Georgette Heyer - give me your top five

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Heyer is my go-to when I’m down in the dumps and is like lying in a massive warm bath of comfort. Just finished re-reading Sylvester, Venetia and Frederica. What are your absolute top fives for my next read? Strong, dashing hero is compulsory of course.

Judith reads Northanger Abbey.

I hold on to them, even though the paperbacks' paper is rather yellow, on the grounds that one day I might have a condition or illness which puts me in bed for a year and I'll need something light to keep me going.

Are there any modern writers of Regency fiction you like?

I’ve never found anything quite like or as good as Heyer, but have enjoyed both MC Beaton’s regency series ( funny especially the ones with the older lady with the great malapropisms) and the rather racy Cynster series by Stephanie Laurens (think of ‘Devil’s Bride’ and employ my fam vigorously to flushed face 😁).

Fan !!!🪭

Good point! I never realized that!

I actively dislike most other Regency fiction and would never voluntarily watch Bridgerton for eg, I hate it when they include modern manners and attitudes. Obviously Heyer is of her time too, but 30s-50s attitudes are less grating in the context and she does work hard to achieve an authentic mental landscape.

I agree! I love Giles and Freddy but agree that The Foundling is not as re-readable as Cotillion.

Is Gilly autocorrecting to Giles?

Great thread OP! Am listening to The Talisman Ring, read by Phyllida Nash, which was in my Audible library already. I forgot how fab it is, so really enjoying it again. I read loads of the books in my teens, but tend to listen to them now, so I'm looking forward to reacquainting myself with them.

I love GH my favourites have changed since I got older. I just reread false colours and enjoyed Sir Bonomy finally getting his girl, although he wasn't quite sure about it.
Since I am with other Heyer fans I love her use of language and historical knowledge but can I just be childish and say it always makes me laugh when she talks about ladies airing their grand toilets in the park, or some such, I know that's the correct term for the times but it amuses my small mind.

Did Freddy talk about Nemesis creeping up on you from behind? Maybe not.

Dolphington. That greek thing, coming after him. Kitty works out what he means eventually.

Oh my god its very unpc of me but I love to read Dolphington and all his interactions. He’s a bit of a “Holy Fool” and when he says “I don’t like you” to someone he has laid down the LAW.

No, it was Ferdy in Friday's Child. Hero's admirer works it out "I fancy he means Nemesis"
"that's it!... Nemesis! you know him too?".....

"not he" murmured Mr Tarleton, who was beginning to feel his years. "Goddess of retribution. The daughter, according to Hesios, of Night"

Easy to confuse Ferdy and Freddy . "You have your own armour, do you not, Frederick?"

Dolph is an altogether sadder case (GH clearly suggests this is at least partially due to parenting) who is less capable and will depend on Hannah's support.

No, my fault for putting Giles instead of Gilly. Too many names.

Thanks all for setting me right on Freddy and Ferdy. I must away and look for the plot of 'Friday's Child'.

I like A Civil Contract - for once the heroine isn’t beautiful!

Of course! I knew it wasn't Freddy (I love Freddy) so thought it was Dolph. I've only read Friday's Child once in the last 15 years or so so I should did it out.

I'm surprised at al the love for A Civil Contract. When I first read it I found that so very melancholy that I struggled. Jenny deserves so much better treatment throughout. It's a bit like Dumbo, where the nice resolution at the end doesn't make up for the poor treatment before.

She was good about parents/adults damaging their children, not necessarily through cruelty. Aunt Dolph is one type, but one of the things I enjoyed about the Foundling was both Gilly and Harriet having to realise that adult expectations and strictures can be wrong, and one can be an adult in ones own way.

Grandmother/Godmother figures who abet that is another recurrent theme.

I'd like to thank all of you enthusuasts for reminding me of the GHs I read in my mother's Women's Journal in my teens. I have finished binge reading Lymond, and have stalled on the Odyssey before he gets home, having seen the film this year and knowing it anyway. I wanted something else. I have my mother's school prize omnibus of Austen, but have binge watched those. I needed something else. Heyer it is. Thank you,

I have only just got. into her books because mum read them and also Mills andf. Boon so I thought it was a slippery slope....

Anyway, she had one on her Ipod called The Unknown Ajax and I really enjoyed it! The language, the humour!

Also the ‘tyranny of the weak’ that Lucilla & Ninian talk about in Lady of Quality.

It seems likely that Dolph will improve a lot once he’s safe & happy breeding horses in Ireland.

I'm re-reading Cotillion now and Dolph is hilarious.

Thanks to all who reminded me if Friday’s Child. I reread it last night. It looked so different to me as a young teen when Sherry and Hero were both older than me. Their foolishness seemed perfectly reasonable. Heyer writes so lovingly of them and why they know what they know and why their decisions, even the bad ones, make sense to them. I think Heyer was brave to write a romance about two such juvenile people honestly. Hero thinks Sherry is all wise but he’s not. His foolish friends are more up to snuff than he is.