Customer Reviews

The Reluctant Heiress

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In 1922, Princess Theresa-Maria of Pfaffenstein may be an heiress, but she will not inherit much more than a rundown castle. Most aristocrats would be appalled, but Tessa is euphoric, because her financial state allows her to do what she wants. Thus she works for the Viennese opera company as a wardrobe mistress hiding her royal connection from her peers.

First generation nouvelle riche English orphan millionaire Guy Farne comes to the opera house seeking a means to entertain his high society guests and his snobby fiancée. When he and Tessa meet they are attracted to one another and quickly fall in love. However, she is unsuited for him as he wants an aristocrat not a working girl as a wife. Meanwhile impoverished Prince Max loves Tessa and wants to marry her.

Though a young teen historical romance, THE RELUCTANT HEIRESS provides much more. The underlying premise throughout the complex story line is how much WWI shook up the world order; similar in tone to the excellent PBS series The people's Century especially how The Great War reshaped the rest of the twentieth century. Readers will need a bit of time to fully understand how the prime four characters feel about the new world order because Eva Ibottson has cleverly left clues about what would have been expected of each if WWI had not occurred. This is a great young adult early 1920s tale at a time when the enthusiasm of a new hope for world peace was waning into a great depression.

Harriet Klausner

I was so excited to find another Eva Ibbotson book! Awhile back I blew through A Song for Summer, A Countess Below Stairs, A Company of Swans and The Morning Gift. When I surfaced again, I found myself really hoping the magic spell wouldn't end there. Happily there was one more sweet historical in store for me. THE RELUCTANT HEIRESS is a (retitled) re-issue of Ibbotson's Magic Flutes, which was originally published in 1982. It is set in the 1920s and revolves around the outrageously funny and touching members of the Viennese Opera Company, in particular a young woman named Tessa who eats, drinks, and breathes music and is the heart and soul of the company.

The narrative alternates between Tessa and Guy's stories as they work their way toward meeting one day in the bowels of the theater when Guy walks in on a weeping Tessa, who (an absolute martyr when it comes to opera) has just chopped off all her beautiful hair to provide a wig for the diva to wear in that night's performance. From there their lives intersect at more or less regular intervals and these two individuals with such wildly different backgrounds unexpectedly become friends. The one thing they share is a love of music. And music permeates the pages of this book, wrapping itself around you as you read. Tessa has turned her back on her past and made the opera the focus of her entire life, while Guy has all but nullified his humble origins by molding his life around the pursuit of wealth and power. When the woman he's loved since he was a young student at Oxford is suddenly widowed and back on the market, he lays out an alarmingly elaborate plan to woo and win her back and gift her with the life he believes she deserves. Unsurprisingly, no one is who they seem to be and that presents several sticky problems for our protagonists to tackle.

Opening up an Eva Ibbotson book is like biting into a hot biscuit smothered with butter and jam--at once perfectly satisfying and extremely comforting. Similar to A Countess Below Stairs there are few, if any, unpredictable events in this story. But that's not really what it's about. It's about those arresting passages you come across at just the right moment and think--perfect. Absolutely perfect. Similar to A Song for Summer and A Company of Swans the characters' love of art and nature fairly leap off the pages and it's hard to resist their charms and not wish you lived in a time and place where ancient royalty glided about crumbling castles and Mozart was god. In fact, my favorite bits in this book are the ones where the characters talk about Mozart and Beethoven and the way music makes life worth living. I liked Tessa and Guy quite a bit. I wish they had a few more scenes together. There is one point near the end of the story where they find themselves alone in the same place for the first time in months and months and their quiet conversation is exquisite. The story needed just a few more of those intimate moments to really cement the arc of their relationship and move it from like-minded acquaintances to soulmates. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed my read, laughed several times, had tears in my eyes twice, and fell in love with each and every member of the opera company. For Ibbotson fans, this volume is not to be missed.

All right - Ibbotson's books are formulaic, but who cares? THE RELUCTANT HEIRESS is a delightful page turner that made me laugh out loud and not want to stop reading. Loved it.

By all means buy and read any Eva Ibbotson novel! She is very gifted and the quirky humor she interlaces in her stories is an added gift.
I was extremely disappointed however to receive "The Reluctant Heiress" only to find out that it is simply Ms. Ibbotson's "Magic Flutes" (which I already have) rereleased under a different name!
I'll keep it and give it as a gift.

I had a really hard time enjoying this book. The story is about Tessa, who is an Italian princess that has dedicated herself to work with the opera. Guy, a former foster child who is now successful buys up her old palace in honor of his fiance. The fiance is a snob. Which is actually a good thing because you know sooner or later Tessa & Guy are going to find one another.

I thought that the whole story line was just pretty weird and really hard to follow. I felt like I really had no idea what was going on with whom or how it all fit in to the story. I just kept reading and reading hoping to actually understand what was happening but I just never enjoyed it. Unfortunately I felt like this was one of the worst books I've read in quite a while and I don't think I will be reading any more of Eva's books.

I had previously read A Song for Summer and The Countess Below the Stairs by Ibbotson and loved them both. This time she did not fail to once again give me the happy ending I was pining for. I highly recomend this story to any reader. The characters are all loveable and addicting, the imagery beautiful, the romance well put together and the plot perfectly strategized. Please read this one!

As is with all of Eva Ibbotson's books, this one is just as well written. The characters were well developed and engaging. If you like Ibbotson's books, you will like this one.

I bought The Reluctant Heiress because I had already read and mostly enjoyed 4 other books by the same author. This book was...okay. If I had to rank it out of the 5 books in order from favorite to least favorite (1 to 5) I would rank it at 4. It seemed too rushed and I didn't feel like I got to know the heroine like I did in the other books.
I did enjoy many other aspects of the book though. I liked the "hero and heroine" together. And I did feel like we got a good picture of the male lead.

It was a decent read, but I probably won't be reading it again anytime soon.

The Reluctant Heiress was a sweet book that was a quick read. Depsite this, it is full of historical references and amazingly well described characters and settings.
The story centers around Tessa, a poor princess in Austria who is living in Vienna and working for an opera company. Her love interest is Guy, a once orphaned boy who has made himself into a millionare. The plot is about not only Tessa and Guy, but their families and their "friends".
The Reluctant Heiress is not a remarkably deep read, but it is an interesting and entertaining way to look at the time and place it portrays.

I was excited to have a new romance by Eva Ibbotson. She's a wonderful aurthor who can tell a wonderful story. Unfortunately I read this book before as Magic Flutes published in 1986. I wish someone had warned me.