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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Last in the "Six Sisters" set of six regency romances, 12 Oct 2007
This is the concluding volume in a series of six regency romances, each of which has as its central character one of the six daughters of the Reverend Armitage, a warm-hearted but reprobate "squarson" who would rather hunt than preach. It tells the story of the youngest daughter, Frederica.
The full series is:
1) Minerva
2) The Taming of Annabelle
3) Deirdre and Desire
4) Daphne
5) Diana the Huntress
6) Frederica in Fashion
Marion Chesney is a prolific writer of Regency romances: she also writes mystery stories under the name M.C. Beaton. Her regency novels vary considerably in sophistication: even her simplest ones are at least slightly more challenging than most of the trashy regency romances on the market, while her best romances are considerably better than the average for the genre but still a rung downmarket from Georgette Heyer or several rungs down from Jane Austen.
Following the successful marriages of all her sisters, and the death of their mother, and her twin brothers departure to Oxford, Frederica becomes convinced that she has nothing to look forward to but a boring and lonely life at the vicarage. She persuades herself that she is not the beauty that all her sisters are, and is horrified at the prospect of her father's proposed marriage to the scheming maid, Sarah.
So Frederica decides to run away from home and get a job as a chambermaid. She secures a posting at the establishment of the Duke of Pembury which lasts a few days, until a friend of the Armitage family arrives and she is discovered. Amazingly, the family manage to hush the story up without a scandal, and Frederica is taken to London for a season. But there is still a final series of madcap events to go before the story is concluded.
Like the others in the series, the story includes most of the classic Regency Romance cliches.
These include the wilful, naive, beautiful young heroine, the handsome hero with whom she at first gets off on entirely the wrong footing, the proud but penniless aristocrats, the heroine's scheming rival, servants with a heart of gold, a villain hiding behind a mask of respectability, various social successes and disasters in front of the 'ton' (high society) at formal balls, the heroine makes a complete fool of herself and is dramatically abducted but rescued by the hero, etc, etc, etc ...
A few things lift this book above the general run of regency romances. The first is that it does not take itself too seriously and has some good use of humour.
The second is that where Chesney gives her sympathetic characters views or attitudes which are essential to keep the regard of modern readers but which were by no means universal at the time, such as a belief in education for women or a distaste for slavery, she is open about the fact. For example, the Armitage family have a horror of slavery: the slave trade was banned in 1807 precisely because there really were people in George III's Britain who did detest the slave trade, but this was not unanimous. Chesney explains this, adds why the heroine and her sisters were among those who did despise slavers, and integrates it well into the story.
A third strength of this little sextet is the character development throughout the six books. The reprobate vicar, the Reverend Armitage, his friend, Squire Radford, and long-suffering curate, Mr Pettifor, and several other members of the Armitage vicarage staff, including the the coachman, John Summers, and the scheming, ambitious and lecherous maid, Sarah, are all gradually developed through the stories. Younger sisters in the first five books appear as minor characters and give hints of what is to come, while the elder sisters, particularly Minerva, appear from time to time in books two to six, mostly to help out the heroine of the moment. This reduces the irritating impression given by many romance stories that the only interesting part of a character's life is between puberty and marriage.
As with many of her novels, Chesney throws in little nuggets of real historical information throughout the story. Some readers will enjoy these: in some of her books other readers may find them poorly integrated into the narrative and that they can come over as lecturing. I didn't have that problem with this series.
Bottom line, if you have read and enjoyed some of Marion Chesney's regency romances such as the "Daughters of Mannerling," "A House for the Season" or "Poor Relation" series, you will very probably like this one. It is definately a step up from the "School for Manners" or "Travelling Matchmaker" books, or from the majority of modern books in the genre.
However, it is still not in the same league as Georgette Heyer, let alone Jane Austen.
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by Marion Chesney
