34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Friday's Child is loving and giving, July 6, 2000
The opening scene of Sherry trying to propose to the Toast of London is a grabber, and the story goes charging off from there. Scorned and needing a wife to gain control of his finances, Sherry vows to marry the first woman he meets. That turns out to be Hero Wantage, the neglected poor relation of his neighbors who tagged after him as a child and still gives him devoted loyalty. She is thrilled to be a London lady, although she hasn't the least idea how to go about it. Although this looks like a romance, this is really the story of a young man learning to grow up. Sherry is essentially good-hearted but selfish; he doesn't want the responsibility of looking after a wife. This would be fine if he married a woman who was up to snuff, but his Kitten is decidely not. While Sherry's friends (a superb collection of supporting characters) look out for her as best they can, eventually it's time for Sherry to do the job himself. The finale, with various plot threads coming together with screwball abandon, is a triumph.
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fun jaunt with naive heroine learning London Ways, March 1, 2003
This is one of Heyer's longer books and it is packed full of wonderful characters as only Heyer can write them. The Heroine is the impetuous Sherry, who when rejected by the 'love' of his life Isabella, vows to marry the first woman he sees. This happens to be his young playmate, Hero Wantage. She is a bit younger than Sherry (who is already rather young himself) and both are rather naive about life in general.
Sherry and Sherry's friends believe they can just carry with their lives as things were even though Sherry is married and Hero is quite happy for that to happen too - only as it turns out London is a lot bigger and a lot less easy for her to navigate in her usual good natured way. She gets fleeced by card sharps and has to be rescued from any number of scrapes by an increasingly worried and agitated and finally angry Sherry.
What makes this such a good read is that the humour running through it - Hero is a great character, and Sherry's friends are also fun - but underneath it is a very good story about growing up - becoming responsible and facing up to your responsibilities. It also has a complex mix of characters who keep stumbling over one anotherand interfering with each other's plans - and Heyer does this so well.
If you like Friday's Child you will probably also enjoy Cotillion and Convenient Marriage also by Heyer.
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
gentle and fun favourite, March 9, 2004
I read my first "regency romance" from Ms. Heyer at the age of 13, and a few decades later still go back to my favourites. This story is definately one of them.
For anyone who isn't already a fan of Georgette Heyer's largest group of books, this wonderful lady, writing in early and mid 20th-century England, produced a glorious collection of romances set in Regency England,(while all the time despising these best-selling books that took her away from the straight historical books she really wanted to write, but wrote more slowly.) (Oh yes, she also wrote some pretty good murder mysteries too, but this isn't one of them.)
Her many fans are really pleased she did have these economic needs, because we find her romantic novels enjoyable again and again, and don't care about a few (paltry) flaws.
Georgette Heyer's romances stand out from all others, to me anyway, because of the great sense of humour and wit that makes all of the books great fun, the easy to read style that never becomes banal, and plots which, although always happy-ending and sometimes rather similar, are never, ever, boring. If you like romances that are well-written, without taking themselves too seriously, and you're happy to know the right guy will always get the (sometimes wrong, but always feisty, and never insipid) heroine, try her books. You'll likely get hooked, and then be delighted to find there's plenty more (though not always in print).
I probably call this book 'gentle' because the hero isn't apparently hateful, or offensive or caustic, just very likeable and somewhat thoughtless. There is one truly bad guy, whose inner wickedness is revealed gradually, and that anyone familiar with Heyer's books will pleasantly anticipate eventually getting his due, and there's an unpleasant (and very silly) mother-in-law, but this book has much less black/white stereotyping than some of Ms.Heyer's other books.
What keeps me enjoying "Friday's Child" again and again is the broad range of characters included in the tale. With the hero's three friends, all very clearly different, playing their own parts in the twists and turns of the plot and general misunderstandings, plus various relatives contributing their own little cameos, there's plenty of variety in the story. After reading this book I always feel that I've met (or meet again) a nice assortment of different characters, none of them perfect, but most very likeable, with a few wonderfully unlikeable for contrast.
Like all of Georgette Heyer's Regency stories you get a great (and well-researched) trip back into Society life during the Regency period, but this typically-Heyer gem gives you more. There's the wonderful range of characters you are shown, plus more enjoyment of the of the secondary personalities . In this picture of Regency England you learn more than the all-important niceties of "good ton" and "NOT good ton", you are introduced to some varied aspects of society. The nobility you meet include the honest and the phony, the noble-but-nasty and the basically-decent, the thoughtful and impulsive, sensible and silly, and you also glimpse characters from the rest of society, living in a version of England that's very different from that of the main protagonists.
All in all, this is another glorious read from the much loved Georgette Heyer. If you've read her other books, be prepared for some delightful hours, and if this is a more mellow read than some, with a bit less life-and-death drama, the pleasure is no less, with lots of fun and variety, and if you roughly guess the ending (pure Heyer) there's a load of very believable ups-and-downs before you get there. If you are new to this author, (and you don't despise happy endings), you're in for much fun.
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