Beauvallet: Gossip, scandal and an unforgettable Regency romance

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For several years Georgette Heyer has been proving herself a master of romantic fancy-dress fiction. The dashing reckless privateer Nicholas Beauvallet has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth the First for his daring adventures for England!

It starts out a little slow (although I did really enjoy Beauvallet's visit to his family in the first part) but it picks up half-way through and becomes a fun swashbuckling adventure.ABOUT THIS BOOK: Opening with battle between a great Spanish galleon and Nick Beauvallet's little Venture, this romance of Elizabethan days tells how Nick falls in love with the enemy, braves danger for her sake, wins her stubborn heart and carries her off through a thousand perils. The main part of the book tells of Beauvallet's journey into Spain and his adventures to carry Dominica away with him. This certainly wasn't my favourite Heyer novel so far, given the hero's grabby hands and ego, but at least the heroine was a match for him in many ways, and it is a fun set up. This is not a silver fork novel, more of an adventure in the Geoffrey Farnol tradition, based on real events. For me the whole book unfolds as if I were watching an old Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power swashbuckler (in Technicolor, of course).

Brave deeds of derring-do, espionage and love in the Elizabethan Golden age (prior to Elizabeth's war with Spain) set our English pirate Nick Beauvallet and our Spanish heroine Dona Dominica on a wild, romantic ride. There he meets the young Chevalier Claude de Guise, on a mission to deliver a secret message to the Spanish King. The first Georgette Heyer novel I have read which was not set either in the Regency or Georgian periods, Beauvallet is a swashbuckling Elizabethan adventure, and provided me a few hours of lighthearted reading. As for me, if I'm reading a historical novel, I want it to be historical in more than merely clothing.

He succeeds because he dares and because, like the deceptions achieved by Robin and Prue in the Masqueraders and Kit in False Colors, what Nick does is unexpected and, therefore, it's unlooked for.

Kratovo, where Georgette lived from 1928 to 1930 and where she wrote her sixth historical novel, Beauvallet. The endpaper and frontispiece of the American first edition of Beauvallet published in February1930. Then most of the story is how he gets a fake identity, travels to Spain, gets captured, escapes, and what he does when he finds Dominique. If you love thrilling swashbuckling adventures with witty dialogue and a true romance at the centre you will love this book.

Ronald’s practical support when she was writing books such as Beauvallet and later The Conqueror also meant that he had a legitimate stake in his wife’s work. Her first novel, The Black Moth, published in 1921, was written at the age of seventeen to amuse her convalescent brother; her last was My Lord John. reprint, [viii], 244pp, salmon pink cloth lettered in maroon at spine and upper board, uniform edition, pictorial dustwrapper (unattrib. Author of over fifty books, Georgette Heyer is the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists, making the Regency period her own.

I should acknowledge that things did pick up once Beauvallet got his ass to Spain, but it wasn't a true take off? She is in a pitiable position: having grown up in the relative freedom of Santiago's more relaxed social customs, her independent spirit will find no welcome in Spain where stifling rules and etiquette prevail for women. With the blessing of the Queen, this friend and former associate of Sir Walter Raleigh sails the seas in his ship The Venture with the intention of plundering any Spanish ships that come his way.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. His men trust his "madness" because it has been profitable for them and they know from experience that he will never lead them into disaster. Well worth a read, especially for Georgette Heyer fans or readers interested in the Elizabethan Age. Although perhaps best known (and collected) for her Regency Romances, which were written with great attention to historical detail, she also wrote thrillers and detective fiction. Two other characters that really stand out are Joshua, Beauvallet's valet, and Doña Beatrice, Dominica's aunt.