What do You think about The Masqueraders (2004)?
I love this book so much. I loved it when it started with a pair of siblings chatting about whether they should rescue the young, eloping heiress in the next room from a drunken suitor. I loved it more when it turned out there was crossdressing. I loved it MORE when Prudence got to be awesome while dressed as a man and her suitor loved her not "despite" her pretending to be a guy but because she did so with aplomb and sheer awesomeness.Plus, once Dad shows up, every scene can be summarized like this.Lord Tresomethingorother: I'm the long lost Lord of Tresomethingorother!Pru: Oh, my god. You're going to get us all hanged.LT: No, for real this time, I really am.Robin: Yeah, remember when you made us be JACOBITES? Or when you had us crossdress in polite London Society?LT: I'm SO AWESOME, why are you questioning my AWESOME.Pru and Robin: *eyeroll*Tony: I want to take your daughter away and marry her and keep her safe.LT: PSHAW. You don't need to keep her safe! I'll keep her safe.Robin: Actually, Pru will keep HERSELF safe. Or I'll take her away to France.Pru: Tony, I can't marry you! I'm an ADVENTURESS! I'll drag your name into the dirt!Tony: I don't care!LT: Why are you DOUBTING MY BRILLIANCE. BECAUSE I"M BRILLIANT. STOP HATING.Peter: Yeah, I mean, after you having so many scares, why would we question?LT: HATERS GONNA HATE.Pru and Peter: *duitifully follow father*Tony: !!!Pru: Listen, he always gets us into messes and then gets us out.Me: *cracking up*There's a scene where someone tries to blackmail their father and he literally talks him out of it by OUT NICE-ING him.Blackmailer: I have something very dangerous for you right HERE. *pats chest*LT: In your heart?Blackmailer: No! In my pocket!LT: Oh, an inside pocket! I have to get one of those, how forward thinking of you!Blackmailer: ...I am in ecstasy over this book.
—Katie
Set a little earlier than most of Heyer's stories, this is a concoction of duels and hidden identities, and the two children of a long-time confidence trickster (very similar to the rogue in The Foundling, except this time not an antagonist).Pru and Robin (each dressed as the opposite gender) start out with a display of their skill - neatly rescuing a reluctant elopee, before settling in to wait on their father, and meantimes embroil themselves in romantic entanglements.There's a lot of fun to be had with this book, though I must admit that neither of the romances quite work for me. Robin and Letitia's is interesting only for Robin's impostiture and his romantic rescues. Letitia herself seems to have won Robin's heart simply by being pretty and innocent and, well, there.Pru and Tony have more foundation as a couple, but their relationship also falls into the trap that so many 'competent women' romances do. Pru, in her mid-twenties, has been dissembling all her life, and is very competent at many things (yet her brother is more competent at everything, even being a woman), and her romantic match is better than Pru at everything except the cross-dressing. Tony quickly sees through her disguise, repeatedly gets to rescue her, and shows a tendency to try to prevent her from making her own decisions, or live the life she has long been living.Pru definitely wants to live a more normal life, and is even pleased about the prospect of being an obedient wife. But...it felt like she became less competent whenever Tony was in the picture. He read to me as very controlling, even when he thought Pru was male.[It's interesting to read the first half of this book as a m/m and f/f romance. It totally reads that way, particularly the bit where Sir Tony briefly 'withdraws his protection' from his young protegee.]
—Andrea
There are very few writers who can say that they weren't influenced by Heyer in some way. Each of her dozens of historical romances laid the foundations of typical romance plotlines today.THE MASQUERADERS, my favorite of all her titles, is an absolute gem to hold in my hands. The trade paperback sized volume, with new cover artwork, is gorgeous and suits the story well. This is a classic tale of genderbent comedy and misdirection along the same vein as Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT. Prudence and Robin, fearing for their lives after the failure of the Jacobite Rebellion, decide that the best plan lay in disguising themselves. Taking it one step further, they disguise their genders as well, pretending to be the opposite sex, to doubly fool anybody searching out for them. The two of them see this as a lark—they've spent the better part of their lives hiding who they are, thanks to their scapegrace adventurer father, and it's nothing more than a fun game for them.This novel is filled with historical data pertaining to the aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745—the sort of topical information you'd hear in society being discussed because it's still such a new occurrence. I found the exchange between Prudence and Anthony to be the funniest moments, though any time that Prudence is in her male disguise is full of hilarity. She'll often use subtle little quips or witticisms about the fact that she isn't the man they think her to be. Her brother Robin also made quite a spectacular female. It's unusual to see a guy parading about in petticoats and dresses in historicals—almost all the genderbent romances I've read have involved just the girl becoming a boy—so that's a lovely surprise. At the end, when they're both being confronted by their respective love interests, I found it hilarious that Robin was at pains to reassure his love interest that he was just as charming as a male as he was female! Then also, Anthony's private ruminations over Prudence were also rather amusing.The only downside to reading a Heyer is that often she'll use speech idioms that aren't used any more, even in modern historical romances. Heyer was very big on keeping things as accurate as she could, and with the speech of Prudence and Robin's time being nearly 260 years out of date, it can be quite confusing at times. Still, if you are new to Georgette Heyer, I recommend reading THE MASQUERADERS first. I still find it to be one of the most amusing, romantic, and entertaining reads yet!
—Lexie
