Customer Reviews

Lady in Green and Minor Indiscretions (Signet Regency Romance)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lady in Green: Another laugh out loud Metzger novel. I've read so many, I keep a watch out for the dog and there he was. A mongrel Clyde who saves them all from a fire in the end. But... back to the story. Annalise Avery, an heiress, escapes from her stepfather and a faithless fiancé to her Aunt's house in London. Her aunt is away, and Annalise with her protectors (Nanny Henny and her former highwayman husband Rob) are taken for servants and asked to stay on since the house is to be rented. Lord Gardiner "Gard" has decided to rent the house for various rendezvous' with whatever lady takes his fickle fancy. From the beginning his plans run awry! The ugly humpbacked, hairy mole housekeeper Anna Lee seems to have the upper hand in keeping Gard from enjoying his ladies. The funniest portions of the book are how Anna Lee (Annalise in disguise) imaginatively prevents Gard from ever partaking of his ladies!

Along with Gard's struggle with his chosen ladies and puritan housekeeper, he meets and protects a mysterious woman in green who rides a beautiful part-Arabian horse each morning. He finds himself attracted to her and discovers along the way that she is the missing heiress. He also discovers she is hiding in his own rented house! I'll leave you to read how it all works out. Can this faithless lord make Annalise happy?

Although this was a entertaining story, I was not impressed with the characters Annalise or Lord Gardiner. I did find him a bit too amorous and not really likable though he was kind. Neither touched my heart as other Metzger heroes and heroines have. Annalise was a bit insipid as herself but I loved her as Anna Lee. Henny (the nanny) was interesting because when she was angry at Lord Gardiner or her husband Rob, she would retaliate by feeding the good food to Annalise or the dog instead of to the men.

Worth reading but be sure to catch other Metzger novels (An Angel for the Earl and The Primrose Path) for more endearing (and funny) characters.

Minor Indiscretions: While a bit choppy and hard to follow at times, this is a charming tale of a rake and a sweet "schoolgirl." Melody has to bear much on her shoulders. She has to bring a rather unorthodox home for orphans and her mother back from the brink of disaster. Her mother has been accused of misappropriating the funds for the home and someone is sending blackmail letters to "patrons" of the home. Lord Coe has connections to one such person being extorted and sets off to put an end to it. He had met Melody earlier under different circumstances and now instead of believing she is an innocent, he decides she is corrupt and conniving. All the better to make her his mistress! The remainder of the book Lord Coe (in pursuing Melody) comes to meet the other assorted characters - children, half grown spoiled debutante, immature mother, and Amazon nurse. Melody and he get to know each other and revise their opinions over and over. There are lots of funny circumstances when you throw a badly behaved dog and badly behaved magistrate into the picture. It all sorts out in the end, mysteries are solved and you find out all the "dirty laundry." Very good reading.

****½ Lady in Green. A heroine who runs away from being forced into a marriage she doesn't want sounds like a pretty ordinary Regency romance plot. But it's a Barbara Metzger story.

Annalise Avery takes her old nurse and her ex-highwayman husband with her and absconds to her aunt's house--only to discover that her aunt is on the Continent and the house is to be let. With nowhere else to go, they pretend to be servants--Annalise the housekeeper, Nanny Henny the cook, and her husband the groom.

Things get worse when Lord Gardiner rents the house specifically for assignations, and Annalise, in disguise as his ugly housekeeper, ensures that none of the ladies end up staying.

The "lady in green" part comes about because Annalise takes a ride on her beloved horse (also disguised) every morning, dressed in a green riding habit and mysteriously veiled.

This is not a story to be taken seriously. It's a madcap comedy, with one funny situation after the other--mostly the efforts Annalise makes to get rid of Gard's paramours, but also her efforts at disguising herself and her horse, and Nanny Henny's tactics of showing her disapproval via the food.


**** Minor Indiscretions. This is a bit of a Cinderella story.

Melody, the heroine, takes on the Cinderella role when she returns home from school to find that her mother and sister are on the brink of financial disaster. Her mother is a widow who has long supported her family with the funds she receives for taking in "orphans" at the foundling home she runs. But nearly all of her patrons have stopped sending funds, and all of a sudden, nobody is receiving her in society.

And here's where the story loses a lot of my sympathy. Instead of trying to solve the problem, or even tightening their belts, Melody's mother and sister blithely go along buying new dresses and criticizing Melody when she tries to help. I really wanted to tell them both to take a flying leap.

The "orphans" are the illegitimate offspring of prominent members of society, who couldn't acknowledge the children, but also want to make sure they're well cared-for. The funds have dried up because it seems someone has been blackmailing the parents.

Enter Lord Coe, who's determined to put a stop to it, and who instead finds himself falling in love with one of the suspected blackmailers.

Despite my dislike of the Cinderella plot, it's still an entertaining story, and the children and the glimpse we get through them of life behind the ton make it worth the read.

Neither of Lady in Green's lead characters is very likeable. Annalise plays cruel pranks and spreads tales that harm Gard's reputation in order to force him to be moral, which is later supposed to show her love for him. ? Gard is a certified rogue and womanizer, even attempting to bed someone else the night before he plans to propose to the heroine (it's his late free night, you know). ! He does improve as he learns a few things about women and their plight, but he never becomes heroic in any sense. She is quite sanctimonious, but she falls in love with him even though one of the reasons for breaking an earlier engagement is that her fiance had a mistress. It's more hypocritical than it sounds. This story is conventional, trite, and dull. The romance is unconvincing, with her falling for a man she can't stand and him loving her without ever knowing her as a person. Don't bother.

Minor Indiscretions has a better heroine (although she seems too together for her age), although it was disturbing to have the hero want to make a 17-year-old, JUST-out-of-the-schoolroom girl his mistress (no, not his wife, his mistress). Other than that, the hero becomes quite likeable as he's seen interacting with the children she cares for. But Metzger ignores so many of the conventions of the day, that it becomes annoying for a reader reasonably versed in such matters. The love between them is uncertain, even though a friendship seems real enough. While somewhat better than Lady in Green, I found this one uninspired and uninspiring.

"Lady In Green" by Barbara Metzger is one funny romance story. At times I almost laughed until I cried at the humor intended. A book that does not disapoint!