I was going to do this awesome dress thing (see below) when I came across this. Oh. My God. I busted a gut. Here it is in six parts. I’ve only embedded the first, but have given you links to the other 5.
You MUST watch this. Really.
Although many of these gowns and photographs should be familiar to anyone who has studied Regency fashion, did you know there’s an entire YouTube Channel for this?
Swoon.
Which are your favorite laugh-out-loud Regencies?
Here are ten of mine, listed in approximate chronological order of publication:
— PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, by Jane Austen
— NORTHANGER ABBEY, by Jane Austen
— THE CONVENIENT MARRIAGE, by Georgette Heyer
— FRIDAY’S CHILD, by Georgette Heyer
— IMPRUDENT LADY, by Joan Smith
— SWEET AND TWENTY, by Joan Smith
— THE PLAYFUL LADY PENELOPE, by Kasey Michaels
— AN EARLY ENGAGEMENT, by Barbara Metzger
— MINOR INDISCRETIONS, by Barbara Metzger
— THE IDEAL BRIDE, by Nonnie St. George
Which funny Regencies do you like? Which do you think are the funniest?
Which funny Regencies do you think succeed the best as novels (or romances)???
By the way, here are four very different covers for Georgette Heyer’s FRIDAY’S CHILD! (Aren’t covers weird???)
Cara
Cara King, www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER — in stores now!
As you may have guessed from reading some of my previous posts, most of my favorite romances are of the dark, angsty variety. I’m a sucker for drama and deep emotion! But I also sometimes have things going on in my life where a bit more–lightness is called for. A good laugh. This past week has been a long one, and it definitely called for a little reading-on-the-light-side. So, I combed once again through my keeper shelves in search of favorite humorous reads.
Now, by “humourous” I don’t mean not-as-well-written, because, IMO, it’s a lot harder to write “funny” than it is to write “angsty” (as one of my old drama profs always said “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.”) Humor is also extremely subjective. What is drop-dead hilarious to one person leaves another one just annoyed. I grew up in a family where Monty Python was considered the peak of humor–it’s not funny unless it has a silly song somewhere in it. And this is still the kind of humor I still prefer, witty, odd, a bit on the goofball side–like when the Pythons dress up like British housewives and talk in falsetto. This can be hard to capture in a novel, just as (again IMO) slapstick is well nigh impossible. But funny conversation, ridiculous situations, mistaken identities–all these can be terrific.
These are a few favorite funnies I found on that keeper shelf. A couple interesting things–I don’t keep nearly as many light books as dark ones, and there were far more trads than historicals. But these are all titles I loved.
1) MY LADY’S SECRET by Cindy Holbrook (she had several funny books, as I recall, but for some reason this is the only one on my shelf. I probably loaned the rest to my deadbeat cousin and never got them back)
2) THE PIRATE NEXT DOOR by Jennifer Ashley (who knew pirates–aside from Johnny Depp–could be so much fun?)
3) MISTLETOE MAHEM by Kate Huntington (I adore funny Christmas Regencies, and this one is a gem. Sophisticated, clotheshorse heroine who doesn’t much like rugrats falls for a man who is guardian to a slew of them. Holiday hijinks ensue.)
4) Several by the queen of Regency comedy, Barbara Metzger, including MINOR INDISCRETIONS, SAVED BY SCANDAL, and SNOWDROPS AND SCANDALBROTH
5) WHAT CHLOE WANTS by Emma Jensen (bounciest heroine EVER, but it’s cute)
6) MUTINY AT ALMACK’S by Judith Lansdowne
7) THE IDEAL BRIDE by Nonnie St. George
8) MISTRESS by Amanda Quick (plus a few others–this was just the one that stuck in my mind)
Now, I’m curious–what makes you laugh? What makes you groan in abject annoyance? And what are some favorite funny reads (so I can go look for them)? (And this is my newest cover, transformed into Hello Kitty in Luv by the wonders of photoshop. Hopefully good for a laugh)