Okay. Before I talk about THE SEASON, which I very much enjoyed, I need to say something. Possibly might turn into a rant. Maybe not.
THE LUXE started it all – this Regency teen romance thing. Well, if you want to be truly factual then I think you need to acknowledge first SORCERY AND CECILIA and then A GREAT AND TERRIBLE BEAUTY which sort of combined to produce the current trend, even though those books were published awhile ago. Oh, and there was a series of teen regencies from…Simon, maybe? Maybe Meg Cabot wrote one?
Anyway. THE LUXE was supposed to be GOSSIP GIRL in the Regency era, and said as much with its GG author blurb, but it wasn’t. It was a good teencentric Regency novel, but it wasn’t any more back-stabby or intrigue-y than the best of the modern “adult” Regencies. Post-THE LUXE came a bunch of others – LA PETITE FOUR, BEWITCHING SEASON, I’m probably forgetting at least one other – and now comes THE SEASON. And I’ve read all these books, and enjoyed them all, but I honestly don’t think the Regency is going to be a thing in teen novels anymore than zombies are (or any more than “fetch” was going to make it as slang). I think teens will read these novels if they are good and have snappy covers and their friends are reading them and that it doesn’t really have anything to do with the Regency period. And maybe it isn’t supposed to, and maybe this rant is for nothing. Maybe I just want more people to read Julia Quinn (not that isn’t already a NYT bestselling author).
Okay! So, THE SEASON, which I very much enjoyed. MacLean gives us a feisty heroine (Alex) to root for, two good companions for our heroine (Ella and Vivi), the brooding hot guy (Gavin, Earl of Blackmoor), some danger and intrigue and all the pomp and circumstance of a London Season.
It is Alex’s first season and she is sure to be plagued throughout it by her mother’s drive to find her a husband (despite her own desires to not marry) and by the merciless teasing of her three brothers. Luckily she has intelligent, bookish Ella and headstrong Vivi to help her through it.
Alex’s vow to not marry is tested early with the return of her childhood family friend Gavin, Earl of Blackmoor, who has been granted the title with the recent accidental death of his father. Alex resists her attraction to him even as her jealousy over his attention to a rival rears its head at an early event. And then an accidental moment of eavesdropping has her learning that the Earl’s death was no accident, and the perpetrators of the crime are still at large and seeking information that the Earl was supposed to have (and was apparently murdered for).
Alex and Gavin are caught up together in the quest for the truth. Will they survive it – and fall in love in the process? Adventure waits around every corner for this couple.
This book really is a hoot. I love Regencies and I thought this was a very good one.
September 9th, 2008 - 5:48 pm
Avon True Romance? None of which I’ve actually read because, with the exception of Meg Cabot and Lorraine Heath, I had the impression that it was more of a publisher-mandated “Write us YA books!” thing than authors writing YA of their own accord. Probably not true, but anyway…
I’ve also noticed this YA regency trend, which kind of puzzles me. I agree that their appeal to teens is less the period than other factors; it’s us adult readers who sit up and say, “Ooh, a teen Regency.” At the same time, though, what with the stereotype of traditional Regencies as no sex/behind closed doors, a big part of me feels like I’d rather just give the teens the old trads instead of the YA books that have been published so far, even though I know no one’s publishing traditional Regencies anymore (as print-first books, I mean, not via e-pubs). Not all those books with widows or spinsters, but the ones featuring younger female protagonists (and hopefully not some guy twice her age). Because how different are some of the trads from the new YA Regencies? In the books you listed, aren’t all the protagonists around 17, 18? And I know there are trads with female protagonists that young, like Joan Wolf’s A London Season.
I will definitely give The Season a try because of your review, but I’m curious. Why doesn’t Alex want to marry?
September 9th, 2008 - 6:02 pm
Avon True Romance, yeah. Which I think is Simon, so at least my memory’s sort of working.
I don’t think the traditional ones are much different from the teen books, frankly, but I guess the publishers aren’t just going to repackage. Although that’d be a really good idea (and save them some money). All the protagonists in the current books are about 17, yeah. One big reason I like these books because I can (well, could, in my former life as a bookseller) hand them to any girl without fear of content, and there are a lot of tweens reading YA these days.
Alex doesn’t want to marry because she’s only 17 and she thinks A. she’s too young and B. marriage is oppressive. She is p.o.’ed that her brothers are older and still unmarried and her mother doesn’t hector them nearly as much as she hectors Alex, and she hates the double standard. She speaks loftily of never getting married but you figure out that she’s full of garbage pretty much as soon as Gavin appears on the scene.
September 10th, 2008 - 9:49 pm
Ah, that makes sense. Thanks!
September 15th, 2008 - 4:43 am
I think that the reason you are seeing a lot of “regency teen romances” out these days is that in the past few years, the two largest imprints of adult regency romances (which is different than a “regency set” romance — but seriously, you have to be in RWA for like 5 years to be able to divine the difference, which from what I can tell is all about length and sex) has shut down. Both Signet Regency and Kensington Regency — and a lot of authors were out on their ears.
YA was the perfect place for those authors who are NOT regency-set romance writers (i.e., they prefer shorter, “sweeter” stories) to go. Almost all of these authors now publishing regency YA were formerly regency romance writers.
Add that to the fact that the Keira Knightley-driven Pride & Prejudice was a huge hit, and KK is big in the teen crowd thanks to her Pirates franchise. And sweet is also in, thanks to Twilight. So it’s pretty much a perfect storm on that front.
I don’t know if The Luxe (Gilded Age) or AGATB (Victorian) were doing much to push this trend, since neither of them are sweet OR regency-set, unless you mean it was opening the door to historicals in general. But regency does seem to be out there a lot. I think the heir to AGATB, a Victorian fantasy, is going to be Cassandra Clare’s upcoming Victorian demon-hunter novels.
September 22nd, 2008 - 7:02 pm
Ah – I did not know about those imprints folding! Thanks for clearing that up.
And yeah, I meant opening the door to historicals in general (although I didn’t actually realize that The Luxe wasn’t a Regency – totally my bad). When I was bookselling, though, the same girls were reading The Luxe/La Petite Four/Sorcery and Cecelia/AGATB.
December 28th, 2008 - 2:01 am
[...] just hoping it’s better than Bewitching Season and La Petite Four. It got a good review at Kidliterate, though. On the other hand…oh, I’m just going to say it: the fact that she signed with [...]