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A review by mafiabadgers
Frederica by Georgette Heyer
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.0
First read 01/2025
This was my second Georgette Heyer book, so naturally I must compare it to The Grand Sophy, and unfortunately I found it a little wanting. Sophy was so willing to get involved in everyone else's problems, not just arranging marriages but also breaking engagements, as well as trying to fix people's familial issues, that there was a delightful array of subplots that kept on rearing their heads at pace. By comparison, Frederica doesn't have quite enough material to pad out the length, particularly around the middle, and so began to feel a bit tiresome.
Once again, it ended as soon as the couple admitted their love to each other (and promptly got engaged). I can't help but think of the hard-won delights at the end of Pride and Prejudice, in which Lizzy and Darcy both know that they're just waiting for Darcy to pop the question, and getting along splendidly. Heyer concludes her novels as though she thinks her protagonists would have nothing to do together, if they didn't have the will-they-won't-they energy to sustain them. I think she's right, but a part of me wants to see this miserable shit-stirrer and his blathering wife raising her younger brothers at his country estate. I believe Heyer wrote some (unsuccessful) murder mysteries? Perhaps she could have taken a leaf from P.D. James' book, and written her very own Death Comes to Pemberley. But no matter.
Heyer remains a very funny novelist, if not necessarily a sympathetic one, and while the book doesn't have much substance it is very good fun. She has graciously kept her rabid antisemitism out of this one, and if it has more incest than ever, at least none of the couples are too closely related. (Look, it's historical. Let her have this one.)
This was my second Georgette Heyer book, so naturally I must compare it to The Grand Sophy, and unfortunately I found it a little wanting. Sophy was so willing to get involved in everyone else's problems, not just arranging marriages but also breaking engagements, as well as trying to fix people's familial issues, that there was a delightful array of subplots that kept on rearing their heads at pace. By comparison, Frederica doesn't have quite enough material to pad out the length, particularly around the middle, and so began to feel a bit tiresome.
Once again, it ended as soon as the couple admitted their love to each other (and promptly got engaged). I can't help but think of the hard-won delights at the end of Pride and Prejudice, in which Lizzy and Darcy both know that they're just waiting for Darcy to pop the question, and getting along splendidly. Heyer concludes her novels as though she thinks her protagonists would have nothing to do together, if they didn't have the will-they-won't-they energy to sustain them. I think she's right, but a part of me wants to see this miserable shit-stirrer and his blathering wife raising her younger brothers at his country estate. I believe Heyer wrote some (unsuccessful) murder mysteries? Perhaps she could have taken a leaf from P.D. James' book, and written her very own Death Comes to Pemberley. But no matter.
Heyer remains a very funny novelist, if not necessarily a sympathetic one, and while the book doesn't have much substance it is very good fun. She has graciously kept her rabid antisemitism out of this one, and if it has more incest than ever, at least none of the couples are too closely related. (Look, it's historical. Let her have this one.)