Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Funny you should ask, Sarah.  I cut my teeth on the old Regencies, and had a pretty firm grasp of the venacular before I had quite mastered adult English.  I always loved Regencies.

Then I discovered sex in books and I abandoned the Diamonds of the First Water for some rough rocks in the mud.  Oh baby.

Anyway - it’s funny you should ask today, of all days, because I went by Barnes & Noble this afternoon and picked up a friend’s book - her first - titled DEDICATION, by Janet Mullany.

Dedication

When I got home, I took a quick look, just to see what I thought of her writing - and I finished it just a couple of hours ago.  Couldn’t put it down.  And I so didn’t need to be reading today.  Bad Stef! It’s not a traditional Regency because it does have sex in it.  It also has an older hero/heroine.  I thought it was fabulous.  The story was entertaining and the characterization was great.  Janet does tend to have short, sharp sentences, and occassionally that was odd, but overall, I loved it.

And no, I’m not saying that just because she’s a friend.  In fact, I thought of you and Candy as I was reading it, and wondered if either of you would like it.

Shoot - the link doesn’t work.  I hate Amazon, but okay, see if this works:

Dedication

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Diana Brown’s THE EMERALD NECKLACE and A DEBT OF HONOUR.  And maybe THE SANDALWOOD FAN [it’s been years since I read it, so doubts of whether it’s as good as I remembered are clouding my memory].

Some of these are hard to find, but if you can, I’d say Notorious Rake by Mary Balogh, any Carla Kelly, Kate Moore’s Sweet Bargain (the sexual tension is amazing), Abandoned Bride and The Disdainful Marquis by Edith Layton, The Rake and The Wallflower by Allison Lane…I could go on (obviously), but those are some of my favorites.

LORETTA CHASE! LORETTA CHASE!

OK, I’m starting to sound like a goddamn Oompa-Loompa.

But seriously. Loretta Chase. She is muy bueno.

Isabella—OK, somewhat insipid, but the villain in that book then goes on to become the hero of….
The English Witch, which is loads and loads of fun.
Viscount Vagabond is really, really adorable and a fun caper all around, and the nerdly spurned suitor becomes the hero of…
The Devil’s Delilah, which is another fun, silly caper.
Knaves’ Wager is probably my favorite traditional Regency that I’ve read so far. Love it. LOVE IT, GARRRR.
The Sandalwood Princess is also pretty good, but it’s not quite as good as the others.

The one Georgette Heyer I really liked is The Grand Sophy. Heyer is quite reliably good. I’ve yet to read a book from her that I would rate under a B. But then I’ve only read… hmmm… four books of hers? So that’s not really saying much, I guess.

Sharon and Tom Curtis wrote some marvy Regencies under their Laura London pen name. The two stand-outs for me are Love’s A Stage (Prudence Sweetsteeple—best! heroine! name! ever!) and The Bad Baron’s Daughter.

I’m probably forgetting a few others, but these were the recommendations that immediately sprung to mind.

I recommend Sheila Simonson’s books. Can’t go wrong with someone who wrote her thesis on camp followers.

One of my favorites is Miss Grimsley’s Oxford Career by Carla Kelly. The hero has to be one of the best betas I’ve ever come across. The setting is also unusual for a Regency.

I’m a big Patricia Veryan fan, and of her Regencies, I think Nanette, Sanguinet’s Crown, and Married Past Redemption are her best. (The best thing she ever wrote, IMO, was The Dedicated Villain, but that’s set in Georgian England, not the Regency.)

Another oldie-but-goodie is Clare Darcy’s Victoire. The heroine reminds me a lot of Léonie in Georgette Heyer’s These Old Shades. Speaking of Heyer, the sequel to TOS, Devil’s Cub, is delightful. The hero starts off as a real idiot but does eventually get better. (He’d still have a ways to go, though!)

Patricia Veryan. Hers are Classic Regencies (except the ones that are Georgian era) and have some wonderful characters in them. OK, Claude Sanguinet is almost too ev-ile to be true, but he does at least want to marry the girl (for her blood lines rather than her bust line, but these are Classic Regencies after all). And some of her books are wonderfully funny: I think it’s Mistress of Willowvale that has a glorious duel (over uneven ground, in the fog, and involves a gorse bush) and a plot twist that literally hangs upon a pancake.

As for Heyer, I love “Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle” and “The Black Moth” of course. “Venetia” and “The Grand Sophy” are also favorites… hmmm… I wonder which box those are stored in? I was wondering what to read tonight.

Hmmm,I am a fan of traditional regency from waaaay back so trying to condense a list is hard. But here are some good ones to try:

ANY Carla Kelly, my two particular faves by her are Miss Whittier Makes a List and With This Ring

Mary Balogh, Jo Beverly, Loretta Chase (all of these authors have moved on to long regency historicals, but their early traditional regencys are awesome.)

Marion Chesney (She has written eleventy billion books, but I find her more hit than miss.)

Elisabeth Fairchild (Again, more hit than miss, but a particular favorite is Lord Endicott’s Appetite.)

Of course, the grande dame, Georgette Heyer.

Allison Lane (Especially enjoyed Devall’s Angel and Lord Avery’s Legacy)

Judith Lansdowne (Love all her stuff.)

Edith Layton (Ditto)

Elisabeth Mansfield (Love most of her stuff.)

Barbara Metzger (Ditto)

Mary Jo Putney (Again, check out her older traditional regency fare.)

Katherine Kingston (Ditto.)

Patricia Veryan (Although a good chunk of her stuff is in the Georgian Period, all of it is EXCELLENT.)

Joan Wolf (More hit than miss.)

And lastly, for pure over the top camp value, Catherine Coulter’s regencys are not to be missed. The woman hasn’t met an angst she didn’t want to beat her heroine with.

I’m so impressed that all of you can remember names and titles.  It’s been so long, other than Georgette Heyer, I can’t recall any particular authors.  Now I’m kind of all hot and bothered to go read a few.

I just found out that Dedication got a ‘B’ at AAR.  Nice review.  I’m glad for Janet.

I am scared to post in this forum, I could get eaten alive.  When I was a young insomniac I would find my moms Silhouette and Harlequins and read those instead of sleeping.  Some are good, some stink, its the luck of the draw.  If you plan to start reading these, I actually have time to read them!

My favorite Georgette Heyer books:
The Grand Sophy
The Convenient Marriage
Devil’s Cub
Arabella
It’s because of Ms. Heyer that I know what color “puce” is.:cheese:

Also an old long-out-of-print book I loved was The Silver Nightengale by Sylvia Thorpe.  To be fair, that one started out as pure Regency and then toward the middle it sort of veered into romantic suspense set in the Regency period.  But I still really liked it.

I used to devour Regencies, but its been too many years and I’ve forgotten most of the titles!

Oh my, so many good Regencies!

Georgette Heyer—a wealth of riches, but if I was picking the top Regency era ones I’d pick THE GRAND SOPHY, FARO’S DAUGHTER and SYLVESTER, but they’re all worth a look.

Notice how many people recommend Carla Kelly?  There’s a reason.  She’s that good.

WINDFLOWER by Tom and Sharon Curtis writing as Laura London.  More of a Regency era historical, but I like recommending it.

Mary Balogh’s backlist, esp. A PRECIOUS JEWEL, THE TEMPORARY WIFE and almost any of her earlier novels.  I’m also a fan of the Bedwyn family and their books, but I know not everyone liked them as much as I did.  Oh, and the “Mistress” books—MORE THAN A MISTRESS and NO MAN’S MISTRESS.

Edith Layton, esp. THE DUKE’S WAGER. 

Loretta Chase

Mary Jo Putney, esp. THE RAKE AND THE REFORMER (original edition)

Nancy Butler, Anne Gracie, 
Gayle Wilson, Nicola Cornick and Mary Brenden are all on my auto-buy list.

I’m sure there are some others I’m overlooking, but that’s enough to get folks started.

I cannot resist the chance to recommend my favorite four Georgette Heyers:  The Grand Sophy, Frederica, Venetia, and Cotillion.

I am just discovering Regencies as well, Sarah.  I read and loved Balogh’s A Precious Jewel and A Notorious Rake.  Her rake in NR is a REAL rake, and as far as I can tell, a pretty influential “type” in the Regency sub-genre.  A Precious Jewel was fantastic, in part because the heroine was a prostitute who didn’t whine about how she was a victim of the world, and the hero was a regular guy who really thought he had nothing to offer a woman like the heroine, who, despite her profession, was his superior in a couple of ways.  What a wonderful story.  Also, a Christmas Bride, starring a character from PJ is great, as well, with Balogh again working with pretty unusual characters and not shying away from their uglier traits.  I have not read anything recent by Balogh, but I understand her Regencies are her real standouts.

And I recently read Carla Kelly’s “Mrs. Drew Plays her Hand,” which really was a nice surprise.  Although not nearly as riveting to me as the London Regencies, the hero and heroine were very likable, and Kelly has kind of a spare prose style that worked nicely with her plotting and characterization.  Plus the heroine, a vicar’s widow, actually ENJOYS sex, which set her apart from those “I’ve never had an orgasm and am still technically a virgin even though I’m 30 and have six children” heroines.

As for Tom and Sharon Curtis, aka Laura London, I cannot say enough good things.  I re-read their books several times a year and am NEVER disappointed.  A Heart Too Proud was their first, I think, and while not as developed as the rest, it’s still a great read.  Let’s see if I can remember the rest:  The Gypsy Heiress, The Bad Baron’s Daughter, Moonlight Mist, Love’s A Stage (my favorite—you will be hooked from the first paragraph, I promise you), and a short story, “The Natural Child, in an anthology called, I think, When You Wish, which is all about a magic bottle that travels through each story by different authors.  Loved that story, as well.  They are just masters and it is a crying shame that they are no longer writing.  A word of warning, though: their heroines are often quite young, like 18, and I had to get over that, which I did pretty quickly once I got into the books.  Plus the heroes are always under 30.

Has anyone read “A Passionate Endeavor” by Sophia Nash?  I got this book in my August book swap and I’m wondering if anyone else has read it and can offer their views.

I’m just echoing authors others have already cited, but….

Carla Kelly: My favorites are One Good Turn, Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand, and The Wedding Journey

Loretta Chase: The Devil’s Delilah

Georgette Heyer: The Grand Sophy, Frederica, These Old Shades (Georgian rather than Regency), The Spanish Bride (more historical fiction of the Napoleonic Wars than romance, the main characters all really existed)

Mary Balogh: The Secret Pearl, The Obedient Bride, A Precious Jewel

Just repeating what everyone else said. Carla Kelly, Patricia Veryan, and Mary Balogh.

If you’ll accept Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice I’ll throw that in too.

Oh, there are too many good ones.  Here are my faves from the past couple months:

Blair Bancroft: Lady Silence
Louise Bergin: The Winter Duke
Susannah Carleton: Twin Peril
Emily Hendrickson: Lord Dancy’s Delight
Lynn Kerstan: Celia’s Grand Passion & Lucy in Disguise
Evelyn Richardson: A Lady of Talent
Barbara Metzger: Lady Whilton’s Wedding & An Enchanted Affair

Carla Kelly, definitely. I’ve read what I could find by her, and it’s all good. Georgette Heyer - I’ll add in The Foundling and An Infamous Army to the list - but any of the above recommendations are good.
Diane Gaston’s ‘The Mysterious Miss M’ is being published in the US sometime this autumn I think - it’s probably the best category Regency I’ve read in the last while. Julia Byrne and Elizabeth Rolls are the other two authors I’d look for in (UK) category Regency, but I can’t remember any specific titles.

Happily, I haven’t read any Patricia Veryan, so I’ll go see what Amazon have to offer from her backlist.

Marion Chesney and Amanda McCabe—can’t go wrong with either.

They’ve already been mentioned, but my fave’s are:

Georgette Heyer - The Devil’s Cub (it was my first regency read at age 11!), and These Old Shades

Loretta Chase - Knave’s Wager
Mary Jo Putney - The Rake & the Reformer

I’ve read a lot of Patricia Veryan, and Mary Balogh but I’m blanking on specific titles to recommend.  I do remember one of Mary Balogh’s that featured a deaf heroine that I really enjoyed (Silent Melody?)—I think it was one of her fatter books.

Well, as someone who’s returned to traditional regencies, after being a very, very long time away from them, I can offer a fresh perspective.

The annoying thing is, the best of the damn things are collectibles. You have to turn yourself into a collector, a la becoming like an antique dealer, and look sharp if you 1) want to find readable copies and 2) don’t want double or triple your book budget.

I’m currently engaged in the time-consuming sport of checking eBay obsessive-compulsively, trying to pick up Carla Kelly traditional regency that I can find at cheap prices. My advice: Get the double-pack reissue books put out by Signet: Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand, Miss Grimsley’s Oxford Career, Miss Chartley’s Guided Tour, Libby’s London Merchant (I forget the exact combo meal set up for each of these). I finally got my hands on the much-praised Reforming Lord Ragsdale, so I cannot say yet what it’s like, but that gets raves from a lot of people and costs more on the second-hand market.

Reading the Balogh traditional regencies makes you realize how this author acquired her tremendous following. Some of these are like a good string quartet piece. They do so much and go so very deep in a very tight page count. Again, getting these is a pricey past-time. My favorites oddly enough both have prostitutes in them: The Secret Pearl (being reissued this fall) and A Precious Jewel. I’ll also put a word in for Dancing With Clara and the Obedient Bride. As for The Notorious Rake, that is, to me, like the enormous marlin that always eludes the fisherman. I have lost auctions for this fucker five or six times, because I am a tightwad. I will get it eventually! But I can tell, by the eBay bidding wars, that’s also a must-have.

So embarassing, but I own the entire Barbara Cartland bantam set (1-183, maybe there are more), and many, many assorted others.  I was initially attracted to the unique covers.  It all started at a yard sale where a woman had millions of books and grocery bags and said $3.00 a bag.  I didn’t have a chance.  I said to myself, I’ll just buy these for the covers, and won’t read them, what’s the harm in that?  I even contemplating busting off all the covers and making a mural.  I read ‘the Pretty Horse Breakers’ and was lost.  They are so silly, the philosophies so fundamentally WRONG.  The heroines so similar, the heroes even moreso.  Oh dear god the racial stereotyping.  The jews are inevitably money lenders with hawk noses, russians, over emotional, the french, florid and insincere.  Everyone is pigeonholed.  9 times out of 10 our heroine is a penniless orphan with at least one duke in the family tree. (Parents had a blissful marriage, dad died, mom died of a broken heart.  Mom died, dad turned to drink and fast women, died of inevitable consequences thereof.)  Here is a quote by BC that is extremely appalling, and sums up what you will find in her books. “A woman asking “Am I good? Am I satisfied?” is extremely selfish. The less women fuss about themselves, the less they talk to other women, the more they try to please their husbands, the happier the marriage is going to be.”
Ick and yuck.

I can’t recommend them, in fact I recommend you stay far, far away, but I can’t in good conscience say I don’t love them, because clearly I do.  Definitely not representative of the rest of my romance novel collection though.  Thank god.

If you want an atypical Regency with a bit more of a kick than your run-of-the-mill one, try anything by Sabrina Jeffries. She’s great, and writes some steamy sex scenes!

A great addition to your good shit, vs. shit to avoid dept. would be the comments on ‘sharing the a-game’.  I read tons of stuff off this list and I’m all the time going back to it to see if there is anything I missed.

Without question, Carla Kelly is my favorite.  I have all of her books, and re-read them about once a year (with one exception… every author writes a clinker, and hers is “Miss Chartley’s Guided Tour.”).  My favorites are “Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand,” “The Lady’s Companion,” “With This Ring,” and “Miss Billings Treads the Boards.” 

But, having read a gazillion regencies in the past 20 years, I’m not sure that I would consider Carla Kelly “traditional.”  Most of her characters don’t go to balls, pay calls, and sit around sewing.  Most of her books are not set in London or Bath.  Her heroines are army wives, servants (though “upper class” servants), poor widows, and at least half of her heroes are career army, doctors, and estate managers.  And going back to a previous conversation about men with long hair… the hero of “Miss Billings Treads the Boards” is going bald.

Maybe the reason we all love Carla Kelly so much is that her regencies really aren’t that traditional at all.

Let’s see… other faves
Mary Balogh (and if anyone can find a copy of “A Gift of Daises” from her back stock, grab it and keep it… I read it years ago, before I started saving my favorites, and it’s since completely disappeared). “Lord Carew’s Bride,” “Christmas Belle,” and “The Wood Nymph.”

June Calvin, especially “The Jilting of Baron Pelham,” “The Dukes Desire,” and “Isabella’s Rake” (to be read in that order).

Dorothy Mack, her old backlist is wonderful, especially “The Unlikely Chaperone,” “The Courtship of Chloe,” and “The Awakening Heart.”  (Her newer stuff, though, not as interesting).

If you like them with a lot of humor, Michelle Martin, (any) and Judith Lansdowne, especially “The Bedeviled Duke” and the Lord Nightingale series.

Regencies with a hint of supernatural?  Rita Boucher’s “The Would-be Witch” and “Lord of Illusions,” plus her more traditional “The Poet and the Paragon.”  Karen Harbaugh wrote a few supernatural-ish regencies before going off into Vampire-novel land.  “The Devil’s Bargain” is probably her best.

Oh, I almost forgot Anthea Malcolm.  “She” (iirc, it was a mother - daughter writing team) wrote seven books for Zebra about 15 years ago, all of which intersect forward and backward.  Probably the most intricate portrayals of the political manuverings over a four or five year period.  They didn’t write/release the books in chronological order, but I think that “The Counterfeit Heart” actually takes place first.

Andrea Pickens, “A Diamond in the Rough,” not only because it’s a fun read, but it’s the first time I’ve ever thought golf was interesting.

(I could probably name a hundred more, but the above are the ones that I’ve read and kept).

I gotta second (ok, eighth or something like that) Heyer. I’ve spent bank in the last year acquiring the new Arrow editions from England (I’m in the States, so I’m practically paying more for shipping than for the books themselves, but I MUST OWN THEM ALL).

My favorite way to get into them is to read the connected ones:

These Old Shades (Duke of Avon)

Devil’s Cub (Duke of Avon’s Son)

Regency Buck (Earl of Worth)

An Infamous Army (Earl of Worth’s brother to the Duke of Avon’s great-granddaughter).

Bonus, An Infamous Army has a description of the Highland regiments marching out that makes me cry every time.

Other than that, my all time favorite is Venetia (ok, I love Arabella and The Grand Sophy, too). Oh hang it, I love most of them (though A Civil Contract and Beauvallet leave me cold).

-Tonda

Great recommendations - I haven’t read a regency in ages now, but am now quite inspired.

Does anyone know if there’s any truth in the rumour I once heard that Barbara Cartland’s first book didn’t have a HEA? Always wanted to know. As is traditional, a friend of my parents gave me my first BC on the grounds that since I liked romance novels, presumably I would read anything (the stuff that comes my way for this reason, you would not believe). Oddly my gratitude wasn’t overwhelming, possibly because the back cover advertised the fact that the book was a gift from a chain of butchers. Since around that time I went vegetarian, I never managed to complete that set, alas.

But I did read that book out of curiosity, and must admit a sneaking fondness for her unique style. BC novels are one of my guilty reading pleasures (library only, mind). They are mercifully short, and you definitely need to be in a certain frame of mind to enjoy the experience. But reading the odd one can be very entertaining, particularly as I always picture her dictating them from a chaise longue to some dowdy put-upon dab of a secretary, surrounded by fluffy pekes, swathed in pink chiffon and smoking a gold-tipped Sobranie in a jade holder. They also tend to be funnier in translation, somehow.

Tonda—A CIVIL CONTRACT is one of those books which makes the “how do you define genre romance?” question interesting.  At the end, the hero has chosen the heroine over her rival, but it’s clear he doesn’t love the heroine, not in the deeply passionate sense.  The most she can hope for from him, we’re led to believe, is a comfortable marriage with mutual respect and friendship.  And she’s willing to settle for this, because she loves the hero.

I would call it a genre romance, but a bittersweet one, and it’s one of those that for me falls into the “emotionally satisfying relationship” rather than the HEA category.

Auntie, she did dictate them swathed in chiffon on a chaise. But she wasn’t smoking, she was petting that useless yippy fluffy lapdog of hers.

I saw a news report that had her dictating a love scene- her voice rose as she described how he masterfully kissed her terminally breathless heroine, all the while stroking this poor little dog with stronger and stronger force. You could just see the dog saying, “Just get through it. You know you’ll get beef treats on a silver platter once this is over…”

Heyer is the master.

The best non-Heyer Regency I’ve ever read is The Sandalwood Princess by Loretta Chase.  I usually read and then toss (onto the donations pile, of course).  Princess I liked so much I’ve kept it around to use as a reference in case I ever decide to write a Regency some day myself.

A couple of “old-style” regency romances that struck me as unusually good - yet still were fairly traditional in terms of the attitudes towards sex, politics, women’s roles - were Jessica Benson’s “Lord Stanhope’s Proposal” and “Much Obliged”.  Her more recent “The Accidental Duchess” is much more historical, with sex.  It’s good also, though.

Most of my favorite trads have been mentioned:  Mary Balogh’s The Notorious Rake (which, in a very un-Trad like manner actually opens with the sex scene), Irresistible (Nathaniel is one of the sexiest beta heroes around), and The Temporary Wife (for an author not known for her sex scenes, this book has some of the best in terms of how the sex scenes show the H/H’s evolving relationship).  Anything by Carla Kelly.  Almost anything by Loretta Chase.  But some I loved that haven’t been discussed much here are Nancy Butler and Elisabeth Fairchild.  Butler’s Ramshackle Suitor has a heroine slightly older than the charming hero, which was a nice change of pace.  And how could I not love a hero who, when asked by the heroine why he kissed her, replies “because it makes you happy”?  Fairchild has a series about siblings that all begin with the same scene, which I thought was quite clever.  The hero of The Rake’s Reform is an amateur cellist.  I was introduced to Bach’s cello suites by this book, so no matter what else I owe the author a huge debt.  Plus I think she does longing—for love, for family, for sex, for connection—extremely well.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Lord Harry by Catherine Coulter.

But my gawd, I cannot think of any other title, though I’ve read tons of them… :-)

This website has tons of regency goodies. http://www.thenonesuch.com/index.htm

Thank you, thank you, thank you for asking this question, and ditto for all who answered.  I love traditional Regencies and am delighted to have such a wealth of new (to me) authors to seek out and enjoy!

I’m a Heyer fan from way back (she’s being reissued slowly but surely, allowing me to finally replace my old and worn copies).  I still vote The Grand Sophy and Frederica as my all-time favorites, both because of the deep humor in both and because the heroines are so strong and independent.  I prefer Sophy on the grounds that she pretty much straightens everything out without Charles’ help (whereas Frederica finally does require Alverstoke’s assistance).  I prefer Frederica on the grounds of the best younger-sibs-and-dog combination ever (Felix, Jessamy, and Lufra rock!).  Arabella is a more guilty treat, as is Faro’s Daughter.

Thanks to Candy’s review, I just finished Loretta Chase’s Mr. Impossible and will be buying up her books as quickly as I can pay for them :)

I haven’t noticed anyone mention Sophia Nash.  I’ve yet to read any of her books, and she has several, doesn’t she?  I’m curious if others have read her.

You guys all know about isbn.nu and abebooks.com, right…? Thought I’d mention them just in case, since there are so many OOP favourites on this thread. F’r ex, right now isbn.nu shows several copies of A Gift of Daisies at various price points, as does abebooks.com.

Darlene, I thought your take on A Civil Contract was fascinating. In my memory, the book ends with the hero realizing he never seriously loved the “other woman” and seeing his wife with fresh eyes. It’s true their relationship didn’t start with anything close to passion, but I still believe it developed into deep love by the end.

Amazing how two readers can interpret the same book so differently, isn’t it? That’s one of my favourite things about discussing books.

Danielle—on the 2nd to last page of A CIVIL CONTRACT we have this in Jenny’s POV:

SPOILER

“A little pang smote her; she wanted to ask him, ‘Do you love me as much as you loved her?’...Searching his eyes, she saw warmth in them, and tenderness, but not the ardent flame that had once kindled them when he looked at Julia…She thought they would have many years of quiet content; never reaching the heights, but living together in comfort and deepening friendship.”

That is, in its own way certainly, a HEA ending, but it’s more along the lines of an emotionally satisfying relationship, imo, than the heights of passion usually found in other romance novels.

Another example might be Laura Kinsale’s SEIZE THE FIRE.  The H&H are together at the end, emotionally wounded, passionate, maybe mentally ill, and it’s going to be hard for them to live HEA.  However, they’ve got each other, and for them, that’s everything.

You’re right though, different readers get different things out of novels, even classic writers like Heyer.

:coolsmile: I haven’t read a regency in a long time, but I used to love the ones by :  Georgette Heyer, Emma Darcy, Maggie MacKeever(she has a vampire regency out now), Mary Balogh, and most of all Joan Smith(her novels always had a sense of humor).  More recently Kasey Michaels has some really good ones.

I’m a big Heyer fan - she’s just perfect comfort reading. Every so often I go on a Heyer binge and read about three in a row. My favourite’s probably Venetia, but I love Arabella, Cotillion and The Grand Sophy almost as much. The best thing about her is that although she can be formulaic, she’s not totally predictable - people don’t always end up with the characters you think they will.

I’ve read Sophia Nash’s first two books. The first one was good, but the second was excellent. I believe it is called A Passionate Endeavor. I enjoyed it very much. I have her third one but haven’t read it yet.

Other people have mentioned my favorite Regency writers: Mary Balogh, Carla Kelly, Patricia Veryan, Karen Harbaugh, and Elisabeth Fairchild.

I don’t think she’s even writing romances anymore, but Carola Dunn wrote some lovely Regencies. I’m blanking on the titles, but really, they’re all excellent. Nice, quick, funny reads with interesting characters.

Love, love, love Georgette Heyer but since my favourites have already been listed,I won’t repeat them.  Instead I’ll suggest Clare Darcy - wrote a bunch of Regencies in the 70s and 80s, very Heyer-like, very funny.  All of them have girls’ names as their titles - two that stand out in my memory are Lettice and Cressida.  Salad-inspired names aside, the books are great.  No, there’s no sex, but the snappy dialogue almost makes up for it.

I’m reading a Regency now by a new author I want to recommend, DEDICATION by Janet Mullany.  It’s got a lot going for it: Wit, a great H&H who aren’t stupid kids (he’s a grandfather), and characters who are flawed in very real ways, yet still engaging.

It’s fun to read something brand new and realize there’s another author out there to add to the “Buy!” list.

this is great - every time I think I’ve run out of good regency authors, I find some more - now I have a long list, thanks to this fab website.  I read my mom’s Heyers (personal favorite: Black Sheep) and Clare Darcys in jr high, and have been looking for more ever since.  my most recent discovery was Jo Beverley - her later ones have a little too much sex-as-power-play for me, but I really like her early ones (almost enough to pay 10 bucks on ebay).  I like books where the people actually LIKE each other.