Jacey Bedford's Journal

Number One Son is home safe from Rome and here all summer until he heads for the US and Princeton at the beginning of September. So now we are three again. (Actually, if you count Tanglefoot - the Canadian band staying with us, we are - strictly speaking - eight tonight.)

I spent a very frustrating three hours of drive-time (plus an hour wait time for flight delays) trying to negotiate traffic to the Leeds/Bradford airport and back again in the middle of the afternoon. Whichever way you go you just can't avoid nose to tail traffic even before three p.m.. The Leeds ring road was stop-go for half an hour so on the way back I cut off on the M621 to the M62, aiming to wend my way via the Brighouse exit... and then I still crawled bumper to bumper from the motorway sliproad all the way to the outskirts of Huddersfield where a short but necessary trip to the supermarket delayed us until the worst of the traffic had begin to melt away.

Georgette Heyer: A Civil Contract

I'm revisiting Georgette Heyer, not having read any since my teens. This was chosen at random (and a bit hurriedly) on a WH Smith buy-one-get-second-at-half-price offer.

It's sweet but a bit slow, even for Heyer. Still worth reading, though, if you're a regency romance fan.

Captain Adam Deverill, newly Viscount Lynton, returns from the army to find his father has left him nothing but a title and debts. If he's not to lose the family house he needs to marry an heiress quickly and Jenny Chawleigh is brought to his attention. Her father's rich but of common birth and vulgar as well, yet he's set his sights on having a Lord for a son on law.

Adam has to turn away from his (almost betrothed) love and marry Jenny who he supposes has married him for his title only, but Jenny - though he'd never noticed her - was a friend of his lady-love and if Adam married for money, Jenny married for love - though she was determined not to wear her heart on her sleeve.

This is the story of how love grows between them - sneaking up on Adam quietly.

(Edited to correct the title.)

Patricia Briggs & others: On The Prowl (an anthology)

Four stories:
Alpha and Omega by Patricia Briggs
Inhuman by Eileen Wilks
Buying Trouble by Karen Chance
Mona Lisa Betwining by Sunny

Four variable stories all involving paranormal romance combined with some kind of were-style shapechanging, though not necessarily werewolves.

I bought the book to read the first story in the new Charles and Anna werewolf series by Patricia Briggs in which a secondary character in the Mercy Thompson series takes centre stage. Charles, the son of the Marrok (werewolf leader) and his tough enforcer suddenly shows a softer side when he's sent to Chgicago to investigate the wrongdoings of the resident pack in which Anna, a newly turned werewolf, is being ill-treated. On discovering Anna is not a submissive wolf but is, instead, a valuable omega who can calm down aggression in weres, Charles realises that the pack is in deep trouble and ends up dispensing justice and winning a mate. Patricia Briggs' usual quality - maybe not quite as good as the Mercy Thompsons, but it's nice to read something else in Mercy's world.

Eileen Wilkes' Inhuman was a bonus because I liked the writing and the characters. Kai has a secret - she's telepathic - but her neighbour, police officer Nathan has an even bigger secret. Not only does he have magical talents but he's not even human. Luckily he's in Kai's side. Like Alpha and Omega this is the prelude to a novel-length story - 'Night Season' - which I'd now like to read.

They definitley started with the best, but 'Buying Trouble is still a tolerably good story. Claire (a fiery redheaded mage according to the blurb) works in an auction house where magical artifacts are the stock in trade. Unfortunately her unscrupulous boss decides that she's going on the block herself. In trying to escape she teams up with Heidar one of the dark fey, crosses over into the otherworld and discovers her own fey heritage.

Last and definitely least is Mona Lisa Betwining, a poor excuse to write about sex. Halfway between wooden 'erotic' fiction and unlovely porn this is totally disappointing and about as unerotic as a fit-tab-A-into-slot-B sex manual. No - seriously - it was crammed full of sex but there was little or no romance. The plot line is a vague excuse for sex from the front, non-penetrative sex and sex from the back - more or less in that order with the occasional touch of dominance thrown in. Mona Lisa, newly made Queen of the Monere (moon-basking shape-changers) is called to answer to the Council for previous actions resulting in... er... more sex. This reads like it follows on from a novel I haven't read or would ever want to read, but there's no indication if that's really the case. It makes Vampire Shagging novels look subtle. Not for me.

Georgette Heyer – The Unknown Ajax

The second book in the Heyer the WH Smith buy-one-get-second-at-half-price offer.

Lord Darracott’s son and heir has recently been drowned leaving the belligerent, bullying old man with no choice but to accept the son of his second son as his new heir. Unfortunately the second son married far beneath him and was cut off by his father some thirty years ago, so Darracott has never met his grandson – supposedly a weaver’s brat from Yorkshire and neither has the rest of the family who have been kept in ignorance of his existence. When the old man can’t find a legal way of denying the weaver’s brat his title (Baron) and estate, the brat is sent for and the family – a bunch of squabbling cousins and their mothers – informed. Darracott intends to take the peasant and ‘lick him into shape’ before he inherits and informs cousin Anthea that she’ll be expected to marry him to make him halfway respectable – to which she takes great exception, of course.

The weaver’s brat who arrives, however, is a surprise to them all because Major Hugo Darracott is not what they expected. Big and bluff, but self-assured and easygoing, Hugo has a sense of humour – and he’s going to need it. He refuses to be browbeaten by his bullying grandfather, refuses to rise to the bait when his cousin Vincent throws insults his way and refuses to accept high fashion advice from his cousin Claud. They are beginning to despair of him, but Hugo shows his mettle when the family runs into trouble because of younger cousin Richmond’s escapades with smugglers. Anthea gradually comes to realise that Hugo is neither stupid not uneducated and friendship develops into something more, while it’s Hugo who rescues both the family’s reputation and fortune despite the best efforts of the old man to put him down at every opportunity.

Hugo is a lovely character and quite my favourite Heyer hero so far.