Rakes' Ransom

I am a long time Barbara Metzger fan and have collected most if not all of her books. However, I had not read this one before and on a recent visit to California found a nice copy in a UBS. Wonderful find!

The story of young Jacelyn Trevain's mock engagement to the wordly (and much older - he is 32) Leigh, Earl of Claibourne was fun to read and reminded me vaguely of Horry and Rule in Heyer's A Convenient Marriage. For Jacelyn is just such a troublesome girl who is up to any "rig and row" going and passionate in defending her love of animals and hatred of cruelty (hunting and cock fighting). She rides astride and is ready to engage in adventures. Claibourne is a rake in the process of reforming and is clearly infatuated with 17 year old Jacelyn and ready to protect her and help her out of scrapes. As an aside, this early effort showed a good study of Heyer and, in particular, Heyer's stock of Regency slang.

My criticisms, however, stop me giving this 5 stars - I'd like to give it 4.5 but sadly am unable to. Here are some of the problems. Firstly, the book is probably too long and could have been tightened up a bit. Sometimes I wanted the action to move on a bit quicker and there were an awful lot of secondary characters to keep track of. Second, although this won't bother some people, others of us do mind when titles are got wrong repeatedly. This is something that I suppose may be due to the fact that this is an early effort by this very accomplished and stylish author. Thirdly, and finally, the ending was not well done. Things were wrapped up rather abruptly but not entirely satisfactorily and I was left with a doubt about the future success of the forthcoming marriage of Jacelyn and Claibourne.

All in all, I would recommend this book, especially to fans of the author. It's a good read but there are a few little niggles that stopp me saying this is a DIK or 5 star read. It is, I think, always rewarding to read the very earliest efforts of treasured writers in order to see their starting point. It is clear that Metzger started off from the high ground and she has, in my view, kept to it ever since.

OK, so it's not Jane Austen, but I do love Barbara Metzger's stories. She gets her characters into, and out of, such wonderful predicaments, and I enjoy meeting them all. She writes with humor and, unlike her contemporary Edith Layton, uses short sentences that keep the action moving. Just enough "history" to make you think your knowledge of Regency England is spot on, even if most of what you know is culled from other novels about the time.