Regency romance pitfalls

Lately I have been doing more Amazon-surfing than is strictly good for me. Always on the look-out for more self-indulgence reads, I have been criss-crossing the site following up "if you like Georgette Heyer you'll love..." tips. It's strange, this preference I have for regency romances. I suppose it's chiefly because 1) they are rom-coms 2) they are historical 3) they are not too historical. More specifically, they are virtually free from references to maggotty food, faulty sewage and rotting teeth, plus you are spared all those look-how-learned-I-am earthy descriptions of street-life you are likely to get in books set, say, in the 16th or 17th century, not to mention the Middle Ages. And perchance the language is not too stilted. If there were Victorian romances, I'd rather go for them, but as it is, what interests modern authors about Victorian times is apparently "Victorian London's dark underbelly". Unless Fagin happens to be around, though, I couldn't care less about Victorian London's dark underbelly. Which means Regency romances will have to do.

The down-side is there are a number of things that can crop up in a typical Regency romance which really get my goat, namely:

Predictability You would think authors would learn some things from the masters. When I first read "Pride and Prejudice", long before Colin Firth's wet shirt, I had no idea Elizabeth would end up with Darcy and was pleasantly surprised. Not because I liked Darcy overmuch, but because I hadn't expected it. Innocent girl that I was, I hadn't come across the love-starting-as-antagonism-plot before. Now I have, of course. Many, many times. But it was still fresh in Austen's day.

Perhaps this is part of the trouble, that it is hard coming up with plot developments that haven't already been done and that seasoned romance-readers recognise. Apart from the one above, there is the good-dependable-man-proves-better-catch-than-exciting-cad-plot (Austen invented that one, too); the suddenly-realising-you-love-your-best-friend-plot (Austen again, Dickens used it as well: in his case, refreshingly, the chump who saw the light was a man); the couple-who-pretend-to-be-together/are-forced-together-fall-in-love-for-real-plot... You can get good mileage out of these old war horses: especially the last one is hard not to make enjoyable. But the main difficulty is that there is bound to be one Hero, and one Heroine, and once you know who they are the suspense is limited. You know they'll end up together. You know if there are any significant others, they'll be ditched, and if there are any misunderstandings, they'll be straightened out. Is it really that hard to make the pairing off just that little bit more unpredictable? After all, there was a horrible moment (the masters again) where you were actually afraid Jane Eyre would settle for St John, not least because he was cunning enough to seem to take the moral high ground. And who would have guessed Dorothea and Lydgate in "Middlemarch" wouldn't even get close to ending up together?

Rakes What is so attractive about rakes? I don't get it. I'm a villain-lover, all right, but that is because villains can be so intelligent, razor-sharp, wonderfully sarky, able to cut prosy heroes and heroines down-to-size and, well, clever. The villains I admire have attained their position by making an effort when thinking out all their dastardy plots. What does a rake do? He drinks, gambles and is insulting to women rather than flattering them, assuming that he is so irresistible they will fall for him anyway. Which they do, the silly cows, after some desultory "I hate you"s! Which leads me seamlessly to:

Aristos For pity's sake, they're everywhere! Earls, viscounts, dukes, the odd marquis... a Regency romance hero, it seems, positively must have a title. Blame class-consciousness (I'm rather stridently middle-class), blame the Scarlet Pimpernel books (Chauvelin's so cute!), or blame the fact than when I first made acquaintance with Napoleonic France it was by way of Stefan Zweig's "Joseph Fouché", which meant the aristocratic Talleyrand became an enemy for evermore. The fact remains that the more dandyish, the more languid, the more elegantly lazy and indifferent, the more Hessian-booted, tightly-trousered, artfully-cravatted and, as I have touched on before, quizzing-glass-carrying a Regency buck gets, the more I want to string him to the nearest lamp-post. Not that all the nobs are like that, but I would have appreciated the odd tradesman hero.

"Boney"-bashing One has to be realistic. Napoleon the first, Emperor of the French, was not Regency England's most popular man. Even today, the English resist such an obviously good thing as the Metric system because "The Corsican Bandit" implemented it in the rest of Europe (or so I've heard it said). In a typical Regency romance, the hero has fought in Spain and/or at Waterloo and is chummy with "The Duke". Or, ludicrously, he's a spy. And we are supposed to cheer these noodles on in their effort to put the Bourbons back in power?

Sex scenes I thought they were rather sweet at first, but now... Please, no more!

Having said all that, a fun frothy read is a fun frothy read. There are not so many about that you can afford to be picky. I have mentioned Julia Quinn before, and she is the wittiest of the Regency romp authors I've read this far, though not, I suspect, that well-read up on the period. Mary Balogh is another worthy contender for the Georgette Heyer crown if the one novel I've read by her so far is anything to go by - she is not as funny as Quinn, but she can create likeable characters and is probably more of a Regency buff than Quinn. Heyer still reigns supreme when it comes to plots and blissful lack of sex scenes (scenes that are unavoidable in Quinn and Balogh). Let's see, in time, what else I can dredge up from this genre filled with titles like "The Duke's Desire" and "Romping with a Rogue". All right, I made them up, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do exist.