Retro Friday Review: The Convenient Marriage

Retro Friday Review is a weekly meme hosted by Angieville. This focuses on classics, out of print books or just old favorites that don’t get the attention they deserve. This Friday’s review is:

The Convenient Marriage

by Georgette Heyer

Genre: Regency Romance

Publication Date: 1934

One Word Review: Entertaining

Synopsis: Horatia Winwood is a plain girl with a stutter. When she rescues her sister from an undesired marriage to the Earl of Rule by proposing to him herself, he is thoroughly impressed by her spirit and enjoys watching her take the ton by storm. When Rule's archenemy, Sir Robert, tries to kiss Horatia, she spurns his advances, and in the ensuing scuffle loses an heirloom brooch. Horatia's brother's hare-brained scheme to recover the brooch fails, and then the Earl himself must step in, challenging Sir Robert in a swordfight that is Heyer at her most stirring. -GoodReads

Kathy’s Review: It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Retro Friday Review, so I decided that although I just finished this book today I would count it as a “retro read” since it was originally published in 1934.

This was totally different from the first Heyer book I read, and I was pleasantly surprised. A lot of regency romances I read are rather mild in nature, so I was surprised by all the mischief, misunderstandings, and adventure that went on in this story. Our leading lady Horatia is kind of a dim-wit, but I couldn’t help liking her anyway. She says what’s on her mind, is playful, and has a big heart. The Earl of Rule totally won me over, I loved his character! He was smart, confident and loads of fun to read. He caught on to things rather quickly and really enjoyed watching the people around him scurry around to try and make things right. Marcus and Horatia had great chemistry together. You could tell Marcus was smitten with her from the start and was very protective of her. The additional cast of characters were also delightful. It really was a page-turner and I thoroughly enjoyed the story.

The only thing I didn’t like was that Marcus Rule had a mistress, both before and after he was married. Although I don’t think he really had feelings for her, it still rubbed me the wrong way. I can kind of see why Heyer added that element to the story, but overall I could have done without it.