Recent Reads Part 5
Ah, don’t you love a good romance? Obviously I do! And I’m assuming because you frequent this website that you do too. Today, I’m continuing my series on books I’ve read and enjoyed recently (not all are recent releases!) with three great romance suggestions just in time for the Holidays.
I’m going to start with a real charmer from one of my favorite Australian authors. I always enjoy Cathryn Hein’s rural romances set in the fictional South Australian town of Levenham with its coastal/farming setting. If you’re a regular of this page, you’ll remember I raved about Elsa’s Stand as one of my favorite reads from last year (if you haven’t picked it up yet, get to your local book retailer quick smart!).
This one’s an opposites attract kind of story – I always enjoy these when they’re done well and this one is a real doozy. Scarlett, an up-and-coming and rather bohemian painter, is seeking quiet and inspiration in Levenham before she goes to London on an art fellowship. Sam, the hero, is a gorgeous but fairly conventional bloke who likes surfing and running his dairy farm. Oil (paint) and water (milk?) don’t mix, they say, but in this case Scarlett and Sam strike sparks from each other from the first. But she has to go and he has to stay and despite both falling in love very reluctantly, how can either of them give up their dream for the other person?
Needless to say, as this is a great romance, they end up sorting out their differences in a most satisfying way. Give this a go – it had me smiling throughout, especially at the scenes of a rather bashful Sam agreeing to model for Scarlett!
My next one is just right for this time of year. I think this might be my first book by Mimi Matthews, but I’ve since bought a stack of them and I’m looking forward to reading more of her work. Again, this is a real charmer – and an opposites attract story! What’s going on here?
In A Holiday by Gaslight, Aristocratic Sophie Appersett is determined to restore her family’s fortunes and so she agrees to marry grim and taciturn merchant Edward Sharpe. But a very awkward London courtship convinces Sophie that she and her suitor have no chance of happiness and she decides to break off the engagement.
Unfortunately (or fortunately – you know where this is going!), ending her betrothal isn’t nearly as simple as she expected and the ill-assorted lovers end up spending Christmas with her family in Cumbria where her father is ruining the family with a craze for newfangled gas power, the gaslight of the title. Edward discovers that there’s more to Sophie than a lovable flibbertigibbet and Sophie learns that Edward is a man of hidden attractions. Everything ends up with a lovely happy ending. One of the most appealing things about this story is how firmly Mimi Matthews places the story in the Victorian period. The intriguing characters have wonderful texture but so does the vividly described setting.
My last one is a genuine classic. I had a couple of days of feeling off-color a little while ago and I wanted a comfort read. I realized that I had Georgette Heyer’s The Corinthian (1940) on the bookcase and I hadn’t read it in years.
It’s not my favorite Heyer, but it was darn good fun to spend an afternoon reading this romp about the elegant, worldly Sir Richard Wyndham and his adventures with the runaway hoyden, Penelope Creed. These seemingly disparate characters are running away from marriages they don’t want and in the process, they come to realize that fate has delivered them to their true love instead.
What a wonderful world Georgette Heyer creates. There’s the usual list of amusing foolish and disreputable characters, a fabulously awful early proposal scene where Richard decides to knuckle down and marry the girl everyone expects him to, lots of wonderful set pieces that will have you giggling aloud, and a more overtly romantic ending than Heyer usually let herself indulge in. A quick, charming and delightful read, and highly recommended if you want the world to go away for a couple of hours!