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Georgette Heyer

1902-1974 English novelist who created a special genre of writing (Regency romance)

Having written a series of books in the genre called Regency Romance, Georgette Heyer has often been compared with Jane Austen, whose novels describe approximately the same time and place and specialuze in likeable heroines. But aside from the reader being able to count on there being a positive resolution to the conflicts in the plot line, the comparison is weak.

Austen wrote of the times she lived in, lampooning the deadly serious competition for wealth and social standing with a deft slyness which still resonates with modern readers. Of her six novels, each ending with a woman gaining her desired life companion, three are considered by many to be incomparable literary masterpieces.

Heyer wrote about two dozen romances, and another dozen murder mysteries, each formulaic and set in a time far removed from the present, the Regency period. Targetted for a female readership, the predictable social rules of Heyer's fictional world provide a stable backdrop for her wildly inventive tangles of household and familial relationships. As in a typical modern K-drama, each romance has a female lead and a male lead who, sooner or later, marry and at some point are lucky enough to develop mutual respect and affection.

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A modest nobleman, whose deceased father bankrupted the estate, becomes guardian to three younger siblings. For0ced to break a betrothal to a beautiful noblewoman, he allows the lady's father to introduce him to a wealthy merchant who aspires to a noble husband for his daughter. With full awareness by all parties, the arranged marriage is quickly accomplished. How will the new couple fare when their lives continue to intersect with that of the husband's erstwhile fiancee?

Frederica

A wealthy bachelor's affluent sisters, whom he dislikes, lobby him to give a ball at his own expense for their daughters' come-out. A distant cousin also asks him to introduce her attractive younger sister to the ton. He agrees to give the ball on condition that his encroaching sisters share it with their unknown cousins. The sisters assume he must be under the spell of the beautiful younger cousin, whereas it is the seemingly unremarkable older cousin, encumbered with raising her three orphaned younger siblings and managing a neglectful older brother, who has caught his carefully concealed interest.