Customer Reviews

A Model Debutante (Harlequin Historical - Large Print)

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If you're looking for a great work of literature, an accurate portrayal of the Ton, (as Regency high society was known in 1816 London), scintillating writing, or spine-tingling romance, you should probably look elsewhere. Jane Austen or even Georgette Heyer this is not.

However, if you're looking for a mildly entertaining and amusing Regency romantic farce with which to relax for a couple of hours making minimal demands on your cerebral capacity, this is actually quite good fun.

A few years before the start of the book the heroine, Miss Talitha Grey, had been left alone and almost penniless by the deaths of her parents. With little money and no prospects, she had to look for one of the few options to earn an honest living which were available to a gently bred young lady. Being a governess or companion did not appeal, but by fortunate chance Talitha (Tallie to her friends) had a genius for designing and making hats, and she was able to obtain a position as a milliner.

This brought in almost, but not quite, enough money to pay the gap between the miniscule private income her parents had left Tallie and the bills she needed to pay, so Tallie found a third source of income by posing incognito as an artist's model for a famous portrait painter.

But when a curious set of chances restores Talitha to the status of eligible young lady, this becomes a guilty secret. A society matron, Lady Parry, takes Talitha under her wing. Lady Parry is kindness himself, but her handsome nephew, Lord Arndale, is convinced that Tallie is hiding something. Is her newly recovered place in respectable society about to be destroyed?

Very anachronistic and silly in places, but I did find this book both funny and entertaining, and I was able to empathise with the hero and heroine even though I found the events which knocked her down and built her up again quite unbelievable. As long as you don't take it too seriously this book is good fun.

The story begins in February, 1816 ...

Description from the book back cover:

She'd just inherited a fortune - and now she would go to the ball! Before, Miss Talitha Grey had been penniless and without marriage prospects. But now that she'd inherited a fortune, and thanks to Lady Parry, she was to be launched into society! Tallie vowed to make Lady Parry proud by being the model debutante ... But Tallie was besieged by guilt. She was harbouring a shameful secret that would ruin both herself and the Parry household if it were to be discovered. To earn some much needed money, Tallie had modelled for an artist - in the nude! And Lady Parry's nephew - the gorgeous, dashing, suspicious Lord Arndale - knew far too much. After all, hadn't he once almost caught Tallie in the act ...?