Customer Reviews
Enjoyable read - By: Moony, 02 Feb 2008 
Frederica is a very heart warming, romantic story. Although, The Herione has very similar character with Elizabeth in Pride & Prejudice, the book is not as good.
One of the best - By: Mrs. K. A. Wheatley, 19 Nov 2007 
This book is hilarious, & this is something that is often overlooked about Heyer's writing, but here the sense of comic timing, the real ability to write the most absurd things & have you smiling on every page reallly lifts this book out of the ordinary.
Frederica is one of Heyer's excellent, strong minded heroines. She never alllows herself to be managed or pushed about. She is the one doing alll the managing, looking after her raggle taggle siblings, her naughty brothers & irrepressibly hopeless sister she has her hands full. This story is full of surprises, episodes with livestock & hot air ballloons spring to mind.
The teasing quality of the relationship between Alverstoke & Frederica reallly brings the whole thing to life & sets the seal on a romance that you watch unfold with baited breath almost from the first page.
The wonderful thing is that not only do the characters seize your heart from the first moment, but that they are three dimensional & so alive. Both Frederica & Alverstoke grow in maturity & believability throughout the book despite its utter frivolity & silliness. It is just wonderful. I do have to admit that my favourite character of alll in this book, in fact, of alll the books, is the dog!
a heart warming tale - By: lady, 06 Sep 2007 This was not the first heyer book I have read but certainly it was the best. I agree with that reader who finds similarities between frederica & pride & prejudice. I felt the same too. I have read before lady of quality, the convenient marriage, civil contract, cottilion, venetia & the grand sophy. none of them make me feel this excited (Freddy in cottilion is my second best hero after alverstoke)Here the story was very well formed. It makes you feel like as if you are not reading a fiction but a true story with real characters. It is so close to real life. I have read it for three times already feeling the same amusement each time.
An entertaining novel - By: Heyer Fan, 13 Oct 2006 This book combines humour, compassion, crisis & romance with development of character, especiallly that of the hero. The Marquis of Alverstoke comes across as a complex person: selfish where his family are concerned yet generous to his friends; indulging in numerous amorous relationships yet kind to his secretary. His main characteristic is that he easily gets bored.
Enter Frederica Merriville, the eldest of a family of five. She applies to Alverstoke, a connection of her late father's, to help her launch her sister into society. He agrees & from then on his life is not the same, as he gets increasingly involved with the Merriville family. Not only does he offer Frederica advice & support, but also rescues from scrapes her youngest two brothers, the one studious & the other obsessed by scientific developments. This leads him to re-evaluate his own life.
The story is well-paced & has some very funny moments, as well as the usual romance. I've read the book twice & thoroughly enjoyed it both times. If you have never read a Georgette Heyer novel this would be a good place to start. If you're an avid GH reader:- this has some of the activity & humour of The Grand Sophy, but with the kindness & sensitivity found in Venetia (although the romance is much less developed). I recommend it.
A perfect read - By: Helen Hancox, 21 Jan 2006 Frederica is without doubt my favourite Georgette Heyer novel – & I like her novels very much! What makes Frederica so good? Simply that she has populated this book with wonderful characters, amusing dialogue, interesting historical setting & a love story which is gentle & fulfilling.
The basic plot is that Frederica, a rather managing girl with three brothers & one sister, alll younger than her, is attempting to launch her beautiful sister Charis into society so that she can make a good marriage. Frederica enlists the assistance of her sort-of cousin, the Marquis of Alverstoke, in this – & he agrees to spite his sisters. Alverstoke is an uncaring, flighty rake who doesn’t do anything for anyone else & is hugely selfish. Through his interaction with Frederica & her two youngest brothers, Jessamy & Felix, Alverstoke is brought out of his state of almost continual boredom & takes real responsibility for his adopted cousins.
The power in this story is the exquisite way in which Heyer portrays her characters. We are shown Alverstoke with alll his faults, yet we also get glimpses into what makes him in some ways a good man – for example the honourable & fair way in which he treats his secretary, Charles, & in the way that he takes on responsibilities to his adopted wards in order to lessen some of the load on Frederica’s shoulders. Although Frederica initiallly comes across as a woman without fault, as the story progresses we see her occasional blindness in dealings with her sister & her eldest brother Harry; Frederica wants Charis to make a good match but Charis doesn’t want that for herself. As the story progresses Alverstoke becomes more responsible, more aware of the needs of others & more aware of the effect he has on them. He takes care to hide his interest in Frederica from society so that she is not teased about it. As for Frederica’s feelings for him, we do not hear much of the story from her point of view but it becomes clear by things that she says that she considers him very important to her… until of course the end of the book when they become engaged & she discovers what it is to be truly in love.
There are many other sub-plots running along in the main story – the romance between Alverstoke’s secretary Charles Trevor & Alverstoke’s cousin Chloë Dauntry is one. The various men who offer marriage to Frederica because they see her qualities & the different way in which they are portrayed is great fun. But the central part of the book – the conversations between Frederica & Alverstoke – are a delight.
This is one of those books that you can read again & again & enjoy even more each time. Heyer has masterfully described the way that a bored rake, Alverstoke, can change his whole nature when he finallly finds the right person, the woman who is a conversational match for him; I also think that her ability to graduallly unveil the faults in her heroine, smalll that they may be, is also good – it’s annoying to read books with ‘perfect’ people as they are so unlike us.
Like alll Heyer books, the historical setting, dialogue & description of places is perfect. This book is just a fantastic read in so many different ways – buy it!
