Mary Garratt

My late mother gave me The Duchess of Asherwood back in 1982. I've read in seven times since then. My old eyes can't devour 500+ pages in one day anymore, but it took me only three to get through it this latest time. The cover proclaims this to be 'A Sparkling New Regency Romance'. It is a lot of fun.

Myles, current Duke of Asherwood, has been divorced from his beautiful, but dim, wife Harriet for years now. She had the bad taste to run off with their son's tutor. After a few years of being 'The Rake of Europe," the Duke has been pretty much a recluse at Asherwood, his palace in the country. Then his son Heath gets thrown from his horse at Willowood, a nearby house belonging to Myles' old playmate, Sir Alfred Lanier. Even more luckily, Sir Alfred has allowed his selfish wife Martha to send his widowed grandmother, Madame Lanier, and his younger brother Eric's widow, the beautiful Lenore, to live there.

Eric was killed in battle on the Spanish Peninsula. Lenore learned how to care for the wounded there. Lenore nurses Heath back to health while she and his father quarrel every time they meet.

Then Myles gets a letter from the man who saved his life during his period as The Rake of Europe. Among other things, Myles is being asked to open up his house in London, become fashionable among the other nobility, and have a wife to keep things respectable. Where is Myles to get a wife? His best friend, the vicar, suggests he marry Lenore. Myles isn't thrilled, but he agrees. However, he makes it clear to Lenore that it's to be a marriage in name only.

Myles and family, including Madame Lanier, go to London. There are adventures. I loved the way Lenore countered the Ton giving her and Miles the cut direct (ignoring their existence). The elderly friends of Mamère Lanier (what Lenore calls Madame) are enjoyable. The gossip and jockeying for position in the Ton was fun.

Lenore gets in trouble for what her stepsons and their friends got up to at the Asherwood place in London. (Nothing bad or wrong, just something the snobs looked down upon). It looks as if it's going to ruin her masquerade ball. Lenore gets very sick with the flu, while we get to smile over machinations worked in her favor by friends or friends of friends.

The big favor that Myles was supposed to do for his friend leads to a questioning at gun point. Still, there's to a happy ending for almost everyone. Can't say I'm sorry for the characters who didn't get a happy ending.



Notes:

Chapter 5:

a. The story about why Mamère Lanier calls the Duke 'Bunky" is told.

b. Mamère tells the Duke why she and Lenore are stuck in Willowood instead of London.… (mere)

The plot is fairly traditional- marriage of convenience, dour man rescued by the love of a good woman, Napoleonic schemes- but the dialogue is absolutely the worst I've ever read in this type of novel. By trying to cram in every single possible example of period speech, the author makes the conversations wooden and often incomprehensible. Serious issues like child abuse are thrown in seemingly to add interest, but are abandoned rather than explored. Each character is more like a cariacature and the end of the book does not provide any satisfactory answers to the questions raised during the course of the book. I was extremely disappointed by this book and was barely able to force myself to finish it.… (mere)