skygiants

Precisely how behind I am on booklogging: Georgette Heyer's The Foundling was the book I was reading back before I moved two months ago in order to turn off my brain and forget the stress of packing. (It worked, too! THANK YOU, GEORGETTE HEYER.)

This is one of those Heyers that is really only classed as a romance because it's set in the regency and That's How You Market A Heyer. I mean, there is some sort of a romance, and it's sweet! It also takes place entirely in, oh, the last quarter of the book. The first three-quarters consist entirely of the Coming of Age of Duke Gilly the Extremely Sweet and Responsible. Gilly's main problem in life is that all of his servants have known him since he was a sickly baby and so every time he wants to do anything they basically shout "YOU'LL CATCH COLD!" in unison and make him stop.

GILLY'S DASHING COUSIN: Why don't you just tell them to shut up?
GILLY: I'd like to, but I just keep feeling like it would be irresponsible and an abuse of authority. D: D: D:
GILLY'S DASHING COUSIN: . . . you're a twenty-five-year-old Duke! In a Heyer novel! Where is all your crankiness and headstrong rebellion?
GILLY: I'd like to be cranky and headstrong and rebellious, but I'm just afraid of hurting everybody's feelings!
GILLY'S DASHING COUSIN: *facepalm*

So when the opportunity comes to do something that would be rebellious and responsible - helping another, less dashing and more hapless cousin sort out a blackmail affair! Who could object to that? - Gilly jumps on the opportunity and basically runs away from home incognito to take care of it.

EVERYONE GILLY KNOWS: *PANIC MODE* HE'LL CATCH COLD. HE'LL BE KIDNAPPED. HE'LL DIE.
GILLY'S DASHING COUSIN: . . . seriously, guys, he's twenty-five.

So Gilly goes off and has a fantastic time facing down peril ("I rescued myself without any help or anything! BEING KIDNAPPED WAS AWESOME") and staying in un-classy hotels and picking up stray teenagers in need of assistance and being ruthlessly mothered by innkeepers, and eventually towards the end falls in love with his equally quiet and responsible arranged-marriage fiancee, and it's all very endearing! It's especially endearing because Gilly's growing up does not mean he gets any less polite and sweet and responsible, he just gets better at politely and responsibly doing his own thing when necessary. If more romance novel heroes were like this, I would read more romances.

Meanwhile everyone else in the book continues to run around in panicked and occasionally accuse Gilly's dashing cousin of murdering him because he's not concerned enough about him. ("SERIOUSLY EVERYONE HE'S TWENTY-FIVE.")

My biggest complaint about the book as weighed against the rest of the Pantheon of Heyer - and it's a largeish one - is, not enough ladies! Gilly's fiancee, as mentioned, is barely there until the end, and the beautiful foundling that he finds himself having to take care of has a very clear and explicit mental age of seven (which is problematic in other ways). So it's not top-notch Heyer in that respect, but as a twentysomething coming-of-age tale I actually really liked it.