Paperback, 328 pages
English language
Published June 2, 2004 by Arrow.
When the redoubtable Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy is ordered to South America on business, he leaves his only daughter Sophia with his sister, Elizabeth Rivenhall, in Berkeley Square. Newly arrived from her tour of the Continent, Sophy invites herself into the circle of her relatives. When Lady Ombersley agrees to take in her young niece, no one expects Sophy, who sweeps in and immediately takes the ton by storm. Beautiful, gay, impulsive, shockingly direct, Sophy swept into elegant London society and scattered conventions and traditions before her like wisps in a windstorm. Resourceful, adventurous and utterly indefatigable, Sophy is hardly the mild-mannered girl that the Rivenhalls expect when they agree to take her in. Kind-hearted Aunt Lizzy is shocked, and her arrogant stern cousin Charles Rivenhall, the Ombersley heir, vows to rid his family of her meddlesome ways by marrying her off.
But vibrant and irrepressible Sophy was no stranger to …
When the redoubtable Sir Horace Stanton-Lacy is ordered to South America on business, he leaves his only daughter Sophia with his sister, Elizabeth Rivenhall, in Berkeley Square. Newly arrived from her tour of the Continent, Sophy invites herself into the circle of her relatives. When Lady Ombersley agrees to take in her young niece, no one expects Sophy, who sweeps in and immediately takes the ton by storm. Beautiful, gay, impulsive, shockingly direct, Sophy swept into elegant London society and scattered conventions and traditions before her like wisps in a windstorm. Resourceful, adventurous and utterly indefatigable, Sophy is hardly the mild-mannered girl that the Rivenhalls expect when they agree to take her in. Kind-hearted Aunt Lizzy is shocked, and her arrogant stern cousin Charles Rivenhall, the Ombersley heir, vows to rid his family of her meddlesome ways by marrying her off.
But vibrant and irrepressible Sophy was no stranger to managing delicate situations. After all, she'd been keeping opportunistic females away from her widowed father for years. But staying with her relatives could be her biggest challenge yet. But Sophy discovers that her aunt's family is in desperate need of her talent for setting everything right: her aunt's husband is of no use at all, her ruthlessly handsome cousin Charles has tyrannical tendencies that are being aggravated by his pedantic bluestocking fiancee Eugenia Wraxton; her lovely cousin Cecelia was smitten with an utterly unsuitable suitor, a beautiful but feather-brained poet; her cousin Herbert was in dire financial straits and has fallen foul of a money-lender; and the younger children are in desperate need of some fun and freedom, and Sophy's arrived just in time to save them all.
With her inimitable mixture of exuberance and grace Sophy became the mainstay of her hilariously bedeviled family, as a horsewoman, social leader and above all, as an ingenious match-maker. Using her signature unorthodox methods, Sophy set out to solve all of their problems. By the time she's done, Sophy has commandeered household and Charles's horses, but she finds herself increasingly drawn to her eldest cousin. Could it be that the Grand Sophy had finally met her match? Can she really be falling in love with him, and he with her? And what of his betrothal to grim Eugenia?
A irrepressible cousin comes to stay and causes a great upheaval, but between cunning plans and good luck it all works out neatly. More wit than romance, but it does that well.
Among the richest of slave owners a psychopathic young girl breaks apart two families to get married to a man she doesn't like.
Seasoned by continuity errors and the most disgusting antisemitism since Dickens (pre-rewrite of Twist) for the chief's kiss. (there's an edition that edit the antisemitism out and if you want to protect the racist hate above the editor's, publisher's and right holder's freedom of speech you are a 20th century good German. A disclaimer that goes "aha just kidding with the antisemitism" is not good enough for a book written in 1950).
I can't get past how Sophy lies all the time, non-stop, except when she is just being dishonest or demeaning. Her rapist's mindset is in full display every other chapter: other people are not people but things to break to her will, and she knows what they want and will get them there, damn their …
Among the richest of slave owners a psychopathic young girl breaks apart two families to get married to a man she doesn't like.
Seasoned by continuity errors and the most disgusting antisemitism since Dickens (pre-rewrite of Twist) for the chief's kiss. (there's an edition that edit the antisemitism out and if you want to protect the racist hate above the editor's, publisher's and right holder's freedom of speech you are a 20th century good German. A disclaimer that goes "aha just kidding with the antisemitism" is not good enough for a book written in 1950).
I can't get past how Sophy lies all the time, non-stop, except when she is just being dishonest or demeaning. Her rapist's mindset is in full display every other chapter: other people are not people but things to break to her will, and she knows what they want and will get them there, damn their consent and whatever the means. In the first half of the book she lies to every single character, kidnaps her rival, steals several times and more generally is a complete shit to everyone. She adds assault near the end of the book.
How does she get away with that? With plotholes and idiot balls! The author is a piece of shit and thinks that these behaviors are the best thing ever so literally every characters always trust and love Sophy to the point of torpedoing the whole book.
Maybe the worst disbelief-breaking event is when Sophy sells a pair of her own earring (she has not stolen them). But her maid does not know that and raise the alarm. Sophy immediately throws the maid under the bus by claiming that she sent them to be repaired and that her silly maid has forgotten, before being immediately privately confronted by her "love" interest with her lie. What does she do? She lies again, gaslit him and shit on his fiancee. It gets worse! A third character has immediately guessed that Sophy lied about the earrings and so goes to her rescue.
What does this third character says, 5 pages after catching up to Sophy's lies?
"Well, she ain’t one to tell fibs"
I shit you not.
It's Ripley except Ripley is treated as an angelic role model instead of the protagonist.
But it's a romance book, I am not supposed to look to closely at the plot, the setting, the character or the prose! What's important is the Romance!
What romance? Sophy does not even like her love interest! She is a complete ass to him every time, never express, show or think of him with any affection, never talks to him except to get something out of him or to demean him or his original fiancee, steals from him, and alienates him from his family and friends. On the other hand he is impressed by her lying and... her fortune.
(In the first chapter there's this gem: Cecilia's mother is pushing Cecilia to marry a richer older man and says "In short, Cecilia, [...] persons of our order do not marry only to please themselves.". Because marrying someone to vacuum their fortune is not selfish. Yeah.)
Sophy's fortune is a way for them to bond: they both are ready to burn hundred of pounds on horses, except the love interest is broke (for their definition of broke). That's several time the yearly pay of a lawyer, or enough to buy around 30 slaves. Because all of the main characters are slave owners. This is set in 1815 and they all own plantations and slaves in America, in Jamaica (see The Book Of night Women from Marlon James) and the Caribbean, in Malaysia... The US's slavery south has disappeared as a setting for romance because it is fucking disgusting and it's a summit of hypocrisy to be OK with regency high society.
The author aboslutely knows that given the detailed and accurate research that went in all the details of the setting.
I'm fucking done.
ehh, was not really feeling this one. Sophy is supposed to be "spirited" in an Emma-type way. But she's actually a huge boundary violator, who unlike Emma, never realizes it's wrong. The way she manipulates other people is kinda gross, and I think if Sophy had been a man, we'd think he was dangerously controlling.
Heyer at her best -- and her worst. The antisemitism of the moneylender was horrible.
In the last couple of years I seem to have read a number of romance novels set in the period 1795-1820. First it was [a:Jane Austen|1265|Jane Austen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1380085320p2/1265.jpg], who wrote about the landed gentry. Then it was [a:George Eliot|173|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1396882294p2/173.jpg], who wrote about the yeoman class. And now it is [a:Georgette Heyer|18067|Georgette Heyer|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1336748892p2/18067.jpg], who writes about the aristocracy. Austen was contemporary, Eliot wrote 50 years after the time in which her novel [b:Adam Bede|20563|Adam Bede|George Eliot|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1167298252s/20563.jpg|21503633] was set, and Heyer wrote more than 130 years afterwards.
[b:The Grand Sophy|261689|The Grand Sophy|Georgette Heyer|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1414731822s/261689.jpg|3234291] was one of those recommended in [b:The Modern Library|14680|The Charterhouse of Parma (The Modern Library Classics)|Stendhal|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390088245s/14680.jpg|1378789] and was indeed worthy of the recommendation. A good read, in fact.
This is not my favorite Georgette Heyer book (Cotillion still holds my heart, I'm afraid), but her books are remarkably readable and fun and this was definitely an enjoyable romp.
Regency romances (and this is, although that is probably not really my favorite part, a Regency romance) and I have a curious relationship. They are one of those genres that I tend to like the idea of more than the actual result. Some of it is my curious relationship with the whole romance genre (I like, and often even require romance in my books, but generally heavily mixed with something else), and some of it due to the fact that Jane Austen kind of holds the title for the genre, and very few things really manage to hold up in comparison for me.
Setting that minor digression aside, The Grand Sophy was charming, and a large portion of that …
This is not my favorite Georgette Heyer book (Cotillion still holds my heart, I'm afraid), but her books are remarkably readable and fun and this was definitely an enjoyable romp.
Regency romances (and this is, although that is probably not really my favorite part, a Regency romance) and I have a curious relationship. They are one of those genres that I tend to like the idea of more than the actual result. Some of it is my curious relationship with the whole romance genre (I like, and often even require romance in my books, but generally heavily mixed with something else), and some of it due to the fact that Jane Austen kind of holds the title for the genre, and very few things really manage to hold up in comparison for me.
Setting that minor digression aside, The Grand Sophy was charming, and a large portion of that was due to the main character. Sophy is one of those characters you want to see succeed at whatever she is currently turning her hand to. She's outrageous enough you completely understand London being turned upside-down simply by her existence, but despite a bit of a temper and maybe just a soupçon of bossiness, she genuinely has people's best interests at heart, even when she seems not to, and watching her arrange things to the satisfaction of herself and those she loves best is a remarkable venture.
I did see pretty early on where this was actually going in almost all respects, but the journey itself was worth every moment. People are in love who shouldn't be. People aren't in love who should be. Good people deserve a happy ending and bad people don't. It's relatively basic fare, but it's all handled with a style and panache that makes you genuinely like the characters and thus care about their ends.
I think this book may have sent me rushing back into a Georgette Heyer mood, and I don't regret that a bit. I've heard this book described as one of her best, and I can absolutely see that.
Hilarious and delightful.
Barring, of course, the whole SUDDENLY: ANTI-SEMITISM in that one chapter.
Though lol people complaining about Charles and Sophy being cousins. I'm confused about how anyone could get more than a few chapters into the book without perceiving the romance would be between cousins. And that's not even getting into the fact that the book description/jacket copy... explicitly... says... so...
