Customer Reviews
Very funny! - By: A. Harrison-bryant, 08 Apr 2008 
As I read this book on more than one occasion laughed out loud. It is funny, without being silly. Lady Hestor only plays quite a smalll part, but at the end I liked her character as much as any heroine. Sir Gareth was brilliant. Thoroughly recommended.
more adventure than romance - By: lady, 07 Mar 2008 The certain thing about this book is, it reallly takes you by surprise. You turn each page thinking what is to happen next & more you read more you are surprised. I recommended it but not as a first to a starter of Heyer books.
Another Winner from Heyer - By: Mrs. K. A. Wheatley, 19 Nov 2007 This is the usual Heyer fare, yet saying that does her no disservice. Heyer's writing is consistently the best historical romance on offer & alll her books are top notch. They are reliable, wonderful & a total pleasure to read. They are for romance what P.G. Wodehouse & Jeeves do for comic writing. You truly can do no better.
Here Gareth Ludlow needs a wife to take his mind off the loss of his true love. He knows he is never going to match the feelings he has for Clarissa, so he decides to settle for an old family friend, Hesther. Hesther seems less than enthusiastic, & things are not going well when a gorgeous young woman bursts upon the scene to stir up endless mischief. Gareth & Hesther become entangled in her affairs & it is sure that the path of true love does not run smooth. It is always delightful nevertheless.
The characters are finely drawn, lovingly brought to life & sympathetic. The dialogue is great & the story, though much the same as every other book by Heyer, is still crisp, funny & wonderful to read.
Wonderful Heyer! You must read this one - By: Elizabeth Trigg, 16 Nov 2007 Having given up hope of ever finding a lady to replace his lost love, Clarissa, Gareth has resigned himself to a marriage of convenience. He plans a union based on mutual liking certainly, but nothing more as he is unable to offer love. He has decided to ask his old friend Lady Hesther to marry him, as he likes her & knows that her family do not value her as they should. Hesther is gentle, quiet, shy, myopic, & every day of 29!!! Her father is stunned by this unlooked-for good fortune as she has been on the shelf for years. But after hearing the news, Hesther cries herself to sleep. Why would she do that? Then Amanda bursts onto the scene. In many ways she resembles the lovely Clarissa in her impulsiveness, independence & beauty. She proceeds to wreak havoc in Sir Gareth's plans, & is she the new love he is looking for? Gareth certainly comes to see things rather more clearly by the end of this charming & funny story. I promise you wil love this novel, reallly it is one of her very best.
my opinion: the best Regency-era romance novel ever written - By: tregatt, 16 Jun 2005 The second Georgette Heyer romance novel I read when I first started devouring her novels a few decades ago, (the first was "Black Sheep"), "Sprig Muslin" is, to this day, my favourite Regency-era romance novel of alll time. It's novel that can proudly boast of possessing everything from a nice, gently paced romance subplot, to an adventure (of a smalll sort), with some hystericallly funny scenes, & written with just the right touch of gentle humour, so that you're left with a satisfied smile (and feeling) on your face long after you've finished the book.
Sir Gareth Ludlow has decided to do his duty & marry. And because he's a much sought after bachelor, & a good-looking & amiable man to boot, finding a wife shouldn't be too difficult a task. But because he is still very much affected by the death, seven years ago, of his true love (the beautiful but headstrong Clarissa) Gareth has decided to marry for suitability & convenience. Not for him some young debutante who would, no doubt, expect him to shower her with affection & dance to her tune; & Gareth has decided to ask his good friend, Lady Hester Theale, to marry him. Labeled an old maid, quiet, self effacing & practical Lady Hester surely would not look to make a love matchat this stage in her life, & would, naturallly, see alll the advantages of making a marriage based on mutual respect & admiration. Except that along the way to propose to Hester, Gareth meets a very young lady, alll alone (no chaperone or servants) who callls herself "Amanda Smith." Beautiful, willful & with a highly imaginative mind, Amanda has runaway from home because she has a PLAN (you'll have to read the book to discover what this PLAN entails). Naturallly Gareth cannot leave such a young girl by herself, & he decides to rescue Amanda for her own good. But little did Gareth imagine that when he set out to rescue Amanda that she would embroil him in an adventure of a lifetime, & that it would make him look at a certain lady with new eyes & with hope in his heart...
I had exactly the same reaction to "Sprig Muslin" that I had with Austen's "Pride & Prejudice" -- an overwhelming sense of relief & satisfaction that it had ended in exactly the way I had wanted it to. The basic plot-line is very spare, but where Heyer's genius lies is in the manner in which she quickly engages the reader's interest in the characters portrayed, making you care for them & devoutly hoping that each & every one of them gets the resolution they deserve. For myself, I've always had a soft spot for quiet, overlooked heroines, especiallly when most of my friends preferred heroines with more hair than wit & who exhibited a lot of resolution but practicallly no common sense. So that reading "Sprig Muslin" was like a tonic for me -- "watching" the gentle romance between the hero & heroine unfold quietly, esp as this contrasted superbly with each outrageous new story that Amanda would concoct & unleash -- it was just so excellently done & such fun! To this day, I've yet to come across another novel that satisfies & entertains me as much as "Sprig Muslin," & I'm beginning to doubt that I ever will. If you haven't read it yet, don't hesitate: PICK THIS BOOK UP TODAY, you won't regret it.
