Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Miss Delacourt is Très Charmante.

I love me a good regency.

And what, pray tell, is a regency?
Well, let me tell ya.

You know this lady, right?
She wrote these novels,


All are set in Regency England
when the Prince of Wales was regent during
George III's insanity, 1811-1820.

They wore clothes like this:


(Just spent thirty minutes
staring at 19th century fashion images.
Where does the time go?)

Anyhow, back to regencies.

So, the thing is Miss Austen died a while back
and many addicts fans needed more.
More clothes, more banter, more romance.
More. More. More.
(It's sort of an insatiable little habit.)

Writers began to oblige the market.
(Georgette Heyer, Elizabeth Mansfield,
and Marion Chesney,
to name a few of my faves.)

Lots of sparkling dialog.
Glorious clothes.
Some farce.
A little social commentary.
Plenty of variety,
always returning to the basics,
frothy, sweet, fun and CLEAN romance.

In the 90s, publishers began to lose sight of the basics
when they began to encourage writers to filthify their work.
I stopped reading them.
In fact, so many readers stopped reading them
that authors stopped writing them.
I could only get my fix by re-reading.
Which sucked.


When I realized that she wrote clean Regency Era novels.
I begged an advance copy of her first novel
Miss Delacourt Speaks Her Mind
which I blogged about here.

In general, I'm against sequels in romance.
Most characters just do not have the oomph to
make it through a sequel credibly.
Miss Delacourt and Sir Anthony do.
Grandaunt Regina and Lucinda do.

maintains the Ashworth sparkle
without taking itself too seriously.

It's filled
with fun and romance and
longing and doubts
and clothes and banter and
obnoxious relatives
and sweet resolution.



I love this book.
I'm betting you will too.









7 comments:

Heidi said...

THIS is tres charmante! You should be a blog stylist or a graphic artist OR, I know!, a book reviewer, yes, indeed. You are stunning at it. :)

Jami said...

You are very sweet. You know I suffer from UBS (ugly blog syndrome), but you are such a lover of beauty I gave it a shot.

The Crash Test Dummy said...

Oh hugs hugs hugs. I lub both of you so much. And now I am reading Miss D part dos too. So excited. GREAT review and background!

Kazzy said...

Great promo, Jami. Sometimes readers forget the research and fact finding that goes on when someone writes a book set in a time other than her won. My copy is sitting on my nightstand waiting for my attention!

LisAway said...

Excellent post! I love the approach you took. Just awesome.

Can't wait to get my copy.

Debra Hawkins said...

Beautiful review. Really makes me want to go pick up the book. :)

Rachel Cotterill said...

I have to make a Regency-style dress... by May! That one is gorgeous :)