OMG they were first cousins... | The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer | Book Review [CC]

In which I review of Georgette Heyer's 1959 novel The Unknown Ajax, my first dip into classic Regency romance fiction.
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[@imsathyasekar]

The cousin romance factor is a fairly common trope in Heyer's books. Yes, it is fairly weird today but I think it was common then, and it's not all that rare even today in my country, India😊
I also like to read Heyer more as comedies than romances. Obviously, the proportion of each varies across books. Some like "Venetia" and "Arabella" are witty romances while others like "Friday's Child", "Cotillion" and "Federica" abound more in comedy of manners, absolutely sparkling, around a romance which almost feels incidental. I definitely prefer her second category of books.

[@shahmanz]

Nothing wrong with marrying a cousin

[@still-reading]

Fun review, and it's so good to have you back! I really missed you.
This is one of my favorite Heyer books, it's just so fun. Hugo is great and I think the last scene in the kitchen is hilarious!
I prefer Heyer's amusing stories to her straight romances. Other top reads for me are The Grand Sophie and Frederica. I love the witty dialogue and sometimes silly situations. For straight romance I can recommend A Civil Contract or The Nonesuch.

[@francesca234]

For Heyer, one of the things I adore about her work is the layered story lines. She almost always has multiple things happening at once. You can actually track the stories, or character types, she had as background or B plots that she found so interesting she pulled them back in as main plots in other books.
I also never realized the amount of time she gives to male characters in her works. I have never read it with this in mind, but I think you will continue to run into that through out her work. Quite often the side characters are some of her most engaging pieces and you have a few that show up in multiple books.

[@SpinstersLibrary]

I'm definitely going to read more of her work!

[@nedmerrill5705]

I've put _The Unknown Ajax_ on my TBR for next year. Nice review.

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Thank you! Hope you enjoy it.

[@LedgerAndLace]

I've read one of her books (I forget which one) and I think she really tried to write like Jane Austen. She's on my TBR along with so many others. Thanks for the review, Claudia!

[@larryyonce]

Enjoyed your review 👍

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Thank you!

[@bumblebramblebranch]

I think Anthea means flower in (ancient) Greek so maybe that's why the character is called that

[@SpinstersLibrary]

it's a Greek mythological name but very much unheard of as a first name in the Regency

[@bumblebramblebranch]

Yes but as the title is using Ajax I mean :)

[@shahmanz]

1. Cousin marriage is just fine.
2. Its rather romantic I think. Read it again, this book grows on you.

[@iacmeiowaassociationofcoun8945]

Venetia is Heyer's most romantic novel.

[@shahmanz]

One more comparison between Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. Austen is dry dry dry. Heyer is funny, down to earth and easy to relate to.

[@shahmanz]

Marrying a cousin in 2024 is also just fine!

[@kathleenwagner7444]

Certainly they were first cousins. As soon as the Church of England was established and it was no longer necessary to obtain ecclesiastical permission to marry within forbidden degrees of consanguinity, the English started to marry their first cousins like they were a bunch of Hapsburgs. Easy enough to see why: it kept the money in the family. That it also concentrated genetic anomalies did not become apparent until many generations afterward, the situation reaching its culminating stage of disaster when Queen Victoria married her first cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg. They most unwisely continued to marry their children and grandchildren to their cousins, thus successfully spreading hemophilia into almost every royal house in Europe.

[@shahmanz]

Many of Heyer books are about women. Friday's child, Arabella, devil's cub, ........

[@shahmanz]

What's wrong with the names? You're rather over-critical