My first Georgette Heyer book was a delight. I definitely see that she is worthy of her reputation. I don't know the history of historical romances but I believe she is a pioneer of the genre and I was so surprised that a book from 1927 could be so similar to books released yesterday. I loved how unique the heroine was. I was shocked at the amount of freedom she had given the time this book was written.

I enjoyed the slow burn aspect of the book, but my smutty self was upset there was no 'wedding night' scene. Kind of weird actually, despite the slow burn, there was an insta-love but that love shifted between types of love and grew throughout the book. That was surprisingly really nice to experience.

The hero calls her 'my infant' or just 'infant' which is kind of off-putting but if you learn to replace that word with a modern day 'babe, or 'baby' it becomes less so. You know like "Babe, you can't call him stupid" just fits better in my brain.

Also, I hated this notion that you can tell a person has good blood because they are born good looking, with soft hands and are able to learn languages better. I hated even more the assumption that if you were born to poor people, you will be born stocky, ugly and longing to work on the farm despite growing and being raised in complete opposite places. That blood and breeding effect you that much not your life's experiences or the way you're raised.

This book was apparently meant to feature characters and stories from her first book but it didn't properly work out so she used those characters' pasts and stories as a slightly different back story to the some of the characters in this book. There was a large ensemble cast and it did become difficult to remember who is who at times and I definitely forgot some people and I don't know a lick of french so the titles all confused me. Sorry i'm getting off topic. Point i'm trying to say, is that because I'm used to modern day series. If there is something hinted at in one book, then I just expect there to be whole separate book about it featuring those characters. But this doesn't have that. It was so strange every character had some sort of story. There was kidnapping wives, multiple marriage offers choosing love instead, there were hints about side characters romantic preferences with feelings of loneliness that would spark a whole book making them happy later. And sooo many rivalries. I don't know if I like or hate that the side characters and main characters had so much life in them because on one hand they seem very real and full but on the other I hate I don't get to experience those things. Despite my frustration with not quite getting the full picture of our hero's life before the book starts, it does put us in the place of the heroine and really feeling the difference in age of the characters. I felt he had lived this whole life, he wasn't fresh and shiny. I have a thing for older men so I dug it. Don't analyse that, please :p