Cotillion (Paperback)

She gives us a vain and slightly selfish, yet also totally generous and completely charming heroine, who you cannot dislike; a delightful, stammering and ineffectual dandy who turns out to have gumption beneath his affectations, his lovely, silly sister with no fashion sense, but a great deal of kindness, a wicked rake who yet fascinates and interests us - a cast literally of dozens of characters, all of whom are distinctively portrayed.

There are no less than four romantic plots in this book, interthreaded and interwoven out of each other with exquisite grace - (hence the title - "Cotillion" - basically a gay little dance). In less skilled hands this book would have become heavy-handed and ponderous, exquisitely tactless. In Heyer's hands the book is light and flowing, fluently written, complicated and yet not at all hard to follow. It is a book for the fan of Heyer, and is best read after you have cultivated a familarity with Heyer's traditional Regencies - for example, Regency Buck. She subtly and wickedly subverts traditions she herself established.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, your emotions will all be twanged one by one. It is a very fine book. A very fine book indeed. I won't tell you who the hero is, because it would ruin the book for you - but you won't be disappointed. Cotillion is a happy book, written by Heyer at the very height of her powers. It is not just a Regency Romance. It is a novel about history - Heyer's Regency novels have, collectively, been described as the most important set of books about the Regency middle and upper class lifestyle ever to be written. It is a novel about real people. It is also a novel about the Regency Romance. And it is also a seriously comic novel. Read it. Preferably after you have read several others of her Regency Romances (I recommend Regency Buck, Sylvester, Faro's Daughter, and The Corinthian as the best examples of Heyer's traditional Regency - that she subtly teased in this book), so you have the right expectations.

Mortified, Kitty impulsively (she's seventeen, and half French) runs away from home. True, she loves Jack; he's handsome and dashing--but he doesn't want to marry her.

And at the inn where she waits for the stage she finds her cousin Freddie. Not a great deal in his cockloft, as he would quickly agree. Not a patch on Jack. He's willowy, rabbity, fearful. He's at the inn because he wants what he knows he won't get at Grandpapa's table: a good meal. This time it's Kitty's turn to plot. Will dear, good Freddie pretend to be engaged to her, and take her to London?

Yes, he would, once he gets it through his head that he isn't expected to announce the engagement or actually get married. The scene in which he "proposes" is a delight. Jack, of course, realizes that the betrothal is another way to push him toward matrimony, and won't play. Freddie takes Kitty home to mother--in London. Together mother and son set about giving Kitty a season.

As usual, Heyer sets up this situation quickly, deftly, and in this case with a good deal of humor at the expense of all four main characters. But the heart of the story is in the development of Kitty and Freddie, once they are in London. Kitty begins to grow up, and she begins to see Freddie in his element. With all his flaws, Freddie is nevertheless extremely good "ton." His taste is perfect, and he knows all the nuances of the complicated game that comprises a London season.

I suppose you have questions. Does Kitty find new suitors? Does Jack come to heel? Does her season meet Kitty's expectations? How does Heyer fill up the rest of the novel?
Well, don't ask me! Read the book for yourself. And then, when you are thinking that the idiot reviewer should have given it five stars, read more Heyer.