Venetia by Georgette Heyer
by
Natasa Djordjevic
- 11:37 AM
Synopsis:
Twenty-five-year-old Venetia Lanyon's beauty is rivaled only by her sensibility. Intelligent and independent, her future seems safe and predictable. Lovely Venetia despairs of ever meeting the handsome hero of her romantic dreams but is nearly resigned to spinsterhood, thanks to the enormous amount of responsibility she inherited with a Yorkshire estate and an invalid but precocious brother, Aubrey. She lives in comfortable seclusion in rural Yorkshire, she has never been further than Harrogate, nor enjoyed the lackluster attentions of any but her two wearisomely persistent suitors. She can not accept to marry the respectable but dull Edward Yardley - she will only marry for love.
Then her long-absent neighbor, thirty-eight-year-old Lord Jasper Damerel, returns home to Yorkshire. In one extraordinary encounter, she meets the infamous neighbor, who she knows only by reputation - a gamester, a shocking rake, and a man of sadly unsteady character - and before she knows better, she finds friendship with a libertine whose way of life has scandalised the North Riding for years. Lord Damerel finds Venetia to be the most truly engaging and wittily perverse female he has encountered in all his life and determined to woo and win her, he pursues her with a passionate abandon that is soon the talk of the ton. And after her encounter with the dashing, dangerous rake, Venetia's well-ordered life is turned upside down, and she embarks upon a courtship with him that scandalises and horrifies the whole community.
But Venetia has no intention of losing her heart to the rakish lord until she is sure that beneath his swashbuckling ways and shocking manners lies a tender heart belonging to her. And Lord Damerel would marry her in a heartbeat if he did not think it would ruin her. Then she discovers a shocking family secret that changes everything ... It was therefore particularly provoking to find that occasion, Lord Damerel could make up his mind to be idiotically noble.
My Review:
“As soon as one promises not to do something, it becomes the one thing above all others that one most wishes to do.”
Venetia is a romantic adventure full of Georgette Heyer staples–interesting characters, sparkling wit, and engaging dialogue–all of which I love and admire so much. The writing is humorous and excellent, as are the characterizations and plot lines, but what makes the novel stand out is the main character herself.
Venetia is an amazing young lady who had an extremely limited social life since her mother died when she was young and her father was an isolationist who is now passed. And, yet, Venetia is such a capable woman who at 25 years of age, runs her absent brother’s estate, has the love and respect of the servants and neighbors in her very limited world and cares for her teenage brother who was crippled by a bone disease from a young age. She isn’t interested in the puppy love of Oswald, son to her dear friend and neighbor, Lady Denny, nor the staid assumptions of Edward Yardley her deceased father’s choice of a suitor. Neither captures her heart. She longs for something more even though she won’t ever have it. Then, into her life comes her neighbor, the infamous Lord Damerel, who once ran away with an older married woman.
Damerel has a depth to him that belies his errant ways and Venetia sees beneath the surface. Damerel laughs as he hasn’t for many years. Venetia’s guardians are concerned that Damerel is a terrible influence, but when her brother is taken to Damerel’s crumbling estate after a riding accident, Venetia follows, her reputation be damned. The thing is, however, that while Damerel has fallen in love with her, he believes himself unworthy and urges her to seek a husband.
This is a novel about the relationship between two adults of very different upbringings and two very different temperaments, from friendship and sincere admiration to something more. Georgette Heyer does a fantastic job of charting this blossoming relationship from its incipience to the painful parting to the satisfying and triumphant end.
The novel has everything: a beautiful, strong, smart heroine, a bright, quietly heroic, self-deprecating rake, a brilliant crippled brother, an inconsiderate brother that marries a shy, quiet girl with a horrific mother, a noble but boring suitor, and some great minor characters. Definitely a fave!
My Rating:
✬✬✬✬✬
