Valerie
by Joan Smith
Valerie Ford is thrilled to be invited to stay with her rich, eccentric Aunt Loo in her rambling old house.
Twenty-one is too young to be on the shelf, but when you are five-foot-ten in your socks, finding a mate is not
easy. First. she finds that her aunt is actually a secret writer of gothic novels and wants Valerie to try out
all sorts of stunts to see if they work. Second, there are Aunt Loo’s other houseguests. There is tiny cousin
Pierre, who is obsessed with women and being thought English, and mysterious poor relation Welland Sinclair, who
hides behind an academic stoop and dark glasses. Then Loo wants to hold séances, and things start getting really
mysterious - where, for example, has all her money gone?
First written for the US market in 1981, here is the first edition published in the UK and long overdue, as
Joan Smith is such a popular writer. At the beginning, I thought that this was just the sort of thing P. G.
Wodehouse would have written if he had ever taken to writing Regencies, and there is a lot of humor and amusing
happenings to enjoy. It is rather a lengthy book for a linear plot, and it sags in the middle somewhat when
nothing new is introduced to the story and only the ending seems to be in sight. Valerie makes an interesting
narrator, but her style of narration and many of her idioms do not seem to be terribly in period. Some things in
here seem to belong to a later period. But for all that, it is still an imaginative, unusual and entertaining
tale, although one that could perhaps do with a little more in the way of romance. Not one of this author’s best,
but still well worth reading. |
The Book |
Robert Hale |
November 2007 |
Hardback |
9780709079224 |
Regency Romance [Early 19th century, Hampshire, England] |
More at Amazon.com
US||
UK |
Excerpt |
NOTE: Amazon US link is for marketplace copies only of an older, out of print edition; this new edition is not yet
available there |
The Reviewer |
Rachel A Hyde |
Reviewed 2008 |
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