This week I have read 4 Georgette Heyer novels. Sylvester was the first, and I liked it so much I checked out 3 more of Heyer's books. Friday's child, Black Sheep and Frederica. Now I love Jane Austen and I love regency romance, but I think four was a little excessive. Actually it was a lot excessive. Technically I haven't even finished Frederica however I'm bored with it for the moment and can't get through the last 120 pages. I just can't. Eventually I will pick it up, with relish, because Regency romance (RR) is my particular guilty pleasure and I will probably work my way through all 50 of Heyer's novels this year. I gather from the short biography I read about her that she is the queen of Regency romance.What I like best about RR, after all the neat little social rules, is the dialogue. I like how people spoke 200 years ago. It sounds so refined, even the slang. Dickens and Twain capture dialect in their writing too, only it not as charming or as easy to understand. It probably has to do with social class...
Anyhow, another book that I liked for the dialogue was Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. It takes place in a town in rural Georia in the early 1900's. It also has a rambling quality that I found very relaxing. Incidently Heyer's writing rambles a bit as well. Come to think of L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables works the same nostalgic magic on me too . Hmmm, there might be something about early 20th century female authors to think on. Nevertheless, Cold Sassy Tree: I liked it, I will read it again.
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