I am continuing to work, very slowly, through Georgette Heyer’s novels, though not in any particular order – just reading them as I come across them. As I discovered in the comments section of my Historical Musings post on Heyer last month, I seem to have read very few of the books most people name as favourites – books like Cotillion, The Grand Sophy and These Old Shades. I will get to them eventually, but for now I’m posting my thoughts on my latest Heyer read, Faro’s Daughter.
Published in 1941, Faro’s Daughter is one of Heyer’s Georgian novels, set slightly earlier than the Regency period for which she is best known. Our heroine is Deborah Grantham, a young woman who has lived with her aunt, Lady Bellingham, since being orphaned several years earlier. Finding herself struggling financially, Lady Bellingham, who has always enjoyed hosting card parties, has decided to open a gaming house in order to make ends meet. The intelligent and quick-witted Deb presides over the gaming tables and naturally attracts a lot of attention from the men who come to gamble. One of these is Adrian, Lord Mablethorpe, who is five years younger than Deb and convinced that he is in love with her.
Adrian is heir to a fortune and Lady Mablethorpe is horrified at the thought of her son marrying a woman from a gaming house. Luckily, there are still a few months until he comes of age and receives his inheritance, so she enlists the help of her nephew, Max Ravenscar, to ensure that the marriage is prevented. Visiting Lady Bellingham’s establishment to see Deb for himself, Max is surprised to find that she is not at all the common, vulgar woman he had been led to believe. He keeps his promise to his aunt, however, and offers Deb a bribe to stay away from Adrian, but Deb is so offended by this insult that she decides not to inform Max that she never had any intention of marrying Adrian in the first place – it will be much more satisfying to make him suffer for a while!
Like most of Heyer’s novels, this is an entertaining read with a lively plot involving card games, a curricle race, visits to Vauxhall Gardens, and even several kidnappings. It hasn’t become a favourite, though, and that’s because I just never quite managed to like either Max or Deb. Max annoyed me with his constant name-calling and failure to see through any of Deb’s schemes, and while I could appreciate Deb as a clever and resourceful heroine, I couldn’t warm to her either.
Heyer’s romances seem to be divided into a few general types and the ones like this or Regency Buck, to give another example, where the hero and heroine are engaged in a war of words and battle of wits, appear to be the ones I like least. I usually prefer the books where the romance develops from friendship and mutual liking or with a newly married couple learning to love each other. This isn’t necessarily the case when I read books by other authors, but it seems to be true of my experience with Heyer!
This book was a slight disappointment for me, then, although I did still find things to enjoy. Maybe it was just the wrong choice of Heyer at the wrong time, as I couldn’t help comparing it to my last one, The Corinthian, which I found a complete delight to read. I can’t love them all, though, and at least I still have many more unread Heyer novels to look forward to.
She Reads Novels 
I’m afraid Heyer is quite literally a closed book where I’m concerned. I’m always amazed at how relatively modern she is. For some reason my mind always wants to place her about fifty years earlier than she actually is. I take it this is not a good place to start reading her?
No, this isn’t a good starting point, in my opinion, although other readers might disagree. Of the books I’ve read, I would recommend The Quiet Gentleman or Black Sheep.
I haven’t read this one yet and I think I might move it to the bottom of my list. Although I do find the whole premise of her aunt starting up gaming tables in order to make ends meet pretty humorous. 🙂
It’s a great premise and I did enjoy the story – it was just the relationship between the hero and heroine that didn’t work for me.
I like this one, but you’re right, it’s not my favorite. It’s not my least favorite either, though.
I think there are worse ones than this, but it’s probably in my bottom three or four so far. I did still enjoy parts of it, though.
Yes this one isn’t one of her best but I’m glad I read it as I’d like to read them all – eventually.
I would like to read them all too, but at my current rate it’s going to take a very long time!
I haven’t read this one, but in general I agree with your comments about preferring the ones where the love grows out of friendship.
Yes, I’m starting to notice some patterns in the type of Heyer novels I tend to enjoy most and least.
It’s not high on my list, either. I think of it as one of the “angry” books, with the hero and heroine in conflict for so much of the book, and I don’t enjoy those as much.
Angry is a good description! I haven’t read as much Heyer as you have, but so far the angry ones have been some of my least favourites.
I thought this one was a lot of fun, although it’s definitely not one of my favorites either. I do appreciate that Heyer wrote about a few different types of developing romances.
I didn’t dislike this book and I did find parts of it fun to read – I just didn’t love it the way I’ve loved some of her others. Now that I’ve read quite a lot of her books I’m starting to notice patterns in the type of Heyer romances I prefer.
It’s useful to know which kind of Heyers you like, though, as it’s usually pretty clear from the summary in reviews which kind it’s going to be.
I haven’t really disliked anything I’ve read by Heyer, but there are definitely some types that I seem to enjoy much more than others. I would like to read them all eventually.