Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽'s Reviews > The Masqueraders

With just a whiff of Twelfth Night about it, this Georgian era novel by Georgette Heyer is lots of cross-dressing, romantic, swashbuckling fun: hidden identities, love interests - two for the price of one! (also, a little difficult when you’re posing as the opposite sex, but trust love to find a way), a couple of sword fights, an attempted elopement or two, a bit of a mystery, and a master manipulator pulling the strings.

A brother and sister, Peter and Kate Merriot, are traveling to London in the late 1740s, soon after the unsuccessful Jacobite rebellion. They stop at an inn and discover an elopement in process: Letitia Grayson, a lovely and naive young heiress, is running away with Gregory Markham. But Letty has realized that Markham is an unkind brute and is trying to back out. The Merriots decide they need to get involved and help Letty out, to great comic effect.

The villain is successfully sent on a wild goose chase, just before Sir Anthony Fanshawe, a “mountain” of a man (think very large but swift-on-his-feet linebacker type) arrives to whisk Letty back to London. She’s happy to go along once she realizes that Sir Anthony doesn’t have any romantic intentions toward her. But someone else is interested in Sir Anthony: Peter Merriot, who is actually Prudence, while her brother Robin is playing the role of Kate. Prudence and Robin are in hiding because they (especially Robin) got involved on the wrong side of the Jacobite Rebellion. The cross-dressing is supposed to be helping to keep them from being recognized. Just roll with it.

Sir Anthony looks like a big, mentally slow guy (we meet his type occasionally in Heyerville, as in The Toll-Gate and The Unknown Ajax) but Prudence is fairly certain that his sleepy-looking eyes are seeing a lot more than they seem to. Meanwhile, Robin is very interested in Letty, who thinks he’s a girl and her new bestie. And then Prudence and Robin’s father sweeps into town, announcing to all and sundry that he’s the Lost Viscount, an heir to a great estate. Prudence and Robin, who are familiar with their father’s crazy, elaborate schemes, are dubious...

Anyway, it’s loads of fun in a distinctly old-fashioned way (fair enough, this book was written in 1928). You have to be on board with alpha-type guys masterfully taking charge of situations, stealing kisses, and so forth. At the same time, you have this really interesting character in Prudence, who has had to masquerade as a boy or young man so often in life that she's EXTREMELY self-sufficient for a lady of that time, and the book actually deals with that issue, although I don't think it completely comes to grips with the tension between Prudence's independence and her love interest's desire to protect her and take care of things for her.

It was still early days in Heyer’s career but she’s starting to hit her stride here, with some delightful, witty dialogue and memorable characters. I wasn’t really fond of the brilliant but immensely narcissistic father, but he had his amusing moments.

That Sir Anthony, though. He’s a keeper! As is Prudence.

Definitely my two favorite characters!