Cool Sourcebooks Contest Announcement...And a Giveaway!

Calling all Georgette Heyer fans (I include myself in that group!)...Sourcebooks has teamed up with Barnes and Noble to promote their new release of Georgette Heyer's The Foundling. For the month of September, The Foundling will ONLY be available at Barnes & Noble. If you buy it there (either in store or online), you can send your receipt in for a chance to win a $200 gift card! Plus, if you leave me a comment here you can be entered to win your choice of one book from the list below. Two winners will be drawn at random, you can enter until midnight eastern time on September 20th. Winners must have a US or Canada mailing address. Best of luck everyone!!

Sourcebooks B&N Heyer Receipt Promotion

This September, Sourcebooks is exclusively releasing The Foundling by Georgette Heyer in Barnes & Nobles stores Nationwide!!

Sourcebooks is holding a fabulous receipt promotion! Send us your receipt/proof of purchase of The Foundling from your local Barnes & Noble to our office or a scanned receipt in an email to danielle.jackson@sourcebooks.com and you’ll be entered to win a $200 Barnes & Noble gift card! Receipts must be dated between September 1 – September 31, 2009, and can be from an in-store or online purchase. Any questions please contact mailto:hdanielle.jackson@sourcebooks.com.

But WAIT—you can win a book from Sourcebooks now! As a thank you to The Tome Traveller for helping spread the word about our B&N Heyer Receipt Promotion, Sourcebooks is giving away 2 books from the list of books below! Leave a comment about your favorite Heyer moment and you’ll be entered to win your choice of book! 2 winners—US and Canada addresses only please.

Sourcebooks is so excited about the warm embrace everyone has given the Georgette Heyer reissues! Good luck—we look forward to hearing from you!

Send your Barnes & Noble The Foundling receipts to
Sourcebooks, Inc.
c/o Publicity
PO Box 4410
Naperville, IL 60567

Remember: Leave a comment! Two lucky commenters will be able to choose a book from the following:

The Spoken Word Revolution edited by Mark Eleveld
Poetry Speaks Expanded edited by Elise Paschen and Rebekah Presson Mosby
Letters From Pemberley by Jane Dawkins
How (Not) to Have a Perfect Wedding by Arliss Ryan
Hundreds of Years to Reform a Rake by Laurie Brown
A Chain of Voices by Andre Brink
First Lady by Michael Malone
The Ultimate Bartenders Guide by Ray Foley
Improvisation for the Spirit by Katie Goodman
The Successful Novelist by David Morrell

Join our Georgette Heyer mailing list!: http://www.sourcebooks.com/spotlight/georgette-heyer.html

(Edited to clarify that this giveaway is NOT for a Georgette Heyer book. Winner will get their choice of book from the list above).

Review: My Lord John by Georgette Heyer

Georgette Heyer wrote over fifty novels in her lifetime, starting when she was fifteen years old and continuing nonstop until her death at age seventy one. Her Regency romance novels where wildly popular, but her first love was for "armour," the Middle Ages.

I have read several of her Regency novels and can easily see her appeal, they are witty, frothy and full of fun. So it was with interest that I picked up My Lord John, one of her non-romance, non-Regency historical novels. It was, in fact, unfinished at her death and the current book only makes up about a third of the tale that she planned to tell. It would have been a trilogy encompassing the entire life of John, Duke of Bedford, third son of King Henry IV and brother and trusted advisor of King Henry V.

John grew to manhood in a turbulent time. His father, Henry IV ousted Richard II from the throne and took the crown for himself. Through Richard died shortly after (of course), that didn't stop different factions from trying to topple Henry. At the tender age of fourteen, John's steady hand and sensible head were rewarded and his father made him Lord High Constable of England. He couldn't have chosen a better man, though he was really still a boy. For the rest of his life, John would do the serious and difficult work of running a fractious nation, first for his father and later for his brother.

For me, reading My Lord John was a bit of a struggle, though I could see glimpses of what a great book it could have become. It was never edited by the author and it does suffer from that lack. It reads almost like a non-fiction history, so I found myself growing sleepy time and again. There are so many characters and, as is common for this time period, multiple people have the same first names. Thomas, Henry, John, Mary, Katherine...at times it is very hard to tell who is who. Plus, the men are referred to by their given names at times and their titles at others (for example, Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel might be referred to as Richard, Fitzalan or Arundel), instead of picking one and using it throughout. Though there is a very good character list and also a nice family tree, constantly having to refer to it really breaks up the story.

The same can be said for the author's use of authentic middle English words/phrases. There is an extensive and helpful glossary at the back of the book and the use of these forgotten terms does add to the flavor of the story. But constantly having to refer to the glossary, sometimes multiple times while reading one page, slows down the reading process. I did learn quite a bit, which I enjoyed, but looking up words so often does become tedious.

So, unfortunately, I can't recommend this one to the average Georgette Heyer fan. Anyone who needs romance in their books will not be able to get through this one, as you will not find any here. I happen to be a die hard historical fiction lover and romance is not a must for me (I do find a little bit livens up a story, though!), but even I had a hard time with this one. It is truly unfinished - it ends in mid sentence. If you are interested in history and the middle ages and can accept the book as is, I think you will find both interest and enjoyment within its pages.

The preface, written by the author's husband after her death, made me sad for her and I wanted to add part of it for you here:

"Her research was enormous and meticulous. She was a perfectionist. She studied every aspect of the period-history, wars, social conditions, manners and customs, costume, armour, heraldry, falconry, and the chase. She drew genealogies of all the noble families of England (with their own armorial bearings painted on each) for she believed that the clues to events were to be found in their relationships. She had indexed files for every day of the year for the forty years she was covering with all noteworthy events duly entered on their dates. She learnt to read medieval English almost as easily as modern and amassed a large vocabulary. One summer we toured the Scottish-English borderlands, learning the country and visiting seventy-five castles and twenty-three abbeys (or their ruins). Her notes fill volumes.

For the work, as she planned it, she needed a period of about five years of single-minded concentration. But this was not granted to her. The penal burden of British taxation, coupled with the clamour of her readers for a new book, made her break off to write another Regency story. After such a break it was hard to recapture the spirit of her main work and it required a good deal of labour to refresh her knowledge. After this had happened a second time, she laid her manuscripts aside, foreseeing that at least two more such interruptions would inevitably recur before she could complete the work. So a great historical novel was never finished."

My Lord John is published by Sourcebooks. ISBN 978-1-4022-1353-3

Review: The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer

When Waldo Hawkridge comes to inspect his newly inherited country estate, he causes quite a stir with the local gentry. Sir Waldo has an immense fortune and excels at sporting pursuits, he is well known to be the best driver in the country. Hence his nickname, the Nonesuch:

"It means being the greatest Go among all the Goers!' stated Courtenay. 'Particularly on the roads - though they say the Nonesuch is a clipping rider to hounds too...in harness and out no man can do more with a horse than the Nonesuch."

An admired and respected man who, at thirty five years old, is a great catch for all those country mamas with daughters to marry off. Accompanying him is his young cousin, Julian, a Lord whose love of the countryside and country life means that he is completely happy to fish and ride while Sir Waldo is seeing to his business.

Julian's eye is caught almost immediately by the beautiful Tiffany Wield, who lives with her aunt, Mrs. Underwood, her cousins, and her governess, Miss Ancilla Trent. Tiffany is the most beautiful girl around, easily eclipsing every other girl in the county. Too bad she doesn't have a disposition to match her lovely face. Miss Trent is constantly trying to gently make Tiffany aware that her scheming and her selfish, boorish behavior are unbecoming, but to little avail.

It surprises everyone that Sir Waldo seems to be interested in the penniless but lovely and levelheaded Ancilla. He has been known to be something of a flirt in the past, mostly turning his attentions to married ladies, which hasn't helped his reputation. But he sees, much to his own surprise, something special in Miss Trent. She, in turn, is irritated by her own inability to control her emotions as she falls deeply in love for the first time in her twenty six years with a man whom she knows will never be hers.

There is no doubt that Georgette Heyer is the queen of witty banter and sparkling repartee. Her wonderful use of language leads to a light and frothy novel that is so enjoyable that it is impossible to read it without smiling. The convoluted romantic entanglements are delightful and the use of period slang is nothing but pure fun:

"A very good sort of boy: nothing of the rum 'un about him! But as for Laurence -! Upon my word, Waldo, I wonder that you should bear with him as you do! Well, I was used to think him more flash than foolish, but after listening to his damned insolence today I think him the most buffleheaded clunch I ever saw in my life! If there's one person anybody but a sapskull would have taken precious care not to rub against, it's you! Good God, where does he think he'd be, if you was to abandon him? Don't you tell me he hasn't cost you a small fortune, because I'm not a gapeseed!"

Delightful and so, so enjoyable! If you haven't tried Georgette Heyer yet, you are missing out! She wrote fantastic romances, historical fiction novels and mysteries, over fifty books in her lifetime! Sourcebooks is reissuing these classics in lovely trade paperbacks. Thank you Sourcebooks, and to Danielle for sending me The Nonesuch for review!

The Nonesuch is published by Sourcebooks Casablanca. ISBN 978-1-4022-1770-8.