Indiscretion: A Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Miss Fortune, Lady Milner, Aunt Selina (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A clever, Jane Austen–like 19th-century English romance filled with parlor-room wit, Morgan's second novel (after Passion) follows the sharp-tongued and attractive Caroline Fortune as she's sucked into and spit out of a scheme cooked up by her father, Captain Fortune, to make them rich. The plan consists of installing Caroline as the companion (and potential heiress) to Sophia Catling, the wealthy and childless widow of one of the captain's old military chums. After arriving at Sophia's estate, Caroline finds Sophia to be a bitter hag whose nastiness only intensifies when Caroline receives a letter from an estranged aunt informing her that her father has died. Caroline leaves Sophia to live with her aunt's family at Wythorpe Manor, where she makes friends with the luminous Isabella Milner, who is preparing for her wedding to Richard Leabrook. Caroline soon realizes she's crossed paths with Isabella's intended and is torn between sparing Isabella's feelings or telling her about Richard's philandering ways. Caroline also attracts the attention of Isabella's brother, Stephen, a callous young man who enjoys trading barbs with her. Romances bloom and wilt in familiar fashions, but Morgan's colorful cast and sharp wordplay make the read a joy. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post

Halfway through Jude Morgan's Indiscretion comes a litmus test for your sensitivity to Jane Austenism: A young woman in an exquisitely appointed manor in the English countryside complains, "There is nothing very grand, or exciting, or even terrible, to be met with in a district like this: it is all just narrow provincial dullness."

If that line inspires an ironic little grin, you have the good sense and sensibility to keep reading. But if, instead, you think, "She's absolutely right," you will already have dropped off into a deep sleep hundreds of pages earlier. This is, after all, a story that counts among its exciting moments a crisis involving who will escort whom into the dining room. (Relax, I won't give it away.) And don't be misled by that suggestive title: The naughty bits (there are two: one early, one late) are described in language so refined and elevated that the bodice is not so much ripped as tipped -- and even that only slightly.

Our heroine is Caroline Fortune, the delightfully spirited daughter of a lovable old soldier who has run through a series of disastrous get-rich schemes in London. "Captain Fortune," Morgan tells us, is "the type of man who would jump gaily off a cliff and then experience second thoughts when he neared the bottom." While her father hopes to revive his acting career, Caroline -- always the practical one -- accepts employment as the companion to a fastidious widow. This old crocodile, Mrs. Catling, amuses herself by threatening to disinherit her niece and nephew. Everyone attends her "with a sort of stiff-jointed promptness that looks very much like smothered terror," but she appreciates Caroline's indomitable nature and enjoys letting her nervous heirs imagine that a new, young competitor has entered the arena. When a long-lost relative rescues Caroline from this battleground, she finds herself comfortably and securely situated among people who love her in the village of Huntingdonshire, where, you may have heard, "it is all just narrow provincial dullness."

In fact, it's actually rather amusing, and soon "the placid surface of her new life" is stirred by moral and romantic disruptions. Living nearby are the Milner siblings: Isabella, who's engaged to a man who only Caroline knows is a scoundrel; Fanny, who will run off with a man Caroline suspects is a scoundrel; and Stephen, who vexes Caroline so much that you may as well start shopping for a wedding present now. "Every time I am deluded into thinking you human," she tells him, "you come out and say something to confirm my earlier opinion."

Morgan carries this off with unfailing charm, and if we rarely get a real downpour of comedy, the air is at least always humid with his wit. Even when a character fails to be funny, the narrator saves the day: "His delivery of this joke was almost obstetric in its effort." But there is also a good deal of arid dialogue along these lines:

"You are very forgiving."

"Am I? I must be, for I cannot even think where the offense lies."

"Oh, but you must know -- that remark I made, at the Rectory. So very unthinking. I can only ask you to believe I truly did not mean it."

"Now I feel as if my head is on back to front. Miss Milner, what do you mean?"

An accurate depiction of life among a certain class of English society in the early 19th century? Indubitably. Always gripping? Dubitably.

What's worse is Morgan's tendency to impress upon us the tediousness of some hilariously boorish characters by making us live through their dull speeches in real time. There is, for instance, Mrs. Leabrook, who "would have talked on if you had fallen at her feet in a dead faint," which I can confirm from personal experience. The comic value of that technique drains away paragraph by paragraph, until we're left thinking, "No -- please -- tell, don't show!"

Fortunately, Caroline's pride and prejudice are impossible to resist, particularly as she finds herself drawn deeper and deeper into her friends' romantic complications, all the while imagining that she can hold herself aloof from matters of the heart. You've read this before, of course, or at least seen the movie (Keira Knightley, I'd sell my soul for you), but it's played out here with enough elegance and humor to make it worth another round. After all, Austen left just six novels, and anyone of the persuasion that half a dozen masterpieces are insufficient will enjoy Indiscretion as a handy substitute, a sort of literary margarine -- I Can't Believe It's Not Austen.® That Morgan comes so close to the creamy taste of the original is a testament to his talent, but it still leaves us pining for the real thing.

Reviewed by Ron Charles
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (October 16, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312374372
• ISBN-13: 978-0312374372
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #124,247 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you like Georgette Heyer..., January 28, 2006

By	Cat "Bluestocking" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Indiscretion (Paperback)

Very good book in the style of Georgette Heyer, very engaging characters and a charming heroine. A true regency novel with a good plot and a pretty ending.

"When Caroline Fortune's prodigal father loses all they possess, he arranges for his daughter to become the companion of the formidable Mrs Catling. Although uncomfortable with the plan, Caroline resolves to make the most of this introduction to polite society, and her beauty and intelligence soon attract many admirers. But, much to her dismay, she is just a quick to realize that love and romance are not what some `gentlemen' seek and finds herself unjustly complicated in their indiscretions. Exasperated by her predicament, can Miss Fortune retain her reputation without losing her head and her heart?" BACK COVER

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly Delightful, June 14, 2006

By	K. S. Scott (Cairo, Egypt) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Indiscretion (Paperback)

This is a Regency style novel written with intelligence and wit. Miss Fortune, the heroine of the story, reveals, through her words and thoughts, delightful, wise, laugh-out-loud funny, and sometimes very poignant insights into the human heart. I highly recommend the book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Delightful Regency-era romantic comedy, December 1, 2007

By	Nef (Urban east coast, USA) - See all my reviews

This book is more adeptly and enjoyably written than the majority of recent works exploring middle-class Regency romances from an Austen-esque perspective. It most closely resembles Pride and Prejudice, with flavorful dashes of Sense and Sensibility and even, in some details, Persuasion, thrown in.

The author aims for stingingly witty parlor repartee enhanced with trenchant social observation; I would say he succeeds in the former more or less most of the time, although several exchanges late in the book between Caroline Fortune and her love-interest grow a bit forced in their unflagging attempts at humor.

I give the author major points for a leading man that is, at least in personality and speech (though not in the expected familial pedigree and level of solvency), quite enjoyably different from most other contemporary authors' Darcy-type love interests. And Caroline herself is well-developed as a character.

The author tries to differentiate several secondary characters--Uncle John, Mr Downey, Mrs Catling, Miss Downey, and Mr Leabrook--from their nearest Austen counterparts Mr Collins (P&P); Lady Catherine (P&P); Mary Crawford (Mansfield Park), and Mr Crawford (MP)/Mr Wickham (P&P), respectively. Surprisingly, he largely succeeds; each of Morgan's characters is just different enough to pass for distinctive--for example, Morgan's Mr. Downey shares Mr Collins' slavish devotion to an aging benefactress, but while the latter is the pompous, self-deluded comic relief, the former is characterized as variously good natured and moodily intense, with mercurial fits of anger and despair.

I have two problems with this novel, but they by no means overshadow the book's overall excellence: First, the several present-tense passages Morgan inserts, bizarrely, into scenes throughout the book. This is not only confusing in that it interrupts the flow of the scenes both plot-wise and stylistically, but is self-conscisouly "literary" to an unacceptable degree. Thankfully, the reader runs into such passages only half a dozen times throughout the work.

Secondly and more importantly, I feel the resolution of Caroline's romantic attachment--which has been built up incrementally with skillful intensity over the narrative's course--is painfully, almost absurdly brief, given the fact that this is a romantic comedy. Both elements of this genre must be balanced, as Austen demonstrates so well in P&P and Persuasion, two novels that are comedic throughout but linger appropriately--in final chapters--on the romantic denoument, with the heroine and her love interest given several pages to reflect on their past prejudices and current attachments. In contrast, Morgan's lovers are given short shrift: less than two pages (the last ones) over which they come to a hurried understanding, and these pages on the tail-end of a breathless, multiple-chapter expedition involving a runaway seducer and seducee, an undercover sting, and a wrap-up scene with Mr Downey that resolves several other plot points in a page or two.

This book's level of quality--and the level of enjoyment it engenders in its readers--really deserves a more carefully crafted and satisfying ending. However, do not let that stop you from picking up Indiscretion.
If you love Jane Austen-style Regency rom-coms but have been disappointed with some of the recent entries in the genre, look no further.