Wednesday, August 15, 2007

The influence of Georgette Heyer, Part 5 - Fenella Miller

Here Fenella Miller talks about her love for Georgette Heyer.

"I was about eight or nine and had read through the children's library and was starting on the adult shelves. A helpful librarian told me to try Georgette Heyer and Lesley Charteris (The Saint). This must have been in the early '50s and Heyer was producing new books all the time. I read them avidly - as well as Lorna Hill and any horsy stories I could find.
I've loved Georgette Heyer ever since and although some don't read as well as they did, I have most of them on my bookshelves. It was reading her books that begun my love of things floaty and romantic! I like to think of my books as a mixture of Heyer/Austen andCornwall- all my heroes are written with Sean Bean as Sharpe in the back of my mind."

Fenella's latest Regency is Lord Thurston's Challenge.
When Charlotte Carstairs and her young sister and brother are orphaned by the death of their mother she has no choice but to seek out her estranged grandfather, Lord Thurston. However, Major Jack Griffin, a disfigured and dissolute Napoleonic war veteran, has inherited the title and is determined not to allow Charlotte and her family to remain at Thurston. Not wishing to appear uncaring he issues an impossible challenge. Charlotte can remain if she is able to improve the dilapidated house and poor estate, which are in ruins because all the money was lost in a shipping disaster. Charlotte is determined to stay and equally determined to persuade Lord Thurston to mend his ways and take a proper interest in his property. But it is not her intention that he takes an interest in her as well and as they grow closer sinister forces are working to ruin their plans. Can they unmask the murderous plotters before they lose everything?

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