The Grand Sophy

Product Information

Outspoken and unafraid to stretch the edge of decorum, Miss Stanton-Lacy sizes up the household’s problems and sets about to make them right, much to the chagrin of her cousin Charles and his meddlesome fiancée Miss Wraxton, who thinks she’s a hoyden. sigh* Isn’t it the worse when you’re enjoying a book, and then out of nowhere you get the racism sucker punch? Since you have brought up Miss Wraxton’s name, I shall be much obliged to you, cousin, if you will refrain from telling my sisters that she has a face like a horse!

We honour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' continuous connection to Country, waters, skies and communities. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book, would recommend it to those looking for Jane Austen substitutes (instead of those horrid zombie parodies and sequels) and will probably read Heyer in future.

For the Chicago Sunday Tribune, "It is no small feat to make Regency London come to life, and to make its characters speak and act as did the people of that time and place, without too much quaintness or strangeness of manner. I understand the racial descriptions have been removed from some editions of the book, like Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, which seems to me a happy answer to this problem.

Since she died in the early 1970’s, her books are almost historic in their own right, and now the attitudes and assumptions have dated, too. I will tool the curricle round the streets for a few minutes, and come back to take him up when he is ready! Miss Stanton-Lacy is one of the best characters ever (just ask a certain Austen sequeler, who pretty much stole Sophy for her latest effort, turning her into a bit of a Mary Sue in the effort). We celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stories, traditions and living cultures; and we pay our respects to Elders past and present.Of course, if you look up the book on TVTropes, Sophy’s listed as a “Chessmaster,” which she is, indubitably. As others have noted, it is one thing to overlook/accept antisemitism as a product of the times in older books; however, for a novel published a mere five years after the end of WW2 to contain that kind of characterization is inexcusable. I try and re-read all my favorite Georgette Heyer books every year and as a result, my reviews really show how I have "grown" with them. Kind of like the ladies I knew at church who were convinced that they could run your life better than you ever could without realizing that it was your life. A definite new favourite with extremely high re-reading potential, I absolutely recommend everyone to pick this up as soon as possible!

Charles] turned his head to look at her, his eyes narrowed, and their expression was by no means pleasant. In extenuation, Jennifer Kloester points out that the portrayal of Goldhanger is more of "a literary caricature…whose antecedents were undoubtedly Dickens's Fagin and Shakespeare's Shylock".The review made me think about why and how I am able to “overlook” or “read around” the Goldhanger scene. Sophy ended up getting some horses a man was selling that supposedly everyone wanted, but she got there first.