Cotillion (Regency Romances)

Georgette Heyer is my favorite romance author. Cotillion is a fine example of her Regency period romances with a spirited heroine deep in innocent plots and a fine cast of supporting characters well-drawn.

First and most importantly, the formatting for the Kindle edition* is just atrocious. Truly horrible. Almost enough to make me stop reading. I was entertained enough that I kept going but it was not an easy read.

Second, the book - this was only the second Heyer Regency romance that I've read and I think I should have waited to read more of her other works first. This is much more of a satirical take on her own writing than a straight ahead romance. Normally, I love those kind of books, however I never really connected with any of the characters. If I had to pick one, I guess I would choose Freddy, although is inability to talk in complete sentences was frustrating and his constant use of slang was off putting. I'm sure this was all part of the satirical bent of the novel, precisely why this shouldn't be your second Heyer read. Unless, of course, you are very well versed in Regency romances before coming to Heyer. Then, you will probably love it.

I will definitely keep reading Heyer and will, maybe one day, return to Cotillion to see if it improves with subsequent reads.

* Is there more than one Kindle edition? the store really, really needs to enable Kindle owners to review their books on the device and to then upload it to the store through Whispernet. That way, we can review the specific edition instead of lumping it in with all the other reviews of multiple bindings of the same book. I would give the Kindle edition one star and the book itself 3.5.

Cotillion was a lighthearted romp, full of humor and plot twists as the heroine learned to navigate the high fashion world of Regency London. I laughed out loud at some of the quips, and enjoyed following her escapades right down to the last sentence.

KINDLE REVIEW

I first read these books from my mother's library (and many of them were from my grandmother) and always loved them for the lively historical romps they are. I looked forward to reading these on my Kindle, but the 4 books I purchased all have serious errors, rendering them almost unreadable.

Dialog runs together without spacing, making it almost impossible to tell who is speaking, paragraphs run together (and given Heyer's frequent use of paragraphs which are more than a page long anyway, that's painful) and in sections the page formatting (no matter what the type size) consists of a full line of text followed by a single hanging word.

I probably won't return the books because of my love of the contents, but I'm very disappointed in the store and the publisher, and will check samples of future releases before I pay for them.

After hearing great things about this author, I was very excited to read the book. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't at all what I expected. I thought it would be more romantic and I thought the plot would be a bit tighter. I have seen several reviewers here say that it is actually better to start with another of the author's works, so I think I will try one of those.

I normally don't read romance books. I like suspense- thriller etc....but it was free and I read it on my kindle and truly enjoyed reading it. I will read anything for free but normally don't enjoy all of them not sure if I would pay more than $5 to read it though unless you really like romantic time period pieces.

A cute historical romance, and well written. It was hard for me to get into because I couldn't identify with any of the characters - they are all rather vapid and self-centered. Nonetheless, still a good story.

I LOVE Georgette Heyer and have read her historical romances over and over, including Cotillion. However, for me, this book ranks at the bottom of the list of historical romances Georgette Heyer has written. She has others far better. If this is your first time reading a book by her, don't stop with this one.

Don't be fooled by the pretty Sourcebooks covers--someone did an awful job transferring this to Kindle. It's full of formatting problems, making the conversations extremely difficult to read, which is a shame, since the story itself was very charming and hilarious. The quality on the Kindle version is equivalent to the free public domain book. I wouldn't complain if it were a free book, but for $8 this was absolutely unacceptable.

I will credit the book with sticking to the jargon and scenery of the time, witty and comical banter, and character development. However, in so sticking with its time I often didn't understand what was being said, and the hero often didn't put a subject in his sentences which I found quite awkward reading. Moreover, I thought the the bulk of the book rested on the heroine fixing everyone else's relationships and precious few scenes were paid to her own. No real quality time is spent between the hero and heroine except in the beginning when they agreed upon the fake engagement. I was expecting their romance to unfold amidst ballrooms and other social engagements whereat they would be forced to show society how happy they were with one another, etc. I thought that the scenes with Jack would have been a little bit more satisfying. But I was sorely disappointed when not only was this not the case, but the only real dedication to their romance was the last page. I thought it was poorly done that Heyer put more thought and pages to side romances than the main characters'.

What's more is that I didn't really see the romance between the hero and heroine. In a nut shell the hero was nice to her the whole time, helped her with her problems, and ended up being smarter than everyone gave him credit for. Regardless, there was no mention of his blossoming affection for the heroine nor hers of him other than being surprised at his intelligence or kindness. No blushes, no racing hearts, nothing. So the romance part of this romance book really fell flat.

This is my first Heyer book and so if you've always been a Heyer fan, then this book may be right for you. However, this book is worlds different from my usual romance plot/characters/dialogue and for me, it's not for the better.