Venetia by Georgette Heyer (English) Paperback Book

Description: Venetia by Georgette Heyer Reading Georgette Heyer is the next best thing to reading Jane Austen."--Publishers Weekly Beautiful, capable, and independent minded, Venetia Lanyons life on her familys estate in the country side is somewhat restricted. But her neighbor, the infamous Lord Damerel, a charming rake shunned by polite society, is about to shake things up. Lord Damerel has built his life on his dangerous reputation, and when he meets Venetia, he has nothing to offer and everything to regret. Though his scandalous past and deepest secrets give Venetia reason to mistrust him, a rogue always gets what he wants. As Venetias well-meaning family steps in to protect her from potential ruin, Venetia must find the wherewithal to take charge of her own destiny, or lose her chance at happiness. Charming characters and flawless prose make Venetia a fan favorite from the Queen of Regency Romance. Fans of Mary Balogh, Elizabeth Hoyt and Jane Ashford will be delighted by this story about finding love, redemption, and the courage to follow your heart. Other Regency Romances from Georgette Heyer: Frederica Sylvester Cotillion What reviewers are saying about Venetia "A wonderful story whose characters, settings and, most importantly, dialogue combine to create such a well-crafted story."--Bags, Books, and Bon Jovi "Wonderful characters, elegant, witty writing, perfect period detail, and rapturously romantic"--Katie Fforde "Wonderful and lovely and perfect! Venetia is one of the most charming characters EVER."--Once Upon a Bookshelf "An absolutely rollicking Regency romp. I loved it from the first page."--Library Queue What everyone has to say about the Queen of Regency Romance Georgette Heyer "Georgette Heyer was one of the great protagonists of the historical novel in the post-war golden age of the form. Her regency romances are delightful light reading..."--Philippa Gregory "[Heyers] characters are witty and beyond charming, her prose is flawless and lighthearted, and her historical detail is immaculate."--Read All Over Reviews "Georgette Heyer is unbeatable." --Sunday Telegraph FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography The late Georgette Heyer was a very private woman. Her novels have charmed and delighted millions of readers for decades, though she rarely reached out to the public to discuss her works or personal life. She was born in Wimbledon in August 1902. She wrote her first novel, The Black Moth, at the age of seventeen to amuse her convalescent brother; it was published in 1921 and became an instant success. Heyer published 56 books over the next 53 years, until her death from lung cancer in 1974. Her work included Regency romances, mysteries and historical fiction. Known as the Queen of Regen Review Text "I do recommend this one to romance lovers. The style is humorous and I love the old talk." - Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell Review Quote "Wonderful and lovely and perfect! Venetia is one of the most charming characters EVER." -- Once Upon a Bookshelf Excerpt from Book One A fox got in amongst the hens last night, and ravished our best layer, remarked Miss Lanyon. A great-grandmother, too! Youd think he would be ashamed! Receiving no answer, she continued, in an altered voice: Indeed, you would! It is a great deal too bad. What is to be done? His attention caught, her companion raised his eyes from the book which lay open beside him on the table and directed them upon her in a look of aloof enquiry. Whats that? Did you say something to me, Venetia? Yes, love, responded his sister cheerfully, but it wasnt of the least consequence, and in any event I answered for you. You would be astonished, I daresay, if you knew what interesting conversations I enjoy with myself. I was reading. So you were - and have let your coffee grow cold, besides abandoning that slice of bread-and-butter. Do eat it up! Im persuaded I ought not to permit you to read at table. Oh, the breakfast-table! he said disparagingly. Try if you can stop me! I cant, of course. What is it? she returned, glancing at the volume. Ah, Greek! Some improving tale, I dont doubt. The Medea, he said repressively. Porsons edition, which Mr Appersett lent to me. I know! She was the delightful creature who cut up her brother, and cast the pieces in her papas way, wasnt she? I daresay perfectly amiable when one came to know her. He hunched an impatient shoulder, and replied contemptuously: You dont understand, and its a waste of time to try to make you. Her eyes twinkled at him. But I promise you I do! Yes, and sympathise with her, besides wishing I had her resolution! Though I think I should rather have buried your remains tidily in the garden, my dear! This sally drew a grin from him, but he merely said, before turning back to his book, that to order her to do so would certainly have been all the heed their parent would have paid. Inured to his habits, his sister made no further attempt to engage his attention. The slice of bread-and-butter, which was all the food he would accept that morning, lay half-eaten on his plate, but to expostulate would be a waste of time, and to venture on an enquiry about the state of his health would serve only to set up his hackles. He was a thin boy, rather undersized, by no means ill-looking, but with a countenance sharpened and lined beyond his years. A stranger would have found these hard to compute, his bodys immaturity being oddly belied by his face and his manners. In point of fact he had not long entered on his seventeenth year, but physical suffering had dug the lines in his face, and association with none but his seniors, coupled with an intellect at once scholarly and powerful, had made him precocious. A disease of the hip-joint had kept him away from Eton, where his brother Conway, his senior by six years, had been educated, and this (or, as his sister sometimes thought, the various treatments to which he had been subjected) had resulted in a shortening of one leg. When he walked it was with a pronounced and ugly limp; and although the disease was said to have been arrested the joint still pained him in inclement weather, or when he had over-exerted himself. Such sports as his brother delighted in were denied him, but he was a gallant rider, and a fair shot, and only he knew, and Venetia guessed, how bitterly he loathed his infirmity. A boyhood of enforced physical inertia had strengthened a natural turn for scholarship. By the time he was fourteen if he had not outstripped his tutor in learning he had done so in understanding; and it was recognised by that worthy man that more advanced coaching than he felt himself able to supply was needed. Fortunately, the means of obtaining it were at hand. The incumbent of the parish was a notable scholar, and had for long observed with a sort of wistful delight Aubrey Lanyons progress. He offered to prepare the boy for Cambridge; Sir Francis Lanyon, relieved to be spared the necessity of admitting a new tutor into his household, acquiesced in the arrangement; and Aubrey, by that time able to bestride a horse, thereafter spent the better part of his days at the Parsonage, poring over texts in the Reverend Julius Appersetts dim bookroom, eagerly absorbing his gentle preceptors wide lore, and filling him with an ever-increasing belief in his ability to excel. He was entered already at Trinity College, where he would be admitted at Michaelmas in the following year; and Mr Appersett had little doubt that young though he would still be he would very soon be elected a scholar. Neither his sister nor his elder brother cherished doubts on this head. Venetia knew his intellect to be superior; and Conway, himself a splendidly robust young sportsman to whom the writing of a letter was an intolerable labour, regarded him with as much awe as compassion. To win a Fellowship seemed to Conway a strange ambition, but he sincerely hoped Aubrey would achieve it, for what else (he once said to Venetia) could the poor little lad do but stick to his books? For her part, Venetia thought he stuck too closely to them, and was showing at an alarmingly early age every sign of becoming just such an obstinate recluse as their father had been. He was supposed, at the moment, to be enjoying a holiday, for Mr Appersett was in Bath, recuperating from a severe illness, a cousin, with whom he had fortunately been able to exchange, performing his duties for him. Any other boy would have thrust his books on to a shelf and equipped himself instead with his rod. Aubrey brought books even to the breakfast-table, and let his coffee grow cold while he sat propping his broad, delicate brow on his hand, his eyes bent on the printed page, his brain so much concentrated on what he read that one might speak his name a dozen times and still win no response. It did not occur to him that such absorption made him a poor companion. It occurred forcibly to Venetia, but since she had long since recognised that he was quite as selfish as his father or his brother she was able to accept his odd ways with perfect equanimity, and to go on holding him in affection without suffering any of the pangs of disillusionment. She was nine years his senior, the eldest of the three surviving children of a Yorkshire landowner of long lineage, comfortable fortune, and eccentric habits. The loss of his wife before Aubrey was out of short coats had caused Sir Francis to immure himself in the fastness of his manor, some fifteen miles from York, and to remain there, sublimely indifferent to the welfare of his offspring, abjuring the society of his fellows. Venetia could only suppose that the trend of his nature must always have been towards solitude, for she was quite unable to believe that such extravagant conduct had arisen from a broken heart. Sir Francis had been a man of rigid pride, but never one of sensibility, and that his marriage had been one of unmixed bliss was an amiable fiction his clear-sighted daughter was quite unable to believe. Her memories of her mother were vague, but they included the echoes of bitter quarrels, slammed doors, and painful fits of hysteria. She could remember being admitted to her mothers scented bedchamber to see her dressed for a ball at Castle Howard; she could remember a beautiful discontented face; a welter of expensive dresses; a French maid; but not one recollection could she summon up of maternal concern or affection. It was certain that Lady Lanyon had not shared her husbands love of country life. Every spring had seen the ill-assorted pair in London; early summer took them to Brighton; when they returned to Undershaw it was not long before her ladyship became moped; and when winter closed down on Yorkshire she was unable to support the rigours of the climate, and was off with her reluctant spouse to visit friends. No one could think that such a butterflys existence suited Sir Francis, yet when a sudden illness had carried her off he had come home a stricken man, unable to bear the sight of her portrait on the wall, or to hear her name mentioned. His children grew up in the desert of his creating, only Conway, sent to Eton, and passing thence into the -th Foot, escaping into a larger world. Neither Venetia nor Aubrey had been farther from Undershaw than Scarborough, and their acquaintance was limited to the few families living within reach of the Manor. Neither repined, Aubrey because he shrank from going amongst strangers, Venetia because it was not in her nature to do so. She had only once been disconsolate: that was when she was seventeen, and Sir Francis had refused to let her go to his sister, in London, to be presented, and brought out into Society. It had seemed hard, and some tears had been shed. However, a very little reflection had sufficed to convince her that the scheme was really quite impractical. She could not leave Aubrey, a sickly eight-year-old, to Nurses sole care: that excellent creatures devotion would have driven him into a madhouse. So she had dried her eyes, and made the best of things. Papa, after all, was not unreasonable: though he would not consent to a London Season he raised no objection to her attending the Assemblies in York, or even in Harrogate, whenever Lady Denny, or Mrs Yardley, invited her to go with them, which they quite frequently did, the one from kindness, the other under compulsion from her determined son. Nor was Papa at all mean: he never questioned her household expenditure, bestowed a handsome allowance on her, and, somewhat to her surprise, left her, at his death, a very respectable competence. This event had occurred three years previously, within a month of the glorious victory at Waterloo, and quite unexpectedly, of a fatal stroke. It had been a shock to his children, bu Details ISBN1402238843 Author Georgette Heyer Short Title VENETIA Pages 375 Publisher Sourcebooks Casablanca Language English ISBN-10 1402238843 ISBN-13 9781402238840 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Residence US Birth 1902 Death 1974 Series Regency Romances Year 2011 Imprint Sourcebooks Casablanca Series Number 18 Audience General/Trade We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:45390709;

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