Customer Reviews

A Civil Contract

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I own every book Heyer wrote, but this is by far my favorite. A Civil Contract covers the first year and a half of an arranged marriage between an impoverished peer desperate to save his family estate from foreclosure, and a rather plain, but very nice, banker's heiress -- who unfortunately is also the former schoolmate of the woman he is in love with. I've read (in Jane Aiken Hodges' excellent biography of Georgette Heyer) that Ms. Heyer deliberately set out with this book shake up the expectations she herself had established in the romance genre -- and she succeeds admirably. Jenny has to adjust to life in the aristocracy, struggle to gain acceptance, deal with her husband's infatuation with her own school friend (a far more typical heroine), and learn how to make him happy.

Charming secondary characters include the hero's dynamic sister and of course the heroine's vulgar but winning father. Jenny is the only Heyer heroine who has a baby (and is seen by the obstetrician who historically later killed Princess Charlotte with his treatments!).

We have all read Regencies in which the destitute hero marries for money and finds true love as well. "A Civil Contract" is not one of these stories.

Adam Deveril is one of Georgette Heyer's quiet gentlemen: handsome, honorable, and brave. He needs a great deal of bravery when his father dies. That death shatters Adam's life. He has a career in the army; he must sell out. He loves the fairy-tale beauty Julia and she loves him; a man in debt to his neck cannot afford a merely respectable portion, nor can the lover honorably ask her to join him in grinding poverty. He does what his honor insists that he do.

None of the things which he has lost could help him . He needs to marry money, in the form of the plump and plain daughter of a domineering and vulgar man--a very wealthy man, who is willing to take on Adam's debts to marry his daughter to a nobleman.

But Jenny loves Adam, and has loved him ever since she, as Julia's companion, watched the golden pair fall in love. Jenny can marry him and rescue him financially, which Julia can't; she can be the wife of the man she loves, knowing that he still loves Julia; she can fulfill her father's dreams for her. And she does.

Surely this must have happened in life. Not every merchant's daughter would turn out to be beautiful. Not every wealthy merchant would turn out to be a man of sensitivity and charm. Not every marriage made for money could turn out to be a marriage for love.

The novel begins with Adam, his problem, his terrible losses, his quietly heroic determination to do both the honorable thing and the sensible thing,no matter what his personal desires are. All he has to sell is himself and his title, and he sells them. It is important that we know all this, because only with this knowledge can we see how much this has cost him. Heyer wants us to admire this man, and we do.

Of course Jenny loves him, we feel. Who wouldn't? As we come to know Jenny, we see how different she is from both Adam and Julia. Jenny is plain, as they are not. She doesn't have good taste; she allows her father to overdress her plump form and bury her plain features in expensive and tasteless jewelry. These are only surface features; the real difference lies in her practicality. Adam has been harnessed into practicality, Julia will never be practical, but Jenny is naturally practical. She knows that her father's money will enable Adam to restore his estate and care for his family. She is willing to go into a marriage in which the loving is one-sided and unacknowledged, in order to make Adam's life better.

This is not a novel about "happy ever after." It may well bring on tears (or at least a little sniffle); it does for me. There are sad moments, but there are also happy ones and humorous ones. This may not be your favorite Heyer, but I think you will find some reality with your fairy tales will make a terrific novel.

I read a few reviews from people who said this whas their favorite Georgette Heyer book, and that is true for me. This is the only Georgette Heyer I remember whose heroine is ordinary. Although the story is primarily told from the hero's point of view, my heart really goes out to the heroine. SLIGHT SPOILER: Before the book opens, she falls in love with someone she believes she cannot possibly get to even notice her. She has a chance to marry him and save him from finacial ruin, so she takes it. END OF SPOILER.

There are many ideas in the book. At least one other reviewer suggested that it was a good thing we don't marry our first love. That is true, but the book is also about making the best of what one has. The heroine is shy and average looking, but uses good sense to make the best possible life for herself and her husband. She succeeds, not to the levels of exalted love, but of caring and comfort. It is a book for realists, and Georgette Heyer succeeds with this story better than she ever has.

There are also a number of enjoyable characters, especially the heroine's father. There are also a couple of side stories that could make novels, if we saw more than glimpses of them.

As is often the case, Georgette Heyer gives the book historical context. As is a bit unusual for her, a plot twist revolves around a historical event.

My mother is an audiologist, and in the early days of her career, she was an independent, and worked in various local nursing homes. Every once in a while, I was dragged along and left in the waiting room.

In one of these nursing homes, they had a single bookshelf filled with old out of print books, romance novels, mainly. I picked up a civil contract because I was attracted by the title. Not being able to finish it in the one visit, I hid it behind other books in the shelf, and the next time we went to that nursing home, it was finshed.

It was my first and eternal favorite Georgette Heyer novel. Don't you get tired of all those passionate, beautiful heroines? Can't you see yourself as a Jenny? I can. The novel gives me a certain hope, that there is a chance for us quiet shy bookish types. :)

And it makes me cry a little every time I read it. ^_^

This was not only my first Heyer novel, but my first romance novel, and I was vastly relieved to discover that romances were not invariably silly. The last two or three pages are perhaps a bit too commonsensical, but I enjoyed the way the story developed. One of Heyer's great talents is taking a character who would normally be detestable -- like the extremely vulgar and bossy Mr. Chawleigh -- and make him not just human, but even sympathetic. Mr. Chawleigh is the bane of Adam, Lord Lynton, who succeeds to his father's title only to discover his financial situation is quite precarious. Instead of marrying his beloved, the ethereal Julia, he resigns himself to an arrangement with Chawleigh's plain but sensible daughter, Jenny. Since Chawleigh doesn't seem to do anything by half measures, Lynton is soon struggling to maintain his independence and self-respect, while Jenny is left to mediate between her father's generous impulses and her husband's lingering reserve. In a way, this almost isn't a romance: it's not about the heady thrill of falling in love, but the quiet satisfaction of domesticity. Adam and Jenny are both such nice people that you can't help but want them to be happy, and the supporting cast of characters invigorate the story with Heyer's usual humor and wit. So why only four stars? In part because I got tired of hearing about Jenny's physical shortcomings, and in part because the last two or three pages felt like a kind of cop-out. But there are a few hundred pages before that which are quite enjoyable.

I probably read almost all the Georgette Heyer Regencies about 20 years ago and enjoyed them all ... but this, somewhat to my surprise, was the one that stuck with me the most. Re-reading it now, I understand why better and think that it is almost a small masterpiece. No evil villians, no larger-than-life heros (well, Jenny, but even she has her very "human" moments), no sudden mind-altering changes of heart -- but perhaps a greater miracle: the steady growth of love between some honorable and loveable people -- more than the hero and heroine, in fact. Unlike one of the other reviewers, I rather liked the last few pages because where they were left off is, really, where they would be in "real" life and you get the feeling that the story truly does continue and get even more wonderful after you leave off. I guess I would like it better if we could glimpse the changes in their more intimate moments also .... but then Georgettte Heyer wouldn't have been writing the story and it would be nothing like a masterpiece. Please read it - sometime when you have the time to savor each step of the way and some of the truly, truly funny moments, as well as the touching ones.

This is a wonderful story that makes us all thank God we did not marry our first infatuations. Contrary to what the first reviewer here says, the heroine is not fat, as her mother-in-law states however "she will run to fat" in her future.

Heyer has again done a fabulous job with her charactors. I happen to love the the girls dad. He is an overly generous man who loves his daughter and will do whatever he has to see she is given the best his money can buy. Once his deals are done he does not throw himself onto the family that she is now married into and can't understand the families great love of Fontley-the family estate.(Neither of us understand loving something that is old damp falling to pieces, drafty and inconvenient with complaining servants).

The family has issues, besides being top lofty, stuck on the family name, broke, having a mother who likes to complain and make all feel guilty, a daughter who married beneath her station but is trying for piety, the younger sister who has more of her dead father's lively disposition, and who loves "Papa Chawliegh even though he is a funny one" and Lynton himself married to a woman who is rather plain-not ugly, but no where near the beautiful but terribly spoiled girl of his infatuation.

While reading this you will wonder at the patience of one and the gall of others.......lol The aunt is fun, dad has a good recipe or two, and this is a fab read.

Don't get me wrong. I love the swashbuckling air of Georgette Heyer's more usual Regency romances: the controlled, half-concealed violence of her Duke of Avon and her Earl of Rule--the lace and steel. I also love Georgette Heyer's usual clever dialogue: those heroes' biting irony and their wicked wit. It just happens that 'A Civil Contract' is not like that.

Here, instead, we have an essentially gentle story, with a hero who, though a soldier, never speaks an unkind or angry word. Financial adversity forces Lord Lynton to give up the woman whom he loves with a passion, and who idolises him as a dashing soldier, and to make a marriage of convenience with the daughter of the rich but unspeakably vulgar Jonathan Chawleigh. But despite all that it is a nice and eventually happy story, in which everyone ends up getting, not perhaps what they want, but, better yet, what makes them happy.

This book is full of wonderful characters. Its strength is the very sweet story of Jenny, a woman who does not inspire passionate love in her gentleman suitor. Their marriage of convenience causes Jenny both pain and happiness. Over the first year of their marriage, Jenny and her husband build a marriage which, although not perfect, has a great deal to recommend it.

In the end, Jenny's husband realizes that his friendship and partnership with her is is worth far more to him than the romantic dream of a lost love.

One of the most endearing and well-conceived Georgette Heyer books. A strong and loving heroine, a kind husband worthy of respect, funny relatives... add Napoleon and fascinating historical detail and you have a really enjoyable book.

While I'm a devoted Georgette Heyer reader, the beauty of this particular book continues to haunt me. A destitute lord, a plain heiress, and a fascinating cast of thousands make this an enjoyable romance. But the depth of the characters goes beyond the normal Heyer novel, and I found myself in tears throughout the latter half of the novel, so touched by the character of the heroine that while I haven't read the book in at least 10 years (I can't find it in print anywhere!), I remember the tale as if I'd read it yesterday. Do yourself a favor - find the book!