Faro's Daughter by Georgette Heyer
Nov. 18th, 2009 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreMax Ravenscar’s much-too-young cousin, Adrian, is in love with Deborah Grantham, who works in the gambling-club her aunt owns, and so Max is asked by his aunt to buy Deborah off so that she’ll reject Adrian’s offer of marriage. Deborah, for her part, has no interest in marrying Adrian, but isn’t above letting the insufferable Max think she is just to drive him crazy. Add to that a young woman needing rescuing from a much older fiancé and the fact that Deborah’s soldier brother and Max’s flighty sister are in love, not to mention overeager servants and a variety of misunderstandings, and you have Faro’s Daughter.
Like The Grand Sophy, I think this entertained me more than I strictly liked it. On the one hand, I didn’t finish it wondering if one of the lovers was going to end up an alcoholic a few years down the road, and I didn’t spend a large chunk of the book cringing at the lead’s antics. On the other, I’m not really convinced that Max and Deborah really know each other. I’m not sure they had a single encounter that didn’t revolve around insults and/or misunderstandings. I also think the book was a bit too much from Max’s perspective for my taste. Not because he’s the guy and Deborah’s the girl, but because he was way too eager to always think the worst of Deborah, and while it made sense, Deborah’s thinking the worst of him was easier to read because it was based on his actions, as opposed to presumptions caused by hearsay.
But, as I said, it did entertain me quite a bit, though it’s clear that many of my unloved tropes of romance novels originated from this book. This is not Heyer’s fault, as she actually handles things quite well and is not responsible for what inspiration her fans took from her book, but I admit to some mental fist shaking and “Curse you, Heyer! Must you have been so popular?”
Like The Grand Sophy, I think this entertained me more than I strictly liked it. On the one hand, I didn’t finish it wondering if one of the lovers was going to end up an alcoholic a few years down the road, and I didn’t spend a large chunk of the book cringing at the lead’s antics. On the other, I’m not really convinced that Max and Deborah really know each other. I’m not sure they had a single encounter that didn’t revolve around insults and/or misunderstandings. I also think the book was a bit too much from Max’s perspective for my taste. Not because he’s the guy and Deborah’s the girl, but because he was way too eager to always think the worst of Deborah, and while it made sense, Deborah’s thinking the worst of him was easier to read because it was based on his actions, as opposed to presumptions caused by hearsay.
But, as I said, it did entertain me quite a bit, though it’s clear that many of my unloved tropes of romance novels originated from this book. This is not Heyer’s fault, as she actually handles things quite well and is not responsible for what inspiration her fans took from her book, but I admit to some mental fist shaking and “Curse you, Heyer! Must you have been so popular?”