The Reluctant Widow

Married at midnight, a widow at dawn, then heiress to a house of secrets! Condemned to a life of drudgery—until fate made her bride to a fast-dying rake!

A widow but never a wife, Elinor Rochdale became mistress of a house of secrets—partner in a dangerous conspiracy to save a family’s name.

The setting is England threatened by Napoleon. The cast of characters is richly varied—the unshakeable, autocratic Lord Carlyon, the rash young brother Nicholas and the sinister Francis Cheviot among them. Add an amazingly ingenious plot and the result is a story will enthrall Miss Heyer’s devotees and captivate a host of new readers.

I feel that the cover blurb and back cover summary on my vintage 1964 Pan Book version of The Reluctant Widow, by Georgette Heyer, does a remarkably accurate job of capturing the story and the tone of this wonderful little novel. In fact, the cover is delightfully anachronistic with an Eva Marie Saint lookalike, complete with bouffant hairdo, which makes the book even more of a treasure. I appreciate the stunningly beautiful reissues of Heyer’s novels by Sourcebooks, but my battered and earmarked copy has all the signs of an old friend and I’m loathe to part with it.

If you would like to read the rest of my review of The Reluctant Widow, you can do so at Austenprose, where it is one of today's featured reviews in Laurel Ann's month-long Heyer love fest. Don't forget to leave a comment at Austenprose to enter the contest to win a Sourcebook edition of this marvelous little novel--comments left here will only serve to make me happy!