The Grand Sophy
Sophy arrives at the Rivenhall household with a monkey. She is not the shy, retiring girl that her cousins had been led to expect. She's exuberant, clever and resourceful and quickly sets the household on its ear. If it isn't publicly racing horses, it's setting up assignations for her cousin and her unsuitable beau or rescuing another cousin from a loan shark. And she does it all with a cheerful determination that makes this story a winner 60 years after its publication. Although it begins with an interminably dull conversation between Sophy s father and aunt, once Sophy enters the picture, Clare Wille is in her element. Her Sophy brings sunshine to the stage merely by her presence in the scene. Her joyful disposition and quick mind means she sees a solution to every problem, even, and perhaps especially, when that solution will drive her cousin Charles past the end of his reason. Wille shows off [her] vocal range with Spanish Marquessas; every age of person and station in life, including a very memorable gentleman with a cold; and all the time Sophy with a smile in her voice. The hilarious courtship of her cousin Charles, which requires eliminating his current prune-faced fiancee, is what makes Heyer the grand master of Regency Romance. Recommended for all fiction collections. --Jodi Israel, SoundCommentaryThis is a fine performance by Clare Wille, reading a sensitive abridgement ofThe Grand Sophy. The generously built pistol-packing Sophy is many people's favourite Georgette Heyer character; certainly her ingenious ways of getting out of apparently disastrous situations is unequalled. This is the fifth of the uniformly fine Naxos AudioBooks abridgements of Heyer; there is also an interview with Wille on the Naxos website that gives intriguing insights into the art of narration. --Christina Hardyment - The Times--This text refers to theAudio CDedition.