I'm reading Faro's Daughter

[sholio]

I went through a Heyer phase several years ago and sort of stalled out on it (I find there's an extremely steep diminishing-returns curve on her books - I love them in direct inverse proportion to how many of them I've read lately, starting off at love and sliding very fast into "I feel like I've read the same book three times in a row and it's rapidly losing its appeal") but anyway, I stopped before I ran out of books, so I've had Faro's Daughter hanging around in Mt. TBR ever since, and finally decided to read it. This book is so, so hilarious and adorable. It might be giving The Foundling some competition for Favorite Heyer Ever.

I got to the point where things have escalated to the heroine having her love interest kidnapped and locked in the cellar and then doesn't know exactly what to do with him, while there's an entire gambling establishment upstairs full of his family, her family, her erstwhile fiancé - basically all the people who really, really need to NOT know he's down here - and meanwhile he refuses to even entertain the idea of just allowing her to let him out because that would mean LOSING. I keep having to put the book down to laugh. Heyer's deadpan narration is so great.

(For context, at this point he's tied to "a Windsor chair thoughtfully placed there by Miss Grantham," while she alternates between threatening him and trying to make up for how guilty she feels over the whole thing.)

"Will you have some more wine, sir?" asked Deborah, apparently conscious of her duties as his hostess.

"No," said Ravenscar baldly.

"You are not very polite!" she said.

"I do not feel very polite. If you care to untie my ankles, however, I will engage to offer you my chair."

I love them.

This book is built entirely on ridiculous misunderstandings and characters failing to tell each other the whole truth for reasons, and yet it's put together in such a way that it's irresistible.

Comments

[blackrook]

My favorite so far is probably Convenient Marriage, though I haven't read either the Foundling or The Faro's Daughter yet.

One vacation several years back I read in a row The Hanging Tree by Aaranovich and then The Masqueraders by Heyer. It was the right order:), beacause first Ben told me all about Tyburn Tree and then I had main Heyer characters fearing it, and I understood them much better :).

[sholio]

Oh, that sounds fun! :D

[oracne]

Peak Heyer dialogue!

[sholio]

It is indeed. :D

[sartorias]

I've always liked that one for the banter, even if I think the guy is a total jack wagon. I suspect those two have great make-up sex. (And that she gives him hell beforehand!)

[sholio]

Hahaha, he kind of is, but I think the book makes an extremely good case that she's entirely a match for him and would be bored with anyone less volatile. Actually, one thing I really loved about the book was the extent to which the book sold me on everyone getting matched to the person they deserved and best fit with - her overly sweet pushover of a wannabe fiancé gets an equally sweet girl, and the hero's coquettish cousin outfoxed the guy who was trying to scam her. It was excellent.

[sartorias]

So true! I remember reading this as a high schooler and laughing like a maniac when the guy was her prisoner in the cellar.

[philomytha]

I need to reread this one! I’d forgotten about the kidnapping. I go through periodic fits of rereading a whole bunch of Heyers, but I didn’t get as far as this one last time.

My very favourite is probably The Unknown Ajax, not so much for the romance, but because I love Hugo playing his relatives, and the set-piece scene at the end is a work of genius.

[sholio]

I think one of the things I love best about Heyer is how much tends to be going on around the main couple. She's really great at vivid casts of characters who all have their own thing going on, and fun side plots involving the main couple's friends and relatives.

[skygiants]

It's very fun and banter-y but I do always spend this whole book feeling so sorry for the poor aunt, who keeps doing her best to propose reasonable solutions and getting immediately shot down every time!

[sholio]

Hahahaha, I know, her poor aunt! I love her aunt's increasingly long-suffering comments about her niece's over-the-top solutions to problems, "please tell me you didn't lock him in the cellar again" and that kind of thing. At least she presumably gets the desired payoff with the hero paying off her debts ... and her debts ... and her debts ....

(Honestly, as noted in a comment above, the hero is kind of a jerk ... but he also does end up willingly allowing himself to be saddled with a family of in-laws that are going to make him pay ENDLESSLY. The extent to which Deb's ne'er-do-well family of criminals and weirdos just get to go on being criminals and weirdos was very gratifying for me and also unexpected; I was expecting some reforming to take place but in fact there was not a single bit of reforming in sight, even to the extent that I'm not entirely sure they aren't just going to keep running an underground casino except now with Deb's rich love interest to bankroll it.)

[lokifan]

Heeeeee, adorbs!

[sholio]

:D :D

[silverflight8]

I should probably pick that one up! I'm so mixed on Heyer. I believe a lot of modern romances take a lot of the trappings of Heyer and often try to imitate (an imitation of an imitation of an imitation) of her prose, but she does it so well and entertainingly. But for straight iddiness, that's gotta be modern romance for me. Sometimes I find the resolution of the books disappointing. The ending of A Civil Contract, wow, I felt like the male lead was just still a jerk and a huge snob, not a good combo.

But I absolutely loved Devil's Cub. I am super weak to the arranged marriage trope!

[sholio]

Yeah, my reactions to her books are often a bit mixed, but it tends to range from "yay!" to "meh"; I don't think I've read anything of hers I actually hated, it's just that it's not uncommon for the books to do various things I wish they wouldn't do, mostly on account of the time period they were written in + the time period she was writing about. In this particular case the book managed to avoid doing nearly everything I was feeling apprehensive about along those lines, and I was very happy!