Two mini reviews - Georgette Heyer's Royal Escape and The Conqueror

I have not been doing so well on the reading front mainly because of work involving my daughter's wedding. It has involved quite a bit of waiting around in various places and that is how these two books were read.

Royal Escape deals with the "daredevil king" Charles II. The book expects us to know some history of the period and is more or less an account of his escape from England to France in the face of adversity and secrecy - having to escape the all pervasive Cromwell spies who were looking for him all over the countryside. It depicts the loyalty of the King's followers who were willing to risk everything to assist their King.

The main character of the book is Charles who is at times shown as being brash or fearless in turn, uncaring of his fate at times and quite despondent at the other but all the time quite certain that he will escape and that he will return as King. Minor characters are shown in the form of his supporters and especially two women - one young and falling in love with Charles, the other older and a bit of a slut! The other characters of the book are loyal, die hard Royalists.

The book for me was different from the usual - more biography and historical with just a dash of romance. An interesting light read.


The next book was The Conqueror. This though set in Norman times was more of the usual style of Heyer. The story of a bastard son who made himself King and the arrogant lady who won his heart.

The book uses a lot of old style language which may be difficult to assimilate but adds to the flavor of the book. It deals with history in more detail than her other books and would be interesting to those who like historical fiction.

William and Matilde are a couple of the main characters with Raoul (a fictitious character) also being given prominence in the story. This book was a little more detailed than her others and sometimes made the following of the story complicated. It deals with William from his birth to his coronation and that is a lot of history to cover in a small book!

As usual Heyer's attention to detail is flawless. Both books are different to her normal Regency romances which are such fun to read but the books were very good in a different way.