fourth edition

Danish blogger Emme has a category of books she calls “matadormix” - “mixed candy”. These books do not ask much of you as a reader: they’re easy to zip through, leave you feeling slightly bloated if you overindulge and there’s a bit of everything in them. “Mixed candy”, indeed.

These past few days I’ve made my way through such books.

Background: I do have a pronounced weakness for regency romances for which I blame my mother (who has an almost completely collection of Barbara Cartland’s books). I also grew up on a heady diet of Jane Austen and fashion history*. When I encountered my first Georgette Heyer, I was clearly doomed. Heyer wrote sharp-witted books filled to the brim with historical costume design details, eccentric characters and frothy plots.

Unfortunately, most regency writers are not Georgette Heyer. And even more unfortunately, I have not been reading Heyer. I’ve been reading atrocious, atrocious books involving dead clairvoyants, pervy lords, stupid heroines, serialised novels .. oh, and a kitchen sink too. I feel bloated and unhealthy now. Time for something a bit more fibrous: Heyer, here I come.

(* indeed, I neglected studying for my third grade history exam because I was convinced my superior knowledge of fashion history would dazzle my teacher. Sadly I was given a question on Iron Age agriculture)