The Regency

The Regency is the continuation of Heloise Morland’s story. In the previous book in the series, The Victory, we saw Heloise marry her heart’s desire, James Morland. Here, we witness Heloise’s re-adjustment to life at Morland Place, and deal with the challenge of taming James’s unruly daughter, Fanny, for whom she is a sort of regent before Fanny comes of age. Aged eleven when the novel begins, Fanny matures into a young woman who is anxious to gain not only her inheritance of Morland Place, but her grandfather Hobsbawn’s cotton mill empire. But a wrench is thrown into her plans when she falls in love with the up-to-no-good Lieutenant Hawker. Meanwhile, Lucy is trying to deal with the death of Weston, remaining friends with Beau Brummell and his set. Many characters are born in this book, including Nicholas and Benedict, who play leading roles in further books in this series.

I always like the books in the series that focus on the family more and not the political events taking place around them. It’s not that those political events are uninteresting (though the Napoleonic period isn’t really my thing); it’s simply that I’m becoming more and more interested in the Morlands as people, the more I read about them. The Morlands's stories tend to be a bit soap opera-ish, but are satisfying reads nevertheless.I love reading novels that focus on the way that people lived in the past, and the Morland series certainly gives its readers a good glimpse into the lives of ordinary people from the past. It was interesting to see the interplay between the older generation (Jemima’s children, now more or less middle-aged) and the younger generation—some of which experience their very own coming-out Season in London, even as war rages elsewhere in Europe.

Heloise is a bit too Mary Sue-ish, and I found myself getting frustrated with the extremely selfish Fanny (shades of Annunciata, perhaps?); but what I like about the characters in this series is that they seem like flesh-and-blood people, who might easily have lived, and who made mistakes just the same as anyone else. Cynthia Harrod-Eagles really knows how to tell a good story, and keep her readers interested in her characters over a period of time—especially since many of them appear in multiple books. It's quite a feat to keep up that kind of momentum in any series as long-running as this one is. Despite what happens at the end of this book, I have to applaud Harrod-Eagles for writing the story that way; I feel that there’s only so much she could have done with Fanny’s story in the long run, anyways.

The author sometimes lifts sentences straight from Jane Austen, especially when the girls are coming out in London; and the book's copyediting was atrocious, as was the author's erratic spelling of the word "show." Nonetheless, I think this is a strong addition to the Morland Dynasty saga, and certainly better than some of the others. ( )

The Regency, the 13th book in the series opens in 1807 and continues the story of the Napoleonic Wars and of the Industrial Revolution. Unfortunately, the Morlands are less involved with the more important events than in past books. There are no vivid descriptions of battles, just vague reports. The thread related to industrialization continues to fascinate me, but it also continues to take a backseat to other storylines.

The bulk of the book focuses on relationships—who’s going to marry whom, who really loves whom, and so on. Some of the relationships were interesting, but the series is a little overfull of characters at this point, and it would probably be just as well if a couple of branches of the Morland family could fade out of the narrative. Even with the family trees in the front, I had a hard time connecting certain characters with the rest of the family.

By the end of the book, the family drama has shown some signs of calming, at least for a while. But the historical drama is ramping back up, with the escape of Napoleon from Elba. I’m guessing the next book, The Campaigners, will be more focused on the war. I hope so. I enjoy the Morland family drama, but the history is what makes me look forward to picking up the next book each month.

See my complete review at my blog. ( )

Fantastic ending to this book- once again, kept me reading late into the night. ( )