loud and clear in Copenhagen with lots of rainy days and brown leaves on the ground. Not unpleasant but not summer either. The season for staying inside with a cup of tea and a good book is here and I am not one to complain about that. Nothing beats the cosiness of being wrapped up in a blanket with a good book and a cup of tea on a rainy Sunday. Pure bliss.

One of my early-autumn reads this year was "The Summer Without Men" by Siri Hustvedt. I chose it for the title and the author and I must say that the title is oddly fitting for my life as my boyfriend and I have now lived in a long-distance relationship for four long months. However, this week is the final one. But it has been a summer more or less without men for me so this book made sense to me on a personal level. When Hustved writes without men, she means it. There are no men in this book except for the ones that we are told about by the women that this book is really about. The narrator is Mia, a poet, a mother and a wife to the philandering neuro-scientist Boris who has become so enchanted by a French colleague that he leaves his wife of twenty-odd years for her. And that leaves Mia with a mental breakdown, literally, which sends her straight to the psychiatric ward and from there to a summer of rest and recovery in her childhood town.

Coming back to the town that she left behind when she ventured into the land of adults is not easy for Mia but despite her frail mental state and her anger and frustration with Boris and his Pause, she manages to carve out a place for herself in the local community. As she teaches a summer class about creative writing, she gets caught up in the catty intrigues of teenage girls and as she visits her mother's friends, she has to face the difficulties of old age and the constant shadow of death that hangs over these ladies in their 80's and 90's. It is both sobering and hilarious reading at once because it is so easy to relate to. Hustvedt manages to perfectly capture both the confusion in the mind of a teenage girl and the resignation of a lived that has been lived and is soon to end.

Actually this book should come with a warning: "Read only if you are ready to think about some of life's big questions" because - at least for me - the reading opens up for a lot of thoughts about how to live life and how to make the most of the time we have. This is probably also the reason why it took me a long time to read this book - because I took it in little bites in order to be able to process it. However, it is not all as "heavy" as it sounds because as a narrator, Mia is full of witty remarks. Her sharp observations and dry sense of humor lifts this book to another level. Her internal dialogue and her anger with Boris is honestly really entertaining and this counteracts the many philosophical parts so that it ends up being a perfectly balanced book.

And I think this is where I end this review. By saying that this is a perfectly balanced book. I had me laugh, cry and worry and it also got me thinking. What more can you ask for in an autumn read?

Review: "Soulless" - Steampunk with soul

Steampunk. What a cool word! Even before I knew what it meant, I knew that I loved the word. It sounds so full of energy, dynamic, cool, rock'n'roll. So of course I had to give the genre a go. Now for those of you (who like me a short while ago) do not know what steampunk is, I found this definition on Wikipedia:
Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s.[1] Specifically, steampunk involves an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century and often Victorian era Britain—that incorporates prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy.

My first attempt at the steampunk genre is "Soulless" by Gail Carrigan, the first book in a series about Alexia Tarrabotti, a parasol-loving old maid with tan skin and a slightly large nose. Alexia is a preternatural which means that she has no soul and therefore has a neutralizing effect on supernaturals such as vampires and werewolves. Now in this story, Victorian England is a country where vampires, werewolves and humans live side by side in an atmosphere of some tension and reluctant acceptance on both sides. Alexia is a spinster - she has turned 26 years without managing to catch a husband, something that she herself doesn't regard as a problem but which means that she is treated as a burden by her mother, stepfather and two stepsisters, all of whom seem to be exceedingly silly. Alexia is a practical girl with a lively temper and a thirst for knowledge. She has a mind of her own and when a vampire tries to feed on her, she kills him with her umbrella. Investigations into this episode is done by Lord Maccon, a very manly werewolf with whom Alexia is constantly fighting - and as you know love and hate does not lie far apart... So as werewolves and vampires begin to disappear mysteriously, Alexia and Lord Maccon's relationship begins to sizzle.
I have to say that this was an entertaining read. Alexia is a great heroine with lots of personality - she seems to be a sort of mix of Sookie Stackhouse and your average Georgette Heyer heroine which I have to say is a really interesting mix! Stubborn, courageous, headstrong, prickly, cake-lover who is not easily scared by society ladies' opinions or hives of vampires.
So if you like a bit of romance mixed with some paranormal creatures and lots of drama, this should be a book for you.

For other reviews of this delicious debut novel, please visit:
Pensieri Persi: http://greenyellowale.blogspot.com/2011/04/review-soulless-by-gail-carriger.html

Wondrous Reads: http://www.wondrousreads.com/2011/03/review-soulless-by-gail-carriger.html

Reading in a Single Sitting: http://www.readinasinglesitting.com/2010/05/27/review-soulless-by-gail-carriger/

Review: "Devil's Cub" - The Taming of...

Lately I have been wanting to read Georgette Heyer - a lot of Georgette Heyer. Maybe it is because a lot of stuff is going on in my life at the moment and nothing is as soothing as losing myself in the Regency world of Heyer where the men are either rakes or gentlemen and the women are either frilly and silly or strong ladies with an opinion of their own. Nothing like a regency romance to make me feel that all is right in the world.

So last weekend I indulged myself by reading "The Devil's Cub" by aforementioned Heyer. The title refers to the scandalous Marquis of Vidal who lives in excess, gaming, dueling and seducing young ladies of dubious quality. One of these young ladies is Miss Sophia Challoner, a shallow 18-year-old who schemes with her mother to catch the rich heir in her net. When Vidal has to flee London due to an unfortunate episode involving dueling guns, he asks Sophia to come with him to Paris as his mistress. Unfortunately for Sophia and Vidal, the note he sends her is receive by her older and much more straitlaced and modest older sister Mary. Mary instantly realises that her sister will be a ruined woman if she allows herself to be set up as a kept woman and knowing that she will find no support in her mother, Mary takes it upon herself to save her sister by playing a devious trick on the haughty Marquis. However, Mary's plan go horribly wrong and suddenly she is the ruined sister...

It is a great Heyer novel this one. A bit different from the other ones that I have read because Vidal really is a bit of a crook and a scoundrel and Mary is not as impulsive and spirited as many of the other Heyer heroines.
As always though it was a pleasure to read and very soothing for a stressed mind. So if you need a bit of Regency romance, the Devil's Cub is a great choice.

Review: "The Grand Sophy" - A Grand Story

Do you know that feeling when you get a book in the mailbox that you have really really looked forward to? I had that feeling when The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer landed in my mailbox. I really enjoy Heyer's book, they are like a mug of hot chocolate on a really cold, snowy day. Until reading The Grand Sophy, my favourite Heyer novel was Regency Buck but after turning the last page of Sophy yesterday that had changed.

I have to say that at first I didn't go for the title. For some reason, the grand Sophy had manifested herself in my mind as somebodys great-aunt with arthritis and a pronounced deafness. The kind who's repulsed by anything "the young people" do... I couldn't have been more wrong. At all. The grand Sophy is Sophia Lacy-Stanton, 20-years old, grown up with her widowed father Sir Horace on the continent, able shot, clever, not one to mess with.

Sophy is sent to stay with her aunt and uncle and cousins in London while her father travels to Brazil. She takes the house with storm and is soon friends with her cousin Cecilia and a favourite with her other cousins - except from her eldest cousin Charles, the man of the house, who does not like her free, wild ways. Charles's fiancee, the snobbish and cold Eugenia, does not like her ways either and she soon sees it as her job to "help" Sophy fit in to London society.
However, Sophy does things her own way. All things. She sees a lot to be corrected and changed in the house that she now calls home and she soon takes it upon herself to stir things up and change it for the better. And what Sophy wants, she gets. Or rather, she makes happen. As she says herself, she is not missish and she does not care for the ideal feminine ways of the time which prescribes that she should be mild and submissive.
Soon Sophy is meddling in the forbidden romance between Cecilia and the poet Fawnhope who lives in his own mind, she tackles cousin Hubert's gaming debts and she has heated discussions with cousin Charles. Not to mention the fact that she gets into quite some verbal fights with his fiancee.

Every page of this book was a delight. Every single one. Sophy is a joy, I wish I was like her. She is like Elizabeth Bennett but less restrained by the customs of the era. She possesses a cool, a will and a heart that makes her irresistable and has given her the nickname the grand Sophy. She is the girl that girls want to be friends with and boys propose to. She has such integrity.

I will be returning to The Grand Sophy again and again, I can predict that already. This book will go on my shelf and I will look at it as a close friend. I might even have to buy an extra one to let people borrow because I can't imagine not having The Grand Sophy ready at hand when I need a friend to spend a quiet evening with. If you like Pride and Prejudice or any Heyer novel, please please please give this one a try.