Customer Reviews

Gwendolen

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Lady Ortilia and Mr. Hugh Quarters have three daughters. When the story opens the first and third daughter are respectably engaged. The oldest, Gwendolen has contracted a marriage with a naval captain-- in large part because she admired Lord Nelson. The youngest is set to marry her childhood sweetheart. They have just learned that the middle daughter, Jane, the acknowledged Beauty, is about to receive a very advantageous offer from a gentleman she met during her Season in London, the Marquis of Lyndale, who is coming to ask her father's permission to pay his addresses to her.

Mr. Quarters observed, "I've never held with marquisates. A jumped up sort of title. Earls and barons were good enough for us in the old days." Which would have done very well had Mr. Quarters stuck to this position, because Jane is in love with the impoverished but beautiful French emigre secretary of the Duke of Tardiff. However, Mr. Quarters is also a wastral, and very heavily indebted to the notorious moneylenders Messers Smith and Brown. Therefore even a Marquis with fifty thousand pounds a year is not to be whistled down the wind.

Into this situation Lyndale arrives with a flash of carriage wheels, sending Gwendolen who happened to be strolling along the same narrow lane tumbling into a ditch to avoid being run down. This is symbolic of the way in which everyone's neat plans are overturned.

Jane is such a dutiful thing that if not managed correctly she might accept the Marquis as a well of salvaging the family fortunes. Gwendolen discovers that her handsome heroic captain is really a pompous bore. Campaspe, the third daughter, in an effort to save Jane alienates her fiance. It hardly seems that all will come right in the end.

The main problem with the book and the reason I would have given it 3 1/2 stars instead of 4 if it were possible, was that Ms. Darcy has a problem getting all of her lovers situated for the denouement. In fact the strategem is downright silly. However, there are enough fun moments in this book to make up for this.

One of the things that I think might disturb readers used to recent Regency romances, is that the plot is not so much two people coming to understand they are in permanent ecstatic love, blah, blah, blah. The plot instead involves overcoming all of the obstacles: familial, financial and social that stand between two people coming to an understanding. Ms. Darcy is also really very knowledgeable about the Regency period, from the price of a post chaise to how bets were placed at a race, but her plots could have used a stronger editorial hand.

Okay, this story was CUTE and FUNNY! The main guy, Lord Lyndale is hilarious as is Gwendolyn's younger naive and bold little sister. This book seemed a bit like a Georgette Heyer story in that the humor actually got laugh-out-loud funny at times. This made up for what I did not like about the story. The plot was just weird, although clare darcy made you believe, "hey! It could happen!...maybe" It seemed like a bigger deal was made about something that could have been solved on Lord Lyndale's first visit. Made him seem a little slow because when it came to the end and his whole scheme was out, his reasoning was OKAY... Also, I did not like that hints that he gave throughout the book, while really obvious to the reader, went over the head of our dear heroine so many times. And she was supposed to be the wiser of the bunch, or atleast it seemed. Maybe it had to be done to keep the story going but sometimes it was so plain that it was her he loved and his comments to her made this so clear that the fact that she did not understand them was somewhat rediculous at times.

Even still I would read this again. The humorous parts make it worth it. I also enjoyed that it ended just tad bit different than usual... although still happily. It is a sweet, funny, enjoyable read. For those days you just want to pick up a dependable love story with a bit of intrigue that doesn't make you think too hard.

3 stars out of 5. I will reread when i've forgotten it a bit...not something I could pick up again right this minute.

recommend? Still, yes!

I took to reading Clare Darcy on the recommendation of people who consider her to be the closest to Georgette Heyer. Well, she is nowhere near Heyer. While her heroines are generally vivacious and her heroes are always handsome, there is less wit and irony, and less attention to the historical details and social mores. For example, in GWENDOLEN, a young lady corresponds merrily with a naval hero and then becomes betrothed by correspondence - without the knowledge, one assumes, of her parents, at least initially. Unfortunately, in the Regency period, no couple would correspond unless closely related or betrothed (in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, the fact that Marianne corresponds secretly with Willoughby leads her family to assume that they are secretly engaged). This and some other deviations from social mores rather strained my belief in the story.

The amazingly headstrong antics of the youngest sister were also hard to believe. While I am sure that headstrong young women existed then, such behavior would have been labelled as fast and been condemned by society. The ability of Gwendolen to persuade a would-be seducer to change his itinerary was also hard to believe - especially given what we were told about the man's character.

Enjoy the story for its own sake. It is not particularly true to Regency society, and the story line may be a bit too tame for today's readers. However, the absence of explicit details and the generally decorous behavior of most of the characters might please more conservative readers who are put off by explicit sex in modern Regencies. Those who like the genre should however try at least one Clare Darcy to see the transition between Heyer and the modern Regency exemplified by Signet and Zebra (in the American market).

A spoiler - the story plot is described simply because there is no editorial description. The heroine Gwendolen starts the book engaged to a naval hero; her middle sister Jane has been a social success and returns home with a Marquess following her to propose marriage. She however is in love with the secretary on a neighboring estate. Jane however has several problems. First, she is in love with a poor man. Second, her love is the wrong nationality, from the point of view of her father. Third, this man works for one of her father's most-hated neighbors. Fourth, Jane would be seen as foolish to marry for love, when she has a title and wealth on offer; in fact, her family is in desperate straits. As if this were not enough, the youngest sister is also engaged to an impecunious young officer, and must delay her marriage.

During the novel, all three romances come unstuck. Only Jane remains in love with her secretary, but must consent to a pseudo-engagement to throw off others. Gwendolen dismisses her fiance in an amusing scene; the youngest behaves with indiscretion and impetuosity in dismissing her lover. On top of all this, their father loses their family home and they are obliged to move away. Fear not, at the end, each young woman is reunited with the man whom she secretly desires.