Review: A delightful Regency gem.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 21, 2013
This is the best inexpensive recently written Regency romance I've read since Miranda Davis'sThe Duke's Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge, Though Not in That Order (The Horsemen of the Apocalypse Series).  Besides the charming story line, this Darcy book has going for it the fact that care was taken in its editing.  It has few punctuation and spelling errors and has an admirable style of writing that takes you back to the days of Georgette Heyer or Joan Smith.  And I believe it's Norma Darcy's debut work.The author herself says on her website that her goal is "a return to the lighthearted fun that...has been lost in the pursuit of passion".  She has been very successful in meeting that goal in this book.  The romance is skillfully drawn, with no consummation until marriage, yet the reader can feel the attraction and respect growing between the H and h, and that's something I appreciate much more than those instant-jump-into-bed HRs so popular today.  (OK, so I'm a fuddy-duddy.  What can I say?)The heroine is 21-year-old Lady Louisa Munsford and the hero is 31-year-old Jasper Lansdowne, the Duke of Malvern.  There had been a longtime agreement that Malvern would marry a Munsford daughter.  The eldest, Sophie, married elsewhere and the next-eldest, Emma, is betrothed at the beginning of the story, so Malvern proposes to youngest daughter Louisa.Louisa is immature, spirited, headstrong and unrealistically romantic and feels that Malvern is dull, staid and lacking in passion so she refuses his proposal and from there the story gathers its momentum.  Malvern needs to convince Louisa that a man who behaves like a gentleman is not necessarily lacking in passion.  Louisa, for her part, has a lot of growing up to do.There are interesting secondaries, all pretty well developed.  In particular we have Louisa's sister Emma, Malvern's best friend Marcus Ashford and Marcus's younger brother Nicolas.  Nicolas is at the sowing-wild-oats, passionate, rather appealing-to-women stage of life and serves as a foil to Malvern's more mature character as we have a bit of a romantic triangle of Nicolas, Louisa and Malvern.  This is developed humorously and cleverly by Darcy.There's also the hint of something between Emma and Marcus Ashford but we'll have to wait for another Darcy book for that to be developed.  That's something to look forward to.  Darcy's next book will be THE BLUESTOCKING AND THE RAKE, coming soon (?) and that will feature the Earl of Marcham who is mentioned in this book as a very rakish character.  I hope Emma and Marcus will also be included in this next book or that they will get a book of their own to follow it.  I know I'll be on the lookout for more Darcy Regencies.(As to this one, it is well written , humorous, romantic and a very enjoyable read.  So why didn't I give it 5 stars?  Well, I just wasn't all that fond of the heroine.  She was a tad too immature for my taste and I couldn't quite see why Malvern had been attracted to her for so many years.  That was enough to bring this from a love-it book to a liked-it-a-lot book.)