Bath Tangle (Regency Romances)

Imagine breaking your engagement with a man you thought was too stubborn and then finding him as your "trustee" after your father's death. What could be worse? How about your cousin getting your home?

Georgette Heyer first wrote this story in 1955 and Sourcebooks is republishing it. I've read her work before in the mystery genre, but this was my first romance I've read by her. She does an wonderful job with romances, also.

Ms. Heyer is excellent at creating well thought out plots and capturing your attention right at the beginning of her stories. Her main character, Serene, is a head-strong, independent woman, who doesn't care what people think of her riding hunters or taking walks unchaperoned. Her stepmother is much more meek and mild and is scandalized by her behavior. These two dissimilar women are forced to live together in the era of the early 1800's. Ms. Heyer does an excellent job of showing how they drove each other nuts because they dealt with things differently.

This author always makes her characters' relationships complex and full of moral conundrums. No one simply falls in love and marries. They have to overcome hardships, work their way through social customs, and sometimes admit they have made a mistake.

This story was great fun to read because everyone got engaged to the wrong person. This would really make a good play. It's a comedy of errors, full of proud characters that are determined to live life their own way, and it turns out to be a house of cards.

The cards really start falling about three quarters through the story and I couldn't wait to see just how she ended this. I felt like I knew her characters well enough to know who should be matched with whom, but I had no idea how she was going to make it work. Ms. Heyer was astute enough to add one more twist in at the end that made me smile.

The author uses a lot of words in her stories and they bog me down a bit in my reading. However, her stories are always attractive enough I keep reading and really enjoy what she does. After all, in the time of the Regency era, things didn't move very swiftly...

The best part is that Sourcebooks is reprinting all her books, so you have even more opportunities to read her tales. They are well worth the read.

Originally posted at The Long and Short of It Romance Reviews.

The story opens around 1816 with two young women trying to deal with the recent sudden death of the Earl of Spenborough -- the most important male in both their lives. As the strong-minded only child of an earl, and a very wealthy man besides, Lady Serena functioned not only as her father's hostess and estate manager but as his substitute son. Athletic and filled with energy on all occasions, as well as an avid follower of the political scene, she's the complete opposite of Lady Fanny, the young widow (younger than Serena), who is far more ladylike in the approved way. In fact, Fanny generally was happy to let her stepdaughter continue to run things for her father. But the author makes it clear that Serena isn't automatically superior to her friend. She's quite used to command, for instance -- but only in regard to the upper, "executive" servants. She has no notion of how they actually do their jobs. Fanny, on the other hand, having been brought up in a far less wealthy household, is quite at home discussing linen repair with the housekeeper and explaining new recipes to the cook. The back-story to the plot is that half a dozen years earlier, Serena had jilted the Marquis of Rotherham to whom she had been betrothed. The two of them "just wouldn't suit" -- but they've continued a tumultuous relationship right up to the present. And now it develops that the late earl made Rotherham his principal executor, with the power to withhold his daughter's huge inheritance unless and until she marries someone of whom the Marquis approves. Of course, this enrages Serena. The two young women move into the dower house on the estate but after a few months chafing under the enforced isolation demanding by mourning etiquette, they take a house in Bath for six months. And there Serena runs into Hector, recently departed from the army and the man with whom she had been head-over-heels in love with when she was nineteen. Will she be able to curb her flaming, flaring personality for him? Will he be able to survive her? And, as always in Heyer's novels, there are several other supporting and intertwining plots, all of which come to a head in the last chapter.

Actually, had Serena been a real person, I wouldn't have cared for her. She's far too self-absorbed, selfish, and egotistical. Fanny is certainly aware of this and even tries to explain it (i.e., apologize for it) to Hector. Most other people have no existence for Serena and certainly their feelings and opinions have no meaning at all for her. She does exactly as she chooses in all things because, being wealthy and titled and spoiled, she always has. I don't find that sort of personality admirable at all. Then there's the Marquis, who is even more self-centered and is a tyrant and a bully besides. High title and great wealth notwithstanding, he's certainly no gentleman -- but, the English class system being what it is, he gets what he wants, no matter how it impacts on anyone else. The author seems to think all this should be considered amusing, but I don't see it. If you order Heyer's three dozen Regency romances from best to (relatively speaking) worst, this one would fall right in the middle of the lower half.

What a delightful mess! This was a lovely comedy of errors and relationships gone awry. A Masterpiece written by the queen of the genre. Ivo was absolutely splendid. I loved his dialogue. Hector was a trifle insipid, I prefer my military men to have a bit more bottom. Serena was epic. She was tomboy without being full-time hoyden, a distinction that is very subtle and difficult to achieve. Fanny was a delightful darling and such a pattern-card. The grandmother was a scene-stealer. The plot moved along at a spanking pace and I greatly enjoyed the suspense of the ending - not so much who would end up with who, but how the right couples could contrive to get together. A marvelous read. Very very highly recommended for all Regency Romance lovers.

Lady Serena Carlow is beside herself with anger when she discovers that her late father (the Earl of Spenborough) has placed her squarely under the Marquess of Rotherham's thumb. For the late earl has made Rotherham the sole trustee of his only daughter's wealth, and Lady Serena will have to gain Rotherham's approval for everything from frivolous purchases to permission to marry. For most young women of sense, such a will would be trying, but for the passionate and fiery tempered Lady Serena, the state of affairs is truly intolerable, esp since she and Rotherham were once engaged to be married before she broke off the engagement in a fit of anger. Soon, however, even the indignity of having to cope with Rotherham as a guardian is nothing compared to having to watch her cousin assume her dead father's place. Hoping to seek some relief from the fit of doldrums that she's sunk into, Lady Serena proposes that she and her young stepmother, Fanny, go to Bath. Hopefully a change of scene and new friends and divertments will restore both their flagging spirits. What neither lady counted on was how the reappearance of one lady's old beau would so entangle things...
Truth to tell, "Bath Tangle" may not be everyone's cup of tea. Lady Serena's quick and fiery temper and her high-handed ways could really set one's back up -- and Rotherham is no different! Certainly, Lady Serena is the type of heroine I usually have very little empathy for -- all that emotion and high drama! And yet, who else but Georgette Heyer could pen a romance novel about a high-handed and stubborn heroine and her equally autocratic swain, and still make us care and root for them to achieve their happily ever-after ending? And as usual, one can count on Heyer's wonderful prose style, together with her brilliant character portrayals, witty dialogue, vivid imagery and smooth pacing to be sure of a memorable and worthwhile read. All in all, a novel not to be missed!

I love Bath Tangle! Heyer writes a hero and heroine who are both strong-willed and impatient, and who have been indulged for most of their lives. As such, it's only natural that they should behave like an irresistable force meeting an immovable object.
Serena and Rotherham had once been engaged to be married, but she called off the engagement within a month of the wedding. Since then, they'd barely been able to meet without arguing. But then her father died and left Rotherham trustee of all her income, and with the power to veto any potential husband. Thus the scene is set for yet more sparks....
Rotherham and Serena are a wonderful couple: even from the time we first meet them it's obvious they were meant for each other. It's there in the way they can't keep their eyes off each other, the way she's bored when he's not around, the way they can't stop interfering in each other's affairs. Yes, they are both rude - to each other, and occasionally to others - but that's true to the period, at least in Rotherham's case. I can't see how the other reviewer could have missed the attraction between them.
The dialogue is fast-paced and sparkling, with great fights and some wonderful making-up scenes. In all, it's another immensely readable Heyer, although I would have liked to know more about the circumstances surrounding the original engagement. Still - can't have it all!

I am rather surprised that this book has such varying reviews. In Bath Tangle Heyer has created such a unique yet perfect couple: the rather blunt and rude character of Ivo and the wild and eccentric one of Serena. These two compliment each other so well that I found it completely providential that they come together. Theirs is not calf love; each time they meet they quarrel. But this is more because they have so much in common that they may do so on a wide range of topics. I have always loved Heyer's older and stronger characters and Ivo and Serena both fit the description well.

P.S.
Often while reading this book, and I am not quite sure why, I was made to remember Austen's "Emma." Except that I hated Emma's character (she was altogether too self centered) and actually liked Serena.

Regency Bath is in a tangle--a tangle of mismatched couples in Georgette Heyer's rollicking farce of a regency romance, BATH TANGLE.

The Earl of Spenborough has died, leaving his twenty-five year old unwed daughter, Serena, and a wife younger than her. And to make matters worse, the earl has left Ivo, the Marquis of Rotherham, the man Serena jilted years ago, as trustee to her fortune.

Serena finds her plight unendurable, but what can she do? With a year of mourning to endure and nowhere to go, the ladies bury themselves in the earl's dower house--until utter boredom urges them to change their circumstances. But not too much. So off they go to Bath.

With such a setup, how can this novel be anything but a comedy?

If you like your regency in one large dose, Ms. Heyer has everything here--alpha and beta heroes, mismatched couples, jilted betrotheds, young girls forced by their parents to wed men much older than they, title-hungry mothers on the hunt for matrimonial prey for their daughters, and money, lots of it, not only owned by the rich aristocrats, but also by the cits who fund said titled aristocrats who then shun their benefactors. The action careens from one comic crisis to another, as the couples honor their promises (or not), even as their hearts urge them elsewhere. And all told with Ms. Heyer's delicious Regency language.

Ivo is my least favorite type of hero, the arrogant and obnoxious alpha male, and he does some distinctly unheroic things. But Serena gives as good as she gets, and together they lead this merry dance of a novel. The secondary characters are appealing and the action is fast-paced, for a wonderful time all around.

BATH TANGLE is loads of nonstop comic fun, a treat for the summer or any other time.

ARC supplied by Sourcebooks

I've read all of Georgette Heyer's regencies, some of them two or three times. BATH TANGLE is one of my favorites. The characters are interesting. The tone is light and the dialog is marvelous. If you haven't read her books before, I envy your future! You have lots of fun ahead. Long-lost loves meet again--twice for the heroine--and people are engaged to the wrong person. Highly recommended if you're looking for humor and fun.

OPINION ABOUT THE NARRATOR:
The author frequently uses the word "amused." When the narrator, Sian Phillips, reads these lines, she adds too much "amused" energy to her voice, as if she is holding back laughter while trying to talk. The effect is like an adult laughing at a toddler's unstable attempts to walk. It felt insensitive. The narrator does this for several characters, but most frequently for Serena. It added to my dislike of Serena. It's like Serena is amused at the "little people" around her who aren't as talented or smart. It had a superior and condescending effect. Other narrators don't use this false energy of holding back laughter.

At times the narrator's interpretations didn't feel right to me. One example was when a character "muttered" an answer but the narrator sounded loud and anxious, not a mutter.

My third problem was the narrator's voice. It's a deep, elderly lady voice, which has less range for the various characters. It did not fit for twenty-something ladies. I much prefer Eve Matheson and Cornelius Garrett as narrators.

OPINION ABOUT THE BOOK:
I didn't like this book as much as other Heyer books. I liked the variety of personalities - that's always the best part of her books. But I disliked the main female Serena. Serena was better than everyone else at everything, and I did not like the way she was too often "amused." She had no vulnerabilities (other than not recognizing true love). She was headstrong, obstinate, sometimes mannish, quick-tempered, impulsive, and careless of appearances. But she did have kindness and generosity.

The lead male character Rotheram was also not likeable. He was savage-tempered, sneering, unpleasant, and harsh. To his 17-year-old fiancé Emily, he was insensitive, selfish, manipulative, and threatening. I'm ok with unlikeable characters if they do interesting things, but that wasn't happening here.

I truly enjoyed the entertaining character Mrs. Floore who was overweight, dressed in bright colors, and was wealthy due to her husband's shipbuilding business. Her adult daughter was embarrassed to be related, but happily took Mrs. Floore's money to live on.

As typical Heyer, the lovers discover or state their feelings for each other in the last few minutes of the book. I wish there had been more romantic development and interaction earlier. On balance, I would not recommend this unless you're a committed Heyer fan.

STORY BRIEF:
Serena is wealthy, beautiful, and an excellent horsewoman. Her father dies and leaves her inheritance in the hands of Rotheram, who is instructed to give pin money to her until she marries, and then hand over her wealth to the new husband. Her father once arranged a marriage between Serena and Rotheram, but Serena broke the engagement. Serena and Rotheram are both very intelligent and strong willed people. They argue whenever they are together.

Now Serena lives with her father's widow Fanny. Fanny is younger than Serena (which was interesting). Fanny is shy, cautious, and not good with intelligent conversation. Hector (Serena's first teenage love) comes to town. He and Serena find they still love each other. Rotheram is in his late thirties and becomes engaged to 17-year-old Emily. Emily is frightened of Rotheram but is being pushed by her mother because Rotheram is rich and titled. Relationships become confused and tangled. The story takes place in the town of Bath. Thus the title Bath Tangle.

DATA:
Unabridged audiobook length: 12 hours. Narrator: Sian Phillips. Swearing language: none. Sexual content: none. Setting: 1816 mostly in Bath, England. Book Published: 1955. Genre: regency romance.

I've noticed that my favorite Heyer books have all depicted men who need to grow in some way-- the selfish man, the immature man, the disgraced man, etc. This book is different, in that it centers around a heroine who needs to change. Serena is self-centered, sharp-tempered/ quick to anger, domineering, and managing--her beauty has not been good for her character. Yet she is also kind and a good friend-- in short, she is a complex person.

The secondary plot couple are very engaging, and the setting in Bath is interesting, too.

A very entertaining book! While not one of my very favorite Heyers, a very enjoyable one.

If you are the type of reader who enjoys conflict between the hero and heroine of a novel, then this the book for you. I generally like heyer because although there might be some conflict it is usually understated. I find this novel the fighting between Rotherham (the heroine) and Lady Serena Carlow (the Heroine) to be irksome. Neither Character really shines but rather they simmer and seeth with annoyance at each other.

The set up is that Lady Serena's father has died, so she and her step-mother Fanny move to Bath. Only to Lady Serena's horror she has been left as the ward of her old fiance, Lord Rotherham, a man she now loathes. And with her fiery temper (which matches with her fiery red hair) she sets out to annoy him in any way she can.Trouble is that Lord Rotherham also sets out to annoy Lady Serena and he is much more successful at it.

In the background is the rather lovely story of Fanny and another of Serena's romantic interests. And all this set in Bath. Heyer only set three of her many novels in Bath and only late in her writing career. She only ever wrote novels about places she knw and had researched well. It is a lovely introduction to the area as it was in the Regency period but I think she has written better novels.

In spite of the negative reviews posted prior to this one, I must give this book a thumbs up. I've read this story several times, and each time I gathered new details and discovered a funny line I didn't remember from the previous reading.
Heyer's style of writing, as usual, is sophisticated and informative. The details in any of her books make you inquire more deeply into the period of which she writes.
Personally, I LOVED Rotherham and Serena -- perhaps it's because I'm a bit tempermental myself. The clash between them and eventual realization of their respect and love is amusing. The twist in plot by the end makes for an endearing read. The reader does feel a sort of short-circuited denoument to the story by the time Rotherham and Serena realize their love - one awaits more - though it's not necessarily a drawback (Austen's own writings reflect similar tendencies).
It is not a fast-paced story, but watching the love develop in this story makes me think of a dawn. The sun rising over the horizon has never been a quick event, though it is always a beautiful setting with incredible shades of color to add the most intriguing character to our day.

One of her lesser designed novels. Both of her leading protagonists are fairly unlovable. The secondary characters are very good and well developed. The plot was very intricate and convoluted but all ends well. Entertaining but not one of her best.

BATH TANGLE by Georgette Heyer has all the fun and frolic that has delighted Ms. Heyer's fans for years. By her father's will Lady Serena Carlow must apply to her jilted suitor Lord Ivo Rotherham for her allowance and permission to marry.
Serena and her charming step-mother take up residence in Bath and the staid resort will never be the same. Yet when Lord Ivo looks to another Serena begins to doubt her own heart.
Nash Black, author of Indie finalists WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and HAINTS.

Fiery Serena gets engaged to a long-lost love and finds out she's really in love with the man her father intended for her. Both of them have shocking tempers and love politics and hunting. An equal match!

This is my second attempt at reading Georgette Heyer, the first one was a mystery. I thought I might like her romances better but even though it was enjoyable enough it just wasn't something I favored.

Lady Serena is a spoiled little brat and I just couldn't like her character no matter what happened in the book. I wanted to like her, but she was just plain nasty. I wanted to slap her through most of the book. Rotherham is not much more appealing as he is pompous, rude and annoying. Though I think it was funny to see them in this situation as to where he has control of Serena's offers.

Hector, seems to be sweet and nice but of middle class means. In a society where its all about money he would not be a suitable suitor for someone like Lady Serena, but her life has changed. Fanny, is timid and even though she is Serena's stepmother she is younger than Serena. She is a little too timid for me.

For me it took some getting into the book before I found anything remotely interesting and even then it just wasn't flowing the way I wanted it too. I thought I might enjoy it because I love Jane Austen regency romances, but I think it was the characters that I just didn't care for. If I can't care for them then I don't feel like it matters what happens to them.

Though I wasn't very fond of it I still would recommend it for those who like regency romances because someone else might very much enjoy it.

Georgette Heyer is my FAVORITE author. Bath Tangle is my least favorite of her books. The Mistress of Manners has created two individuals who will annoy the heck out of you. They are uniformly selfish, childish, bad-mannered, ungracious and everything that Miss Heyer's usual characters are not. Bet they got divorced before the year was out. However, as always, the period is perfect and the dialogue outstanding. I love Heyer even when I don't like her characters.

I love most of Georgette Heyer's books. However, I thought this one dragged a little in the middle. You could see exactly how it was all going to end from the very beginning, and the plot was a little boring. The sarcastic humor that is so prevalent in her other books was absent in Bath Tangle. Worth reading once just for the sake of reading a Georgette Heyer book.

I bought this book in transports of delight, yearning to be at home cuddling up and devouring yet another great Georgette Heyer novel, only to sit down and finish it with wry dissapointment. This book truely falls so far off the mark that I seriously wished I had never read it. The characters, mainly Selana, are detestable, selfish, overbearing, obnoxious and as the book rightly mentions, quite in the highstep. Fanny's admiration of Selena's so called "talents" at running a household made me scoff. Selena telling a butler how to clean a drawing room is not my idea of hardworkman-ship. She constantly complains about being bored and is so self absorbed I couldn't like her. She does absolutely nothing and is extremely inconsiderate. Although the book is amusing at times, and Georgette does her best to keep the story flowing, it's all I can do not to rip the pages out. I gave this novel 1 star, the only time I really enjoyed it was when Rotherham gave Selana a scorching setdown on her attitude.

Has anyone else noticed that Georgette Heyer's books almost always follow the same theme? Clever, witty girl in mid-twenties becomes beholden to an equally clever, witty man in mid-thirties who also happens to be "bored" with everyone and everything except said heroine; the two constantly engage in very "witty" conversation and eventually figure out that they're in love with each other. Meanwhile, most other characters are much more stupid and an annoyance to the hero and heroine. Maybe I'm missing something and there is some secret meaning behind writing every book identically and only changing character names. However, I find that I dislike wasting my time trying to search for a Heyer book that does not sound exactly like the last one; there doesn't seem to be one. I once heard Jane Austen's books described as lacking in variety (a description that is only slightly accurate), but it seems to me that Austen has nothing on Heyer when it comes to predictability.