1: a fast-paced romp with a few downsides.
This is the opening of "Had We Never Loved":
"The only light came from the steady flame of a candle on the solitary table in the centre of the room. The circle of light was feeble and left the corners of the room shrouded in blackness so intense that it was as if the candlelight shrank in upon itself and abandoned the uneven struggle to pierce the gloom."
If, like me, you find this opening to be poorly written (cluttered with 'the' and 'of' and 'in' and other such wasted words; overwritten, a little repetitious), you will most likely agree with me when I say that the remainder isn't well written either. It's not badly written. Just not well written. My attention was constantly fixed on little awkward passages.
However, the plotting and characterization is good. Veryan really puts the hero and heroine into a tangle that doesn't seem to have an exit - Glendenning, the hero, was a Jacobite and now a couple of years after the uprising he may well be caught out as a traitor. She writes about his political persuasions with unusual complexity, given that the "League of Jewelled Men" seems to be one of those "save the crown!" sorts of series...it's not unthinking, black and white patriotism.
The heroine, Amy Consett, annoyed me horribly for the first half of the book - always shrewish, insulting the hero, flying off the handle at the least provocation, and not listening to a word he said. And Glendenning, too, bothered me - he kept on refusing to engage with Amy on the grounds that he shouldn't get angry at such a delicate little creature. It's up to strong men to ignore the fits and starts of the feeble feminine mind, after all.
But I warmed up to both of them eventually and I liked the secondary characters as well - August Falcon, the guy who's supposed to be a care-for-nobody, really is rude and unfriendly most of the time (I find that in most romances bad boy characters are surprisingly well behaved...). Glendenning's father really did break my heart with his treatment of his son. The other girls were witty and clever while also demure and feminine.
In sum - it was ok, but I don't really know why everybody wants to peg Veryan as the second coming of Georgette Heyer.
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