Powder and Patch by Georgette Heyer

When I was a girl we had a family Saturday tradition. We'd get up, do the supermarket shopping and head into town to visit the market and run our errands. The last thing would be to go to WH Smiths (opposite Windsor Castle and I never failed to gasp as I came out, the view is breathtaking) to spend my pocket money.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

The cover quote from Ian Hislop says "Bizarre, Bonkers ... rather brilliant" and it is all that and more. Much, much more.

The blurb on the back tells us a little bit more: 'Fat Charlie Nancy is not havinga good week. His estranged father recently dropped dead on a karaoke stage and has left Fat Charlie with much more than embarrassment. Because, you see, Charlie has discovered that his dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi the trickster spider-god. Anansi is the spirit of rebellion, able to overturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and even baffle the devil. No wonder Fat Charlie's life is about to be turned upside down.'

Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer

Georgette Heyer is best known for her romance novels set in the Regency period and this is a very good example of those. If you're familiar with the usual Regency fare of Austen this won't bring any surprises. What is surprising for a first time Heyer reader is that she is easily as good as Austen, and in some respects a great deal better.

Fantastic fiction has this summary: "Miss Annis Wynchwood becomes embroiled in the affairs of a runaway heiress, and is thus destined to see a great deal of her fugitive's uncivil guardian. Chafing at the restrictions of Regency society in Bath, Annis has to admit that at least Carleton is never boring." And I don't want to add more because it would ruin the story.

There are no huge surprises in this, once you are about three or four pages in it's pretty easy to see where the story is going, but even so the quality of the writing is most excellent and the story itself does take one or two twists and turns that surprise faintly.

Knowing that her novel An Infamous Army is often hailed as one of the best accounts of the Battle of Waterloo (albeit from the perspective of the women waiting for their husbands and sons to return) because Heyer researched it so well, I'm quite confident that the detail and background in the Regency romances is accurate. I can't wait to pick up my next Georgette Heyer novel.