This was about a one and a half star for me. Several of my dear Goodreads friends loved this book and I understand why.The basic story concept is the beloved stuff of classic Regency romance--a young woman, raised by a well-born but dissolute, gambling father, is forced by his bankruptcy to seek employment with a nasty but wealthy old woman who gets her jollies by manipulating and abusing her staff and relatives. It's a popular (even hackneyed) story-line because it highlights class and economic differences in Regency England, it provides an opportunity for the reader to admire the heroine's pluck, and it sets up the sort of rags-to-riches happy ending of which Regency genre fans are justly fond.I don't want to spoil the book for those who loved it, but let me try to explain why it was hard-going for me and might be so for a few other readers. Much of the story is told in dialog. The dialog is forced to convey nearly all of the plot and character development, with next to no exposition and remarkably little description of place or person. Too much time is spent at endless dinners and teas where an over-large cast of characters discuss each other, what happened, what might happen, what they should do tomorrow, why so-and-so did such-and-such. We don't even get good descriptions of the food and fashions (always a redeeming quality IMO).The long stretches of dialog were made heavier by the absence of dialog tags. What's a dialog tag? Here's an example: "'Perhaps the ladies might...' Jane let the suggestion gently float across the table, with a speaking glance at her mama-in-law." Dialog tags are one way that a writer can help reveal character and relationships and that, after all, is dialog's primary purpose. In the absence of tags and description, the reader is left on her own to try to sort out a conversation while rendered essentially blind and deaf. Problem number two: a less than believable heroine. Caroline Fortune (Miss Fortune, get it?) never seemed entirely real to me. Hints are dropped that she knows rather more about gambling hells and hangover cures than most gently-bred Regency females, but, alas, the author never spends enough time on Caroline's life with her father for this interesting aspect to be developed. We do get to see that her father has indulged his own appetites at her expense--for example she seems to have only two well-worn dresses to her name. We also discover that she has been subject to at least one fairly public humiliation--having been forced to leave her elite school in mid-term due to lack of money. Such a complex and painful background normally leaves scars and might have been highlighted in moving ways in the next section when Caroline leaves her father to take up her new post with the harridan. Her new position comes with a dress allowance and the first stop is the milliner to order a wardrobe befitting her new role. But we never get to go to the milliner or see the dresses, we never get to feel Caroline's wonder and delight--and surely such a young woman would feel that way. Nor do we ever get to feel any of the other complex emotions that might go along with this scenario: a sense of embarrassment, indebtedness, or perhaps ambivalence. Here is a young woman being outfitted at an upscale London shop by an elderly woman, a total stranger, and presumably molded to suit her employer's sense of style and deportment. Surely it would have felt odd; it might even have been painful or humiliating. But this promising moment is given no more than a half sentence. There are, in fact, remarkably few emotional moments, not even as she parts from her father; Caroline and her employer are simply packed off to Brighton without incident or illumination. Once in Brighton I would have expected Caroline's odd background to cause more trouble that it did. And I would certainly have expected her employer to give her more grief and humiliation. Schooled by her gambling father, Caroline supposedly plays a very mean game of whist and other far less respectable card games. What a promising set-up for gossip and nasty pointed remarks about how adroitly Caroline shuffles a deck of cards! What a delicious opportunity for her to spot card-sharps and turn tables! What opportunities for dangerous liaisons! But no. Total silence on her card-playing skills and their reception in polite society. Another missed novelistic opportunity.Caroline seems to slip into Brighton society and her new role with little comment or mishap. Does that make sense? Here is a girl, barely into her twenties, denied nearly all social opportunity and yet she knows all the dances? She knows how to handle her dresses, her reticule, her fan, the complex rituals of a mannered society, etc.? All flawlessly enough to pass muster? We never see her struggle with these things so the next Big Event and her reaction makes very little sense. Without getting into spoiler territory, let me just say that Caroline--given what little we know of her background--seems at once too innocent and too assured for the central plot point and its consequences to be believable.It was promising idea and in Georgette Heyer's hands it would have been a classic, but as shaped by Jude Morgan the book proved more of an irritant than a diversion--at least for this cranky reader.Content rating: a clean read except for Caroline' incipient drinking problem.
Oh my! Who'd have thought that the first really successful modern-day attempt at a regency novel would be written by a guy? Austen and Heyer would applaud.The plot is not that surprising though is fun to follow along. The characters are well-drawn: There's the proper balance of fluttering, eccentricity, and drollness. But the dialogue, oh the dialogue -- utterly delicious. I wish my mother was still around so that I could share this with her. She'd have loved it. One funny aside -- I was given this book by my sister-in-law, who brought it with her from India. My husband, on seeing the book lying on the bed waiting to be started, muttered that it violated one of his cardinal rules of books, so he could never read it. "It's not chick lit," I told him, "more regency." "But I have a rule to never read anything by an author with the first name of Jude", he replied. Hmm...I think maybe he's seen me hurl one too many books by Jude Deveraux across the room. She wrote one book I liked, and all the rest have been a frustration, but I keep hoping, because of the one I liked. This Jude won't get thrown at a wall in my home.
What do You think about Indiscretion (2006)?
4 1/2 stars“but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short” – Jane AustenWhile reading a Regency novel, it is the language that tends to draw me in. It needs to be authentic... and this book is spot on. I could have gone on lapping this up for another 1000 pages. The heroine is just the kind of character that I most enjoy. She has a sportive kind of playfulness that stops just short of being snarky. Wonderful! I highly recommend ‘Indiscretion’ to all of those Georgette Heyer fans who have already read (and adored) all of her Regency novels, and are looking around for something in the same vein. Read this one... you won’t be disappointed!
—Mo
Caroline Fortune is a woman of good sense and good humor, both of which she's needed in order to survive. Her father lost what little wealth he had years ago, and now the debt collectors have grown quite severe. Although Caro has better experience with gambling hells than genteel parlors, her father nevertheless manages to secure her a place with a cantankerous old lady. Despite years of experience fending for herself, Caro is still young, and she finds that shifting into the quieter mode of Society rather difficult. Moreover, people keep taking her into their confidence, quite against her protests. When scandals start popping up, how will she protect her reputation?I really enjoyed this novel. First and foremost, Caroline and the love interest (who I won't name, for fear of spoiling the pleasure of discovering who he is) are unique, well-thought-out characters. Their virtues and their foibles both make complete sense, and their conversations are very entertaining. The secondary characters have distinct voices and personalities, and neither they nor the plot is cribbed from Austen (unlike the majority of Regencies written today). But like Austen, this is a book that uses a great deal of satire. It's a true pleasure to read an author with both wit and something to say with it. I'm really looking forward to reading more books by Morgan.
—Wealhtheow
What an enchanting reading!This is a good choice for those who love Victorian novels, and even more because of its easy prose and its witty dialogues which keep you turning pare after page and with a smile playing on your lips at the end of each chapter.The heroine, Miss Fortune (yes, that subtle irony...), coming from a doubtful background, is a smart and strong-minded but flirtatious girl who has to make her own way in Society leaving some of her acquaintances with their mouths open with her sincere ways.Stephen, not the shinning knight we are used to in Austen's novels, is an intelligent but not obliging character who exasperates Miss Fortune with his jesting, who, at the same time, captivates the reader at once. The dialogues between those two are utterly brilliant.The other characters help to create a complete and believable picture of the Victorian era, providing the reader with high entertainment of such quality only comparable to that of Austen's, Du Maurier's or the Brontës'.I can't praise this book enough, specially the second half, which had me completely hooked, and remember the declaration of the last pages which left such a sweet taste on my mouth that I'm sure it'll be some time until I have so much genially fun.I'll be definitely reading more by this author!
—Dolors
