A Civil Contract
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Product Description
Book Description
"Georgette Heyer is unbeatable" - India Knight
Product Description
Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton and a hero at Salamanca, returns from the Peninsula War to find his family on the brink of ruin and the broad acres of his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt. It is Lord Oversley, father of Adam's first love, who tactfully introduces him to Mr Jonathan Chaleigh, a City man of apparently unlimited wealth with no social ambitions for himself, but with his eyes firmly fixed on a suitable match for his one and only daughter. (20040624)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am a great fan of Georgette Heyer and read her books over and over again. I particularly enjoy this story of the triumph of genuine affection and enduring love over blind infatuation and romantic fantasy. Heyer always writes brilliantly and is capable of conveying the deepest emotions in the briefest of phrases and subtlest dialogue. Perhaps this book is not quite as witty and sparkling as many of her others, but it has a depth of human emotion and tenderness which I find quite moving. Read it!
39 of 40 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of my favourite Heyer books because I think it carries a truth about life and people. In this underrated book she goes beyond her genre. It has the Heyer touch of intersting situations and confrontations, but beneath that it is a book about character. The principal characters have to let go of romantic illusions and get on with the realities of life. Viscount Lynton, inheriting mortgaged estates, has to put behind him his hopeless passion for a ravishing debutante who is out of reach because of his impoverished financial circumstances. In this beautifully written story he learns to love and honour the plain girl he marries for her money. Jenny Chawleigh, painfully aware of her lack of beauty, has the good sense to accept the situation and make the best marriage she can. Everybody in the story has lessons to learn and in the end it is through wisdom and generosity that the married couple achieve contentment and the promise of happiness. It is a triumph of accepting what one can have, and letting go of what one can't. I have read this more times than I can count because I always enjoy it.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is (as always with this author), an extremely well written story, with well-rounded, attractive characters. Unlike many of the others, it is realistic about love and marriage. It is also more about the hero than the heroine. Adam is forced to give up his first love, and to marry another girl who he doesn't know, and for whom he has feels no attraction at all. Jenny's motivation for this marriage of convenience with a man who clearly does not want her is less clear at first. If this were another lesser author, she might be a little plain, but she would also have been nauseatingly perfect. Of course, as this is Georgette Heyer, she isn't perfect, and she is very plain. She isn't "spirited" or "willful", as one might expect either. That role is left to Adam's lost love - who is not the perfect little soul that Adam believes her to be. Jenny is shy in the normal unromantic way that real people are shy - that is she appears rude rather than charmingly bashful - who was ever charmingly bashful outside of a romantic novel? She is abrupt, a little sturdy of frame, and of gait, and uneasy in her new setting. Her working class roots mean that there are many unseen pitfalls awaiting her in aristocratic society. With time, and after many painful experiences and misunderstandings, the couple learn to live together and to achieve a contentment, although never romance. Never fear that this novel will not entertain you though. The usual complement of funny and charming minor characters are all there. Mr Chawleigh in particular is a delight - a constant thorn in Adam's sensitive flesh. I like this story because it has two believable main characters that have real faults just like the rest of us, and who struggle to make the best of the life they have been given. One of her best.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Classic Favourite
Speedy delivery of one of my favourite classics romances. A light and easy read, uncluttered by modern day psycholgy and technology. Still enjoy it after many reads .
Published 1 month ago by Peridar
romantic romances with style
If you are looking for authenticity in all matters around the nineteenth century regarding manners of the day and fashion, Georgette Heyer is a good read for you. Read more
Published 2 months ago by popeye
Surprisingly poignant
I usually love Georgette Heyer's rakes (These Old Shades, Devil's Cub, Black Sheep) but this book which offers a very different type of hero and romance has just leapt to the top... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Roman Clodia
Agood long read
A really good read.Amusing and informative 374 pages long.
A bit of History
A bit of Romance
A bit of manners
Above all take you to the Regency World.
A bit of History
A bit of Romance
A bit of manners
Above all take you to the Regency World.
Published 10 months ago by Birdie
Subtle romance
Adam, Viscount Lynton, returns from fighting in Wellington's army on the death of his father to find he has been left nothing but debts. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Damaskcat
Wise and heartwarming
One of my very favourite Heyers - and one of her most profound. How will Adam (handsome, aristocratic, kind and touchy) and Jenny (plain, middle class and practical) get on in... Read more
Published 16 months ago by bookelephant
One of her best!
This is, in my opinion, one of her best novels dealing, as it does, with how many marriages of the period would have worked (or not, as the case may be!). Read more
Published on 8 Mar 2010 by Ms. Carol Anderson
Subtle romance
Adam, Viscount Lynton, returns from fighting in Wellington's army on the death of his father to find he has been left nothing but debts. Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2010 by Damaskcat
Excellent novel, but no romance
I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Civil Contract, it is a very good novel and I heartily recommend it but this is a depressing romance story if it can be called romance at all. Read more
Published on 25 Nov 2009 by HedgingLulz
A thoughtful and thought-provoking antidote to Regency fluff.
An "anti-romantic" novel in every sense of the word, and unusually for Heyer, one in which she makes some oblique but nevertheless stringent criticisms of the aristocratic caste... Read more
Published on 10 Nov 2009 by S. Blundell
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