Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!
I must admit, I read quite a heap of stories set during and round the ‘London Season’ as it is when all the key players of the aristocracy come to towne to see about their chances at the marriage market as it is generally referenced and known as for those who participate. There is always wicked good folly about the London Season – from the conspiring girls’ who are trying to increase their chances of a winning match (or the acts of their Mums!) to the men who are duly regarded as the best of the best in regards to whose still single and available whilst at the same time – you generally have the ‘others’ who have been out for more than one season and have become disillusioned with the whole gambit of chance altogether.
The keen appreciation I have for Historical Romances set during the London Season is inspired by each new writer I discover who has taken her pen to craft a story set round such a well-known rite of passage for certain girls of a certain age who are members of the ton. Even Jane Austen herself was coy about the season and she dappled in highlighting what the dances & engagements were like in the country outside of London proper whilst giving all of us a chance to see how cheeky some of these engagements were and how others were mindlessly consumed by the artful approach they took to securing a winning match themselves.
Other writes approach it with humour, others with drama and some with suspense – wherein you never know whose going to survive the Season and at what costs to them or their families, friends or even their potential suitors! I never tire of reading stories like these because each young woman who goes to the Season itself has a different back-story, a different reason for seeking a gentleman to marry whilst at the same time, the best stories I feel also tuck close to the men – to their own reasons for wanting to seek out marriage and the type of women they are interested in finding themselves.
A few times I felt the writers focused too much on the rogues and the scandalous way some preferred to seek out the Season whereas my favourite stories are the ones where you have this winsome romance erupting out of unexpected hours of the Season, wherein both chaperones and the girls’ themselves are a bit swept into the folds of the courtship whilst trying to decipher if the bloke in question is both honourable and available!
Thus, I am happy to welcome a new author on my radar to Jorie Loves A Story – whose written such a romance set during one of my favourite periods of the historic past which delves into relationships, friendships, alliances and the curious folly of chasing after singletons as they find their way in the world!
Fliration and Folly
Subtitle: A Season in London : Book One
by Elizabeth Rasche
Marianne Mowbrey is a responsible country rector’s daughter who longs for the novelty and excitement she reads about in novels. When her crusty Aunt Harriet agrees to give her a Season in London, Marianne vows to dazzle the world, win a husband, and never go home again. But the Londoners who determine social success are inclined to pass over plain Marianne in favor of her beautiful, reckless younger sister.
In a world of ambition, fashion, flattery, and deceit, how can Marianne stay true to her real self—when she is not even sure what that real self is?
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 978-1951033583
Published by Quills and Quartos Publishing
on 4th September, 2020
Published by: Quills and Quartos Publishing (@QuillsQuartos)
This is first Historical Fiction novel by the author!
The paperback released ahead of the ebook – which drops on 9th November!
Available Formats: Paperback and Ebook
Converse via: #HistoricalRomance or #HistRom as well as #Regency or #RegencyRomance
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