False Colours (by Georgette Heyer)

(Amazon UK link)

I do like re-reading my Georgette Heyer books. Her light regency romance novels are cleverly plotted with excellent characterisation; just the thing for a rainy weekend, or a holiday. Or, as in my case, for re-reading every so often to remind myself of the stories. I last read ‘False Colours’ in 2016, and it’s a book I’ve read many times over the past fifty years or so, so there were no surprises for me. I recalled the basic plot and some of the people. But I still thoroughly enjoyed re-visiting them.

Kit Fancot is the hero of this book, although he spends most of it pretending to be his twin brother Evelyn. Kit has been abroad in the army, working as a diplomat.. The details of engagements and diplomacy at the start of the 19th century aren’t of much interest to me but it’s easy enough to skim lightly over those passages. There aren’t many, and they didn’t detract at all from my enjoyment of the book.

Evelyn, we quickly learn, has proposed a marriage of convenience to their neighbour - and his mother’s goddaughter - Cressy. She hasn’t entirely decided whether to go ahead with it, but her father has recently remarried and she doesn’t get along with his new wife, so she’s very tempted. And a dinner has been arranged for Evelyn to meet her relatives; in particular her outspoken grandmother who is a strong force in the family.

Evelyn had to travel to Brighton a week earlier and should have returned several days before Kit turns up, out of the blue. So their mother proposes he take his brother’s place. Kit, who’s a person of integrity, is very reluctant to do so until he realises how embarrassed Cressy would be if nobody turned up when all her relatives were gathered…

Naturally, this starts events in a train that can’t be stopped and Kit finds himself impersonating his brother for much longer than he had planned to. And the story follows all kinds of twists and turns, some of which I had forgotten until the page when they happened.  There’s humour in some of the conversations, as well as caricatures of some of the people Kit has to deal with.

I particularly liked the somewhat hapless Sir Bonamy Ripple, who is described as so large that he took up an entire sofa when sitting down. Yet he’s very intelligent, good at complex card games, and fantastically wealthy. He has adored Kit’s mother since she was a debutante, and never married. He lives a life of hedonism and yet he’s extremely generous.

Once I’d started reading ‘False Colours’ I could hardly put it down. It’s comfort reading at its best, moving in one or two places, amusing in others, and overall an excellent story. I’d have liked it to go on longer; the ending is quite sudden, and we never really learn what Evelyn is going to do - but he hasn’t actually been a major player in the book, despite almost everyone thinking that Kit is him.

Definitely recommended if you like this kind of historical fiction set amongst the aristocracy, with a light romantic thread.

Review copyright 2023 Sue's Book Reviews