A review by wealhtheow
April Lady by Georgette Heyer

3.0

At seventeen, at her very first ball, Nell caught the eye of the rich and handsome Cardross. A worldly man who'd taken many lovers and ruled his estate for years, Cardross never expected to fall in love--but he did, and despite his misgivings about Nell's impecunious and wild family, he swiftly married her. Each of them loves the other, but is sure that they only married for convenience. This misunderstanding is made worse when Nell realizes she owes a dressmaker an astounding amount of money and tries to raise the money herself rather than go to Cardross. She doesn't want him to think she married for money, but her tense face and odd behavior just raises Cardross's suspicions. Meanwhile, Cardross's flighty little sister Letty (who is a mere year younger than Nell herself, but Nell is nevertheless supposed to control her) causes huge amounts of trouble with her desperate but stupid plans to get Mr.Allandale to marry her.

This had the makings of a more enjoyable book. If only there had been more between Nell and Cardross and far, far less of Letty. The (slightly) more mature romance gets all of three scenes together, whereas the rest of the book is basically Letty swanning around ruining everything and giggling about it. Making matters worse is the way all the male characters are at least a decade or more older than Nell and Letty, while Nell and Letty are so dumb and innocent that they don't even know what "interest" is, or that stealing valuable jewelry and selling it is a crime. The narrative and love interests often refer to how childlike and adorable this ignorance is, but it just creeped me out.