A review by snowywolff
The Grand Sophy: Gossip, scandal and an unforgettable Regency romance by Georgette Heyer, Georgette Heyer

adventurous challenging funny informative lighthearted relaxing slow-paced

4.0

Recommended to me by my dad đź’–
Finally got around to one of the Georgette Heyer books my dad has been hyping up to me for years and I have to admit that, at the very least, this one lives up to it. 

Sophy was great to see as a character. In a time now, where “feminist” retelling of mythology run rampant and force modern concepts of feminism on classical women (and medieval, and until the suffragette movement when one could sort of start using feminism in its modern sense), it was not just a breath but a strong gust of fresh air. Sophy is still a woman of her time. Sure, she pushes the limits of the social rules as much as she can (and more than she should or what was likely ever allowed to a lady of her breeding), but she doesn’t break them truly, or only when she has good reasoning and excuses to do so. She is a strong female character within the constraints of her time and I love to see it. 

The language was quite dense, not just with regency/victorian sentence denseness (which is impressive to copy), but also with information, sometimes a little superfluous but fascinating all the same. You can see all the research and effort that had gone into writing this novel. 

The only reason this novel doesn’t get a 5/5 is bc it could’ve absolutely done without the “period appropriate” antisemitism, especially so when this book was written post WWII/Nuremberg when it was no longer “just the way people acted” as one could potentially excuse other pre WWII novels. (And I give this book a little extra squinting on “period appropriate” considering that Sophy as a character is… well, not quite, so if you can push that, you can push out the antisemitism). 
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