Ah, Georgette Heyer. AAAAHHH, GEORGETTE. I hate it when people refer to Jane Austen as ‘Jane’, in a simpering girly way, ie ‘Jane would have loved this tribute to her work!’ It makes me want to hurl things at the wall, she’d have been called Miss Jane or Miss Austen and who are we to call her Jane? People never refer to Charles Dickens as ‘Charles’, do they. Anyway, rant over. Georgette Heyer seems an exception, because Georgette is just the best name ever, and also when you say that one, magical word to people in the know, you never need to qualify it.

If you haven’t read Georgette Heyer, and you like any kind of women’s fiction, especially romance and chicklit, then you are in for a massive, massive treat. She invented the Regency romance. She deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with the best novelists of the 20th century, not just for the quality of her output - she wrote over sixty novels, including murder mysteries - but because she gives commercial, historical and romantic fiction a good name. To pick up a Georgette Heyer and open the pages is to lose yourself in a totally immersive, seductive world.

And Venetia is, in my humble opinion, the best of them all. It’s about Venetia (no way! you don’t say!) Lanyon, a beautiful young woman who has grown up in virtual seclusion because of her eccentric family in Yorkshire. On a walk one day she meets Lord Damerel, the wicked neighbour who caused such scandal in the county many years ago. Ah Lord Damerel. Venetia is the closest to Lizzy Bennet I have found outside of P&P. Damerel is just swoony. The descriptions of high-fashion Regency London are absolutely brilliant - like Hello! magazine in 1817. It’s unputdownable.

I had to reread it recently because it features in HAPPILY EVER AFTER, my next book which I’ve just delivered. It was such a treat to reread it, but also a lesson for any novelist. She is in total control of her material. The plotting is rigid, the dialogue is spot on. She makes it look so incredibly easy, it makes you wonder why you bother… but you don’t mind, because she is the absolute master.

My top ten favourite other Georgette Heyers are:

Regency Buck
These Old Shades
Devil’s Cub
An Infamous Army
Faro’s Daughter
Lady of Quality
Bath Tangle
Frederica
The Nonesuch
Sprig Muslin

Let me know yours, Georgette lovers… and if you haven’t tried her, please please do.

love
Harrie