Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer

Bath Tangle is another wonderful, enjoyable novel by Georgette Heyer, the queen of regency historical fiction. A new Heyer novel is a book to be savored. I can’t think of a more perfect end to summer then to happily delight in another novel from one of my favorite authors.

I had just finished reading the wonderful biography of Heyer, The Private World of Georgette Heyer by Jane Aiken Hodge and was in the mood for a new Heyer. Luckily I had two on my pile to review and I chose to read Bath Tangle first.

Bath Tangle is the story of the tangled love lives of many charming characters. Serena is the high-spirited daughter of The Earl of Spenborough. After the Earl’s untimely death, he is left without a male heir, but does leave behind his 25 year old daughter Serena, and his even younger second wife, Fanny. Much to Serena’s dismay, her inheritance is tied up in a trust that is administered by the Marquis of Rotherham, her father’s good friend, and the man that she jilted before their marriage six years before. Serena and Fanny remove themselves to the Dower House, but Serena has a hard time with her cousin’s administering of the estate. Both ladies decide they would be happier with time away in nearby Bath. They lease a house and although they are still in mourning, they take limited outings to partake of the waters. It is during one of these excursions that Serena happens upon a man that she has not seen for six years, the only man she has truly cared for, but was unable to marry due to his circumstances. Hector is now a retired Major with an estate of his own, and is still as gorgeous as ever. At this point, love blooms for all characters, and their love lives become a “tangled” mess!

Heyer created brilliant characters in Bath Tangle. I LOVE the exuberant Serena. She was full of energy, lively, and always on the go. She loved to hunt and ride horses, and could care less what people thought of her. She also had clever dialogue with Rotherham that fairly crackled off of the pages. Whenever those two got together to fling insults, I couldn’t put the book down.

Rotherham was a wonderful “Mark I” Heyer hero in the vein of Charlotte Bronte’s Mr. Rochester. He is a dark and not handsome man who knows what he wants and fairly often gets it. He is a bit rough around the edges at times, but as he is a Marquis, all is forgiven and he is a prime target of all marriage minded mamas. This gets him into a tangle of his own.

I think my favorite character of all was Mrs. Floore. She is a secondary character that is a rich widow of a tradesman and proud of it. Her daughter has married well and is now a Lady who is ashamed of her mother’s background and vulgar ways, but not too ashamed to take her money to launch her daughter Emily into society. Mrs. Floore tells it the way it is and has decided to keep wearing the fashions of her youth in very bright colors. I thought she was hilarious.

I loved the bits of historical context sprinkled throughout the book. The Major has returned home as the Napoleonic wars are finished. Serena and Fanny love to gossip about Princess Charlotte her upcoming Royal Marriage. Caroline Lamb, the Duchess of Devonshire, and other notable Regency real-life characters are mentioned throughout the book. I loved it!

I just read about Bath Tangle again in The Private World of Georgette Heyer. Hodge states that Bath Tangle “has less actual comedy than the previous books. Instead there is an Austen like irony in its treatment of the linked problems of snobbery and money.” While I love Heyer’s comedies, I did love how this book reminded of the best of Austen, down to the Bath setting. This novel was written by Heyer in 1954 and Hodge also states that “This book is a watershed one. Before it, Georgette Heyer had sometimes played at turning the romantic conventions upside down; now she is beginning to look through them, and into the human heart.”

Overall, I love Bath Tangle. It is a wonderful romantic tale that will keep you guessing about how the relationships will become untangled by the stories ends. The characters were first-rate. If you have read all of Austen and are looking for something new to read in the same vein, I highly recommend Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer.

This is my nineteenth novel for The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2011.

Book Source: Review Copy from Sourcebooks. Thank-you!

The Private World of Georgette Heyer by Jane Aiken Hodge

Georgette Heyer was one of the most popular and prolific writers of the twentieth century. A native of England, Heyer established herself as a premier author of historical fiction and detective novels. She ultimately excelled at writing in one time period, the regency era, and her brand of “regency romance” spawned many imitators that couldn’t capture the magic and witty dialogue of the original novels.

I discovered Georgette Heyer’s novels about four years ago and was very excited. Her novels reminded me of Jane Austen’s and I soon discovered that each novel I picked up seemed to be even better than the previous novels. I became curious about Georgette Heyer herself. She was an extremely private person and not much information is known about her. I jumped at a chance to read and review a biography of one of my favorite authors.

The biography, The Private World of Georgette Heyer, was first published in 1984 by author and fan Jane Aiken Hodge. This was just 10 short years after Heyer’s death, which allowed Hodge to be able to interview surviving family and friends for her biography, as well as to review and include letters from the ultra private Heyer herself. Heyer first became a published author at the age of nineteen.

Heyer famously deflected any attention while she was alive and soon had an alias when she married Ronald Rougier. She did not consent to interviews, meeting fans, or any sort of press. This would make it rather difficult to construct a biography, but Hodge achieves it by looking through Heyer’s publications. Georgette Heyer had said that you could find her by looking through her works, and indeed you can. Hodge makes a good illustration of what was going on in Heyer’s life when she wrote each of her novels.

Georgette Heyer started with historical fiction, but also wrote some contemporary novels and mysteries at the beginning of the career. I was intrigued by the summaries of the contemporary novels that were later suppressed. I would LOVE to read them. I hope they will be released one of these days. Heyer dedicated herself to meticulous research and became the expert on all things Regency. She found her most success with her regency romantic novels, and took it upon herself to make sure all facts found within them were accurate. She also seemed to enjoy finding colloquial phrases for her characters to use. Reading about her dedication for accuracy in these phrases made me appreciate them in her novels much more than I had previously. I was amazed reading about her research library in her home and wish I could have seen it for myself.

Heyer battled with plagiarist and tax collectors for most of her life. It really made me angry that authors so blatantly stole her works, but she wasn’t able to do anything about it as it would cause too much publicity.

The Private World of Georgette Heyer is a book I want to reread and keep by my side for reference as I continue to read Heyer’s works. I really enjoy the illustrations throughout the text which showed many of the sources that Heyer used for illustrations of period garb, carriages, etc.

Book Source: Advance Review Copy from Sourcebooks. Thank-you!