ext_7929 ([identity profile] dakiwiboid.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] truepenny 2009-05-14 05:17 pm (UTC)

I love Heyer's Regency and 18th-century novels so much

But I don't like her mysteries at all. I struggled through them, but they always seemed as if they were written by someone else entirely. Her other historical novels were OK, but they lagged behind her best work in the period in which she seemed most at home, and by the time she wrote My Lord John, the heart had gone right out of her.

Her "other romances", like Instead of the Thorn and Helen are also oddly dead.

She spent hours, days, weeks in the British Library, private libraries, mercantile libraries and anywhere else she could track down information to make her books and characters sound more authentic, and she certainly succeeded.

To many of us, Heyer was our gateway not only into romance novels but historical fiction and 19th century novels.

To this day, little bits of the cant I learned from her still slip into my speech. Bless the woman.

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