• Book Reviews,  New Releases,  Silver Fork Novels

    Reading the Regency — Almack’s

    I’m writing this on Book Day.  Lord of the Rakes is in stores an online today, so naturally I’m all about that.  (Note: If you haven’t noticed elsewhere on this page, you can read an exerpt and order your copy here.) But I’m still all about reading, and my love of really, really old books.  Today’s book is ALMACK’S, by Marianne Spencer Stanhope Hudson and published by Saunders and Otley in 1826. This is one of the famous (or infamous) three volume novels.  When it came out, the book created a massive sensation, because it exposed (or purported to expose) the secret system by which the lady patronesses — those…

  • Book Reviews,  New Releases,  Silver Fork Novels

    Reading the Regency — Gretna Green in Novel Form

    I’ve developed a new book addiction. I’ve always liked old books.  Really old books.  I admit it.  I learned to read out of the Wizard of Oz, grew up on Alice in Wonderland and E. Nesbitt and company.  As an adult, I discovered Bronte, Austen, Gaskell, and, of course, Shakespere.  What I didn’t know until recently was how many contemporaries Jane Austen had when it came to writing lively, witty romances. The group name for the books were “Silver Fork novels,” as they frequently, but not always, featured noble families behaving badly. Okay, maybe they weren’t all of them quite as good as Miss Austen’s work, but a number of…