Georgette Heyer - Sylvester

Endowed with rank, wealth and elegance, Sylvester, Duke of Salford, posts into Wiltshire to discover if the Honorable Phoebe Marlow will meet his exacting requirements for a bride. If he does not expect to meet a tongue-tied stripling wanting both manners and conduct, then he is intrigued indeed when his visit causes Phoebe to flee her home. They meet again on the road to London, where her carriage has come to grief in the snow. Yet Phoebe, already caught in one imbroglio, now knows she soon could be well deep in another ...

Comment: This is the second book I read by this author and the first romance. I didn't particularly like the mystery I've read before, but this romance is witty, funny and the dialogues are very smart.

Sylvester is a very important duke and is used to others to see him like that. To soem he may appear arrogant but he only sees a natural way of things. Phoebe is a tomboy girl whose step mother wants to see married and out of her hands. These two apparently have notjing in common and the reader is slowly convinced of that, but as in all romances we know something is about to happen. While denying the will to marry Sylvester despite all his status and money, Phoebe starts to be confortable with him because there are no expectations. Slowly they become friends. Until that book comes out...

I was positively engrossed in this story. I didn't have trouble concentrating like it happenned with the other book, and the dialogues were very welld one. There are so many funny and witty things in the character's speeches that I found myself laughing with them, it was that good.

Two things I had problems with, personally, not that it was an issue with the book itself: the language was much more thought and worked than in any other regency book I've read. I understand this is one of the author's strongest points but I guess it takes time for the reader to get used to it...I suppose it was one of my issues with the first book.

Another thing was the end, I'd hope for more explanation on why some things were the way they were, but it suited the story's tone so I can't complain that much.

I'll certainly read more romances by this author, hopefully they will taste as good as this one. But Sylvester will always be a favourite of mine.