Customer Reviews

Sweet and Twenty (A Regency romance)

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

 

 

This is my absolute favorite Joan Smith romance!

What terrible luck! Melanie's thoughtless husband has died and left her without advice on how to marry off their lovely but feather-brained daughter, Sara. After receiving a plea for help, Lillian Vernon and her sharp-tongued aunt visit to lend a hand. At the same time, the local political seat is up for elections, and so begins a merry race to get the best man. When the Whig party whip shows up to take the election in hand, he finds himself hampered at every turn by the lovely but dim Sara, and intrigued more each day by the intelligence and wit of Miss Vernon. Soon, they are collaborating on campaign ideas, clever speeches, and a delightful flirtation... Will their budding romance survive the rigors of a most underhanded political race?

Synopsis:
When the unexpected death of Sir Gerald Monteith placed his wife Melanie and daughter Sara in financial trouble, their only hope was to quickly find a husband for Sara. They thought it would be easy, for she was as beautiful as could be. They hoped her beauty would make up for her lack of brains. The problem was, they didn't know how to look for a man.

Then Aunt Martha and cousin Lillian swept into town and took over the search. Lillian, too, was available for marriage. Soon the crafty Aunt Martha discovered that the handsome and wealthy Anthony Fellows was running for Parliament.

None of them knew a Tory from a Whig. But that didn't stop Aunt Martha. Suddenly, the ladies were involved in a spirited campaign. With so many men around campaigning, they reasoned, husbands could not be far away ....


My Review:
a clever, biting satire of the upper class and politics. The heroine, Lillian, is a smart, though penniless lady who is taken by her matchmaking Aunt to the country, as the Aunt is also matchmaking for her niece, who is, along with her mother, two pretty airheads.


When the Aunt finds that a wealthy, eligible neighbor is running for office as a Whig, she makes the ladies out to be more avid political followers than they really are. There begins a madcap farce, and the satirical machinations of the author.
The hero,Matthew Hudson, is the "whipper-in" the Whig party has sent down to help the candidate, Fellowes, who is pretty much as much a moron as the niece and mother. They were all so stupid, it was in fact sometimes hard to read their dialog as it was cringeworthy in it's stupidity.


The book needed more romance, hence the 3.5 stars, but would still be a unusual change of pace for most Regency fans.


3.5 stars.

This story started out very slowly for me. However, once I caught on with the plot and different characterizations then the whole book started to take off. It was so funny, which is writer's usual format, and this time she was poking fun at some idiots running for office (which we could still see in our present day political arena). What I liked and admired was Ms. Smith's abilities spanned from wonderful sense of humor, to fluent language skills, to understanding of art and history. But in this book, she added one more accomplishment: political strategist. Reading this story was like reading a behind the scene of some political campaigning but with a mixed feeling of laughing at the candidates and sense of sorrow for the constituents.

I liked both hero and heroine a lot, they were intelligent and sensible. I also think all the sub-characters were very well portrayed--even though they were somewhat exaggerated.

I very much enjoy reading Joan Smith Regencies. Occasionally, one of her many books just falls below the mark. For an author who was able to write 4 to 6 books a year, I am surprised that this doesn't happen more often. The story drags because the character development is more shallow in this novel than in most of her others. I think she was in a hurry to meet a publishing deadline or something. I might not finish this one. Just not one of her best.