I do enjoy re-reading my Georgette Heyer novels every six or seven years, and while I recall the overall plots reasonably well, I have always forgotten the details. And Heyer’s writing is not just authentic - her research was impeccable - but quite amusing in places. Her characters are well-rounded, and many of her heroines strong-minded women, unusual for the Regency era in which she mostly set her stories. I last read 'The Grand Sophy' at the end of 2014, and decided it was a good idea to read it again.
Sophy, the main protagonist of this novel, has travelled around the world with her unconventional father Sir Horace. She’s twenty, and for the past couple of years has acted as his hostess, unchaperoned as her governess died a couple of years earlier. But Sir Horace is about to go to Brazil, and he feels he cannot take Sophy with him. He wants her to get into London society, and perhaps find a husband.
So he arrives at his sister Lady Ombersley’s home, and announces his intention of leaving Sophy to her care for the next few months, or however long he’s away. Lady Ombersley is not at all sure about this; she has a large family and her eldest son Charles is insisting on strict economies as Lord Ombersley’s gaming debts have been a huge drain on the estate, leaving them struggling to pay bills.
But Sophy arrives, and immediately becomes friendly with her cousin Cecilia, who is just a year younger. Cecilia has fallen in love with the poet Augustus Fawnhope, who is remarkably good-looking, but entirely self-centred, determined to write poems on every occasion. Sophy also realises that her cousin Hubert, who’s just a year or so older than she is, is in some kind of trouble. But he daren’t mention it to Charles, who is hot-tempered and becomes scathing and rude.
Charles, moreover, is engaged to be married to the delightfully dreary and upright Eugenia who talks of morals, and duty, and never does anything remotely interesting. She is shocked at Sophy’s free and easy ways, and her confident manner. And horrified that she gives the younger children a parrot and a monkey…
Sophy, who thought she might be bored in London, realises that she has to take a hand in the affairs of her cousins - she’s a first-class meddler, with everyone’s best interests at heart, and a talent for making plans that, on the whole, work out as she expects. In the course of the book she borrow a horse without permission, visits an unscrupulous moneylender, sells some earrings, invites many more people to a party than her aunt is expecting, nurses a very sick child, and flirts with several different men whom she has no intention of marrying. Most of those around her appreciate her spirit and big-heartedness, once they are used to her, but others find her irritating or worse.
It’s a fast-paced story, one I found difficult to put down once I’d started, even though I knew how it would turn out. But I smiled in many places as Heyer shows her characters by what they say and do, and makes gentle fun of the particularly dull or boring ones. There’s a big gathering of most of the protagonists towards the end, a device fairly common in Heyer’s novels, although rather than all being together they arrive in groups and leave with different people.
The endings of Heyer’s novels usually include a declaration or proposal, and this is no exception, although it’s rather more abrupt as an ending than other novels, and is not classically romantic. But there’s still a sense that the right people have finally ended up together, and that Sophy’s interference and high-handedness have been justified. Her future is likely to be full of conflict, but also of excitement and passion.
Recommended if you like this kind of historical light romance.
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