Customer Reviews

Mrs. Mcvinnie's London Season (Signet Regency Romance)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I received this book as a 'hand-me-down' and I'm now totally hooked on Carla Kelly as an author of Regency Romances. The story is warm, funny, touching, wise and full of suprises. Her characters are delightful.

The very best thing about the book is the sparkling repartee between the witty, fiesty and throughly practical Scots war widow, Mrs. Jeanne McVinnie, and the commanding, much- decorated captain of a warship who heads the household in which she finds herself reluctantly employed as a nanney.

Called back from his command under protest, the sea captain and the equally unwilling Mrs. McVinnie must carry out orders to manage his orphaned niece's debut into Regency London's high society.

Stormy waters result because the diminutive, red-headed Mrs. McVinnie finds herself speaking her mind and standing her ground even though doing so may lead to conflict with impeccable and socially powerful dandy, Beau Brummell -- who it is said could ruin anyone by the least look askance -- and her tall, intimidating employer who is far more accustomed to instant obedience from subordinates he could order whipped or hanged for the smallest hesitation than to negotiating with opinionated Scots nanneys.

I re-read this book frequently and enjoy it more with each reading.

Jeannie McVinnie is a widow who lost her husband Tom to Napoleon's forces a year ago and now resides with her father-in-law, also a veteran, in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. Out of the blue she receives a letter addressed to "Miss Jeannie McVinnie" requesting her presence in London as a chaperone for Larinda, the niece of Captain William Summers of the Royal Navy. Since going to London solves the problem of 1) what to do for the summer and 2) how to extricate herself from her father-in-law's house for a short period, Jeannie goes. And discovers chaos.

Larinda is a first rate snob; her aunt is still less approachable. Larinda's young brother, Edward, considered an invalid, is sneaking out of the house at night to see London. Clare, an illegitimate child no one seems to know what to do with cries all night. And Captain Summers is more used to roaring at underlings than talking to people and is not amused to have the wrong Jeannie McVinnie. The one he had requested was over sixty and useful for keeping high-strung young people in line. Jeannie realizes she's made a mistake in coming and wishes to leave, but then Captain Summers changes his mind when he sees how good she is with Edward and Clare and compels her to stay on as Larinda's chaperone. Hijinks ensue. Attraction arises. And you have a love story.

Unfortunately, it's not a very good love story. I hate to say that about a book of Mrs. Kelly's, but it's true: this is an inferior effort. Many elements of this book are similar to the recent Beau Crusoe - the seasoned naval type, the sad, lonely widow, the introverted child, the unpleasant relatives who come around. Missing only is the shipwreck backstory. As with Beau Crusoe, no one in this household is especially concerned with societal rules. Will and Jeannie sneak around (fairly platonically) in the middle of the night. He enters her bedroom any time he needs to see her. In fact, anyone enters her bedroom any time they have a desire to see her, including old friends from off the street. Larinda and her aunt are happy to acknowledge Jeannie's inferior social status out of snobbery, but no one else, including Beau Brummell and Sally Jersey, see it as anything worth commenting on. Jeannie is the daughter of a doctor from some small place in Scotland. Will, Larinda, and Edward are the progeny of Marquesses. There is no way Jeannie would be considered an appropriate female to shepherd Larinda around London. Jeannie's never even been to London before, in fact.

Anyone who regularly reads Kelly will know her books aren't exactly escapist fare. There is a lot of gritty reality from the Regency/Napoleonic Wars period in them. This one is much the same. Although everyone here is military mad, Kelly takes her readers on a tour through a military hospital where most of the inmates are in pieces and suffering. The maid in the house is an orphan and came from a workhouse. Jeannie takes pity on a blind flower seller whose wares have been tossed around by careless nobs in search of a red rose. But there is a fantasy element here as well, juxtaposed awkwardly with the grit: that one fairly passive woman could enter into a large, dysfunctional household and immediately impact each of its members for the better. This Mary Poppins fantasy doesn't make a whole lot of sense, frankly, firstly because Jeannie is no Mary Poppins. This is a woman who can't bring herself to tell the truth about herself when people she knows very well are maligning her, a woman who can't bring herself to announce who she is to the butler. But her simple down-to-earth Scottishness is supposed to calm the masses here. Within a week. Because that's about how long she stays, and by the end of her stay Edward is no longer housebound, Clare has been embraced by Will, Larinda has realized her own arrogance and fallen for a similar down-to-earth Scot, and Will is largely tamed.

Mrs. McVinnie's London Season unfortunately also lacks a central conflict. For awhile the conflict appears to be Jeannie's entrance into the Ton. The second day she is in town she has a run-in with Beau Brummell and, not realizing who he is, gives him a full dressing down. But this would be a ridiculous central conflict, and after limping around for a bit, it gets medicated and put to bed in a manner anyone can guess. (As a matter of personal preference I would like to interject here that I hate when historical personages such as Beau Brummell and Sally Jersey are used in the manner of a deus ex machina. It's just too too fake.) Very, very late in the book the real conflict rears its head; it's that Jeannie has vowed never to marry military again. But again, this conflict is mediated almost as soon as it arises. So essentially, without a central conflict, this book is about Jeannie making the Summers house a better place one good deed at a time.

My final problem is how pro-military everyone in this book is. MMLS is practically a rah-rah session for the armed forces, everyone is so uniform mad. That Captain Summers is proud of his military service is understandable. But then Edward decides it's the life for him and Larinda falls for a soldier, and despite having lost a spouse to war before, Jeannie decides to risk all again almost out of patriotic duty. Will may very well die in the course of service, and he will be gone more than he will ever be with her, but those concerns are easily swept under the rug. It's hard not to think that this may all look differently to Jeannie when she's got a couple of kids and no husband at home to help rear them.

It would be easy to blame the many problems in Mrs. McVinnie's London Season on its early publication date (1990) and excuse Kelly as not having the stuff yet, but Kelly wrote at least two books before this one that I highly enjoyed, and Libby's London Merchant came out just the following year. I loved that one. I suppose this one must be chalked up as a flawed effort and be done with it.

While still better than your average Regency romance, after reading all the great reviews posted about this book beforehand, I found myself a bit disappointed in this Kelly title. It might've been just a case of unrealistically high expectations, but the fact of the matter is that I just didn't enjoy this book as much as the other Kelly novels I've read (and I am a HUGE Kelly fan). I can't say exactly what it was that didn't quite meet my expectations, the usual Kelly ingredients were present: witty dialogue, independent and intelligent yet vulnerable heroine, an open-minded and gentlemanly but not-without-his-flaws leading male with whom the audience can sympathize, and conflicts that are real (as opposed to the usual superficial ones you often find when dealing with novels about the ton), and not to mention a very adorable little girl. But even given all that, I was never really drawn into the story and found the book difficult to finish, which rarely happens when I'm reading a book by this author.

I'm not trying to deter anyone from reading this book--as said, it's still better than your run-of-the-mill regency and well worth the read, but be forewarned, it's not up to the usual Kelly standards (for that, check out With This Ring--it's GREAT!)

Mrs. McVinnie is an original. The exploits of Mrs. McVinnie,her "charges", and Will, will have you laughing out loud. You know you're in for a real treat after just one chapter. This is a book to keep and enjoy over and over again. Carla Kelly is a writer with a great sense of humor. Her characters come alive and you become totally engrossed in their lives, loves,and losses. Once you start reading you are hooked

The hero of Mrs. McVinnie's London Season is unusual: A captain of the Royal Navy in active service in 1810. Captain William Summers is shore-bound for the length of the London season because his brother-in-law, First Lord of the Admiralty, does not wish to escort their orphaned niece to all the events associated with her London come-out. Summers, however, is not at home on land, is not good at relationships, and has been coerced into being his niece's escort and guardian of the family. What does he do but immediately issue an SOS to the only person who has the power to help him--his last nanny before he ran off to sea as a youngster, Jeannie McVinnie.

Jeannie McVinnie is a young war widow who shares a home with her former father-in-law. She receives Captain Summer's desperate plea for help with astonishment as he is quite unknown to her. Ah, but Jeannie is a rather common Scottish name, and she shares her name with her departed-husband's great aunt: a nanny who has been dead these five years. Due to circumstances at home, this urgent plea provides her with a way out of a bind and off she goes to the Summer's townhouse in London.

As attraction and attachment grow, Jeannie and William have questions they must resolve. Jeannie has far more to lose if they marry than William does. This is a story of the cost attached to being a military wife. Is she willing to pay the price of loving a navy man? Is he willing to ask it of her?

This novel is full of threads that weave their way through the story until its fabric is full, rich, poignant, and powerful. It grabbed me and wouldn't let go.

The first time I read this book, I laughed and laughed at the way Carla Kelly pokes fun at the way "society" prefers to look at the messy business of war. In all her books, I appreciate the way she gets it right about military men and the women who love them. Behind the facade they must present to "society" they are ordinary people who have answered the call to extraordinary service.
Carolyn Seiver

For a recent widow, an invitation to companion a young miss through her first London season becomes a solution to all problems. So what if she has to ignore the fact that the invitation was intended for an older aunt of the same name! More occurs in the first 30 pages of this book than in many full-blown regencies. All Carla Kelly books are "must reads" -- this is one of the best of the best.

Whatever happened to Carla Kelly in this book? Usually, while she builds up her stories and gives her characters suitable backgrounds, she makes them somewhat credible. Quite often, her heroines are placed in truly desperate situations (her heroes do like to make them suffer), but we can believe in the romance and how the couple met - be it a Marquess's brother and heir rescuing the illegitimate-born foster-daughter of a deceased country vicar, or a young woman with a past rivalling the best and worst of Dickensian bathos. In MRS MCVINNIE, while the characters were delightful and said funny things etc, I could not suspend my disbelief. How is Mrs McVinnie, a woman of no birth, no family and no connections, considered a suitable chaperone in *society* for the daughter of a late peer?

Funny - I must have been reading the wrong books all along, since it is apparent in this book that the relative of a servant in class-conscious Regency England will do just fine. [I thought that privilege limited to Beau Brummell and to persons of some wealth]. And all the Regency romances I have read to date insist that a young lady must be chaperoned by another lady if she is make her come-out.

It was not that I did not emphathize with Jeanie McVinnie's situation at the outset or her efforts to get the household in working order (having been "impressed" into duty) or her problems with one of her charges. But, for me, the first question - how do a couple get together credibly? - was not answered very well (and it did not show Mrs McVinnie in a very good light either). Why could she not tell her father-in-law the truth? Was she really that desperate that she had to commit a small spot of fraud to get away from her home situation? This did not indicate a smart heroine, or one thinking deeply.

And the corollary question - how does Mrs McVinnie fit into English high society? - was not answered either. Not to mention wondering whether the hero could indeed impress a woman on land for non-naval duties, as is done in this book.

Pleasant book, nice characters, but a plot premise that defies my suspension of disbelief.

Rated 2.7 (the lowest grade I have awarded to a Kelly book)

Carla Kelly has quickly beccome one of my favorite authors of regency novels, and "Mrs. McVinnie's London Season" is a prime example of why. Jeannie McVinnie and Captain Will Summers are wonderful, tenderly drawn characters who make you care about what happens to them and the choices they make. Ms. Kelly's excellent writing pulled me into this book and kept me reading all night. A must read.

While still better than your average Regency romance, after reading all the great reviews posted about this book beforehand, I found myself a bit disappointed in this Kelly title. It might've been just a case of unrealistically high expectations, but the fact of the matter is that I just didn't enjoy this book as much as the other Kelly novels I've read (and I am a HUGE Kelly fan). I can't say exactly what it was that didn't quite meet my expectations, the usual Kelly ingredients were present: witty dialogue, independent and intelligent yet vulnerable heroine, an open-minded and gentlemanly but not-without-his-flaws leading male with whom the audience can sympathize, and conflicts that are real (as opposed to the usual superficial ones you often find when dealing with novels about the ton), and not to mention a very adorable little girl. But even given all that, I was never really drawn into the story and found the book difficult to finish, which rarely happens when I'm reading a book by this author.

I'm not trying to deter anyone from reading this book--as said, it's still better than your run-of-the-mill regency and well worth the read, but be forewarned, it's not up to the usual Kelly standards (for that, check out With This Ring--it's GREAT!)