Alternate book cover

As people who know me know, I have been a fan of the Regency romance novels of Georgette Heyer since I was about 13 years old. Far from outgrowing them, I have read them again and again over the years, and even though I know some of the stories quite well, I never cease to be entertained by her ingenious plotlines, smart, witty dialogue, and charming characters. (Someday I want to write a comparison of her books to those of P. G. Wodehouse. Cousin Ferdy in this one particularly reminds me of Bertie Wooster.)

Periodically I go on a Heyer jag, usually when I am either craving "comfort food" type reading or when I have made a series of dull reading choices and need to cleanse my palate with a little light, sweet, cold sherbet. Sometimes I also end up reading one because I have managed to arrive home from the library on a Friday night not having had the time to walk to the stacks and pick out a book to read. That's what happened to me this weekend, and when my dismay over this was compounded by a dead battery in my Kindle, rendering me also unable to check out an e-book, I turned to my shelves and picked up one of my favorites, Friday's Child.

The story begins thusly: Lord Sheringham has been mooning over the beautiful Isabella Melborne (along with half of the beaux in London), and has decided to ask her to marry him. He fancies himself in love; but his extra motive is that his money is tied up in a trust to which he won't have access for three more years unless he marries, at which time control is transferred from his two miserly trustee uncles to himself. Isabella, however, turns him down, and in a fit of temper, he swears to marry the next woman he sees, so as to get control of his fortune. That happens to be his childhood friend, Hero Wantage, who he encounters, as he drives by in his phaeton, perched on a fence, in tears. When he stops to find out what's what, she tells him her evil relatives are forcing her to go be a governess, a patently absurd plan, given that she's only 17 years old and lamentably ignorant. So Sherry, in a fit of pique, decides he will scotch everyone's plans by marrying Hero. She, having worshipped Sherry since childhood, is thrilled with this plan, especially because it will get her away from her disagreeable aunt and three condescending cousins, plus she'll get to go to London, go to balls, wear beautiful clothes, and, best of all, be with Sherry. Sherry, however, doesn't know what he's getting into, bringing a 17-year-old bride to the capitol and turning her loose on Society...

Although I am a fan of the books, I have never been a fan of the covers. The re-released versions in trade paperback (above) have more charming paintings of Regency misses on the front (although they are not always chosen so as to complement the particular story), but the older books (of which this is one, because I have a discarded library version from the 1960s) had pretty dreadful art (left). So today, when I finished the book with my usual feeling of satisfaction, I decided I would try out an illustration that picked up on some of the elements of the book, and give it a different look.

I did this pretty spontaneously, and therefore didn't think ahead to design a space for the title as part of the illustration (which is bad cover design, but oh well), so I had to cram it in at the bottom, willy nilly. But I had fun finding and duplicating the ormolu clock that Gil presents to Hero as his wedding gift, the canary in a cage that is Ferdy's contribution to her happiness, a Queen Anne hall table that could have been part of the furnishings that Hero and Sherry chose for their new house on Half Moon Street, and the chubby pug dog belonging to Gil's aunt, which takes Hero on a fateful walk that precipitates the French farce of an ending.

Friday's Child, by Georgette Heyer

Uniball pen, watercolor

#worldwatercolormonth