Customer Reviews

Nobody

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Aunt Harriet has offered to sponsor Caitlin and her sister, Emily for a London season. Although Emily is expected to make a good match, Caitlin is considered to be "on the shelf". She is determined to enjoy her time in London however and devotes her time to making new friends. When she makes friends with Lady Serena Kilverton she suddenly starts to move in very fashionable circles and ends up meeting the man of her dreams. Of course, the path of true love never runs smooth and he is already engaged to a rather nasty woman who is determined to marry well. In the end, things work out for the best and everyone lives happily ever after. Diana Farr has likeable characters and a sweet romance with just a touch of intrigue.

Don't believe anyone - especially on the back-page blurb - who tells you Diane Farr is "the new Georgette Heyer", or "worthy" of GH, or whatever. She isn't. Having pinched all her vocabulary, and most of her situations, from Heyer - which most Regency writers do anyway, since nobody else has undertaken the immensely specialist research of a 25-year period at the beginning of the 19th century in England that Heyer made her own - Ms Farr, unforgivably, doesn't know what to do with them. In "The Nobody" the hero Lord Kilverton and his friend Mr Montague switch from dandy's slang to proper English with no justification; Lady Lynwood uses mid-18th century expressions best left to a housemaid; and the haughty Lady Elizabeth Delacourt inaccurately, and very vulgarly, establishes a gradation for titles no aristocrat would dream of expressing. To anyone less tin-eared than Diane Farr, this is painful on the page.

Poor Georgette Heyer! The 54 wonderful books she wrote beween 1921 and 1974 have spawned an entire sub-genre, the Regency Romance. Sometimes her successors manage to retain some of the flavour of the original. Mostly, and unfortunately here, all that is left are traces of Heyer's original characters and plots (Farr herself acknowledged her debt to Heyer in another novel, in which her characters attended the ball Alverstoke goves in Heyer's "Frederica").

"The Nobody" begins with a scene straight from Heyer's "Arabella"; Montague and Kilverton's first conversation is modelled on Ferdy and Marmaduke's in "Friday's Child"; the evil cousin and his disreputable ruined uncle belong in "The Reluctant Widow"; Lady Elizabeth Delacourt is a pale version of Charles's fiancee Eugenia Wroxton in "The Grand Sophy"; etc. etc. etc. Go back to the originals; Georgette Heyer should be read, re-read and re-re-read.

Caitlin Campbell, daughter of an impoverished mere Mr, is enjoying a Season in London as the guest of her aunt, the widow of a baronet. However, although she's made friends with an earl's daughter, there are others who consider her a mere nobody. It is the consequence of hearing the Lady Elizabeth refer to her as such at a ball that Caitlin is walking home alone late one night. A strange man crashes into her, running away from some footpads, and as a ruse to evade his pursuers he grabs Caitlin and kisses her senseless.

At a subsequent entertainment, Caitlin recognises her assailant as Richard, Lord Kilverton; and to her mortification he recognises her too. He begins to tease her, and she realises just how attracted she is to him - and he to her. But Kilverton is betrothed, and to the same Lady Elizabeth who looked down her nose at Caitlin.

How can Richard and Caitlin find love, when betrothals are - for a gentleman, at any rate - as sacrosanct as marriage? Can Richard's sister Serena help at all? His irrepressible friend Ned? Or Caitlin's demure and shy sister Emily? (Plenty of secondary romances in this delightful novel!)

There is also a further issue to resolve: just why was Richard being chased in the first place, and why does he keep falling victim to accidents? Could it be that his life is in danger? And why?

Diane Farr is another Regency writer whose books I would order without question, without waiting for reviews. Her books are, without fail, witty, sparkling, romantic and very much in character for the period. She's been likened to Georgette Heyer, and with good reason. This book, her first, is a stunning debut, and deserves all the praise which has been heaped upon it....

I can thoroughly recommend Diane Farr, and if you like this book you'll certainly like her others!

What a great debut novel from Diane Farr! Its fun, witty, there is sparkling conversation, and wonderful little historical touches which don't intrude into the story and good story line to boot. I think Farr has got a natural talent for writing really good mass character scenes - the opening scene to this book which is around the Breakfast table was hilarious.

The story is about heroine Caitlin, or Catie who is propelled into London society but does not make a hit at all - in fact she is referred to rather scathingly as a nobody - however a chance encounter in the darkened street with a rakish gentleman changes everything. The man turns out to be Lord Kilverton and there is a definitely a spark between these two, but he has been rash enough to betroth himself to serpent tongued and socially high-brow Serena.

I loved the story and Farr's light handling of it. Mind you, I've never enjoyed laboured angsting or modern heroines dressed up as Regency Misses who pepper some romances. I think Farr captures the age and the humour of the sort of Regency I like. Light, good-humoured fun - and with a hero and heroine I really enjoyed.

Ms. Farr is a treasure. She knows the regency and, even more wonderful, her characters seem actually to be from the period. They think and feel and behave in accord with the rules and preoccupations of that long ago space in time. And they fall so delightfully in love.

Although the plot is rather standard Regency fare, the dialogue is quite funny and entertaining. It takes a while to get used to the characters' strange way of speaking (every other sentence seems to end with an exclamation mark!), but the great bantering and the nice pacing work very well. Strongly recommended.

After struggling through some of the worst Regency romances (by Hendrickson, Heath, to name just a few) this was truly a refreshing and wonderful book. Thank you Ms. Farr for researching the era properly, for having an actual plot befitting this era, and especially for your sense of humor so well portrayed by your principal characters! This "tongue-in-cheek" style was delightfully humorous but didn't cross the line into just plain meanness as some other supposedly funny writers have done! Please give us MORE!! And More!! Everybody who likes Regencys MUST read this one!!

THANK YOU!!!!

Don't usually like American regencies but a friend insisted I read this. I thought it was great. Looking forward to more from this author.

Truly an awful, torturous book! The very first scene drags on for a whole long chapter. I don't think that the author knows how to write, but she does know how to rip-off Georgette Heyer. The author tries very hard to imitate instead of trying to develop a different style, and so succeeds in producing a book that is bland and boring. This book is literally all talk and no action -- the dialogues run on for looong pages. If your looking for originality, characters and an actual plot, this is not the book.

I'm still trying to catch up on my sleep from the shortened nights staying up to finish this book after putting the children to bed. It's a great story with a little of something for everyone. I can't wait for her next book!