Customer Reviews

Those Endearing Young Charms

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One of the more amusing stand-alone Regency period romances by prolific author Marion Chesney.

The author writes romantic fiction, mostly humorous regency romances plus one or two set in the Edwardian period, under the name Marion Chesney, and mystery/detective stories such as the Agatha Raisin and Hamish MacBeth series under the name M.C. Beaton. A lot of her novesl are part of a series but many others, including this one, stand on their own.

This story begins with the return from the wars of the Earl of Devenham, who had been in love with Mary Anstey ten years before, and she with him. Her parents had not allowed their daughter to accept his previous proposal of marriage when he was the penniless captain Tracey who appeared to have little hope of succeeding to the title and estates, but their attitude changed dramatically when he did inherit, and the wedding is promptly arranged.

But although Lord Devenham and Mary Anstey had waited for each other for all that time, when they meet again neither is fully comfortable with the other. Both consider themselves committed to the wedding, and plan to go ahead with it even though both have swiftly realised that they have fallen out of love with each other.

Mary confesses her concerns in confidence to the local vicar, not realising that he has loved her hopelessly from afar for nearly as many years as she had been pining for Captain Tracey. But when he realises that she still considers herself honour bound to go ahead with the marriage, he is too honourable to try to talk her out of it. However, another person is less scrupulous.


Mary's younger sister Emily is so like her, apart from hair colour, that they might be twins. Emily knows she can pass for her sister, and is convinced that the planned marriage will be a disaster for both parties. So Emily comes up with an insane plan: put a sleeping draught in Mary's drink on the morning of the wedding, take her place for the ceremony, and then have the marriage declared invalid when the Earl realises he has been given Leah for Rachel and gives up on the Anstey family in disgust.

But things were not to go quite as Emily planned ...

Marion Chesney's writing can be very funny and this is definately one of the more entertaining, if less plausible, of her novels. It had me laughing out loud in one or two places.

The main weakness, as with so many stories in the romantic genre, is that to create obstacles between the hero and heroine, the author usually ends up making one of them do a number of things which are so daft that you wonder if the other party would not be better off walking away. In this case it is the heroine who frequently treats the hero in such ludicrous ways that the reader is in danger of wondering whether being married to such a lunatic is not a happy ending. Fortunately the book still works because most of the scrapes Emily gets into are quite funny.

Although Lord Devenham is obviously not the kind of man who would really offer violence to a woman, he is driven in exasperation more than once in the book to threaten to put Emily over his knee and spank her. And all but the most politically correct readers may find themselves struggling with the temptation to hope that he will carry out the threat.

O.K, it's not Jane Austen, or even Georgette Heyer, but this is an entertaining story, and reading it is an amusing way to spend an hour if you enjoy light-hearted romances.

Captain Peregrine Tracey was humiliated when the rich but common Ansteys rejected his suit for their eldest daughter Mary, but he never gave up hope that they would one day marry. After 10 years of serving in the military, Peregrine inherited the title of the Earl of Devenahm and was instantly acceptable to the Ansteys as a son-in-law. Determined to erase the memory of his earlier humiliation, the new Earl immediately sets out for the Ansteys country estate to claim Mary's hand in marriage. Unfortunately, it is immediately apparent to Emily, Mary's younger sister, that whatever affection used to exist between Mary and Peregrine is no longer there. Indeed, Mary seems quite in love with the vicar, Reverend Peter Cummings and he with her. However, Mary would never refuse to do her duty and she knows that her family is counting on her to help them rise in social prominence, so she is determined to go through with the wedding. Emily cannot bear to see Mary unhappy so she promptly drugs Mary's morning tea, slips on a brown wig and marries the earl herself. Unfortunately, her whole plan backfires when the earl refuses to get the marriage annulled. So Emily is swept off to the Earl's estate and determines to make the best of her new life as a countess. She finds herself increasingly attracted to the handsome, taciturn earl, yet unwittingly alienates him every time he comes near her. The Earl is very frustrated with his newly married state and turns to his mistress for comfort. When her charms pall, he returns to Emily and tries to woo her, but her dratted cat seems to receive more of Emily's affection than the Earl ever will. Will the two of them ever show their true affection for each other?

This book is a typical regency romance, if a tad more far-fetched than most. I usually enjoy regency romances, but I did not care for the characters in this one. Instead of a being a charming young miss, Emily seemed like a featherheaded twit who should have been sent back to the schoolroom to grow up before she tried to marry someone. I liked the Earl, but the author didn't spend a lot of time on his character. Emily and the Earl spent much of the book apart and the whole book seemed to be filled with rather boring incidents to keep the plot going, but were never really followed up on. The author would introduce something, like Emily's charity work with the poor at the Earl's estate, and then just drop it for the rest of the book. If you are not going to use something to further the plot along then it simply isn't necessary in the book at all. Anyway, I was disappointed in this romance. The author has a nice writing style, but the book has little else to recommend it.

I Have Sworn To Marry The Girl and Marry Her I Will."

After ten long years, the Earl of Devenham had returned to wed Mary Anstey, only to find that their feelings for each other had cooled off considerable. Nevertheless, the both put on bright faces for the benefit of family and friends.

But Mary's younger sister Emily saw through their masquerade. She would sacrifice anything rather than see her retiring sister married to the now haughty earl. Desperate measures were called for...a sleeping draught in Mary's ewdding-morning chocolate and Emily could don the veil and force an annulment when the trick was discovered.

It was the kind of plot that could - and would - get young Emily into trouble....