Powder and Patch

De: Georgette Heyer

Narrado por: Jot Davies

Brought to you by Penguin.

Powder and Patch is read by Jot Davies.

If he is to win her hand, Philip must become what he is not.

In an 18th-Century England of wit, womanising and powdered wigs, provincial Philip Jettan runs the risk of irreproachability. Cleone Charteris stands in no such danger. The golden-haired, headstrong despair of men, she seeks a husband who can duel and dice with the best of them. So Philip leaves for Paris, where his father's hopes and his lover's ideals are realised but with unforeseen consequences for them both....

A peerlessly successful and prolific romantic novelist, Georgette Heyer shows in Powder and Patch what won her a wide, devoted readership that continues to this day.

©1923 Georgette Heyer (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Like a Theater Performance

The voice actor skillfully puts on this performance as if it were a theater play! And it really is - a tragic comedy, as ridiculous as Shakespeare, hilarious and cringey and frustrating and well-written. Do not be fooled - this is much less a romance than a jab at the silly fancies of a young girl, the posturing of a fashionable society, and the lack of a foothold an actual honest man can have in a world where everyone wants them to be cooler, more aggressive, more... French, haha. But the scenes that show his love for her are still swoonworthy, especially with the voice actor's nice voice!

The main, final conflict towards the end of the book is like watching the female lead cause a four-car pileup, then get out of the car and start crying while two of the other drivers get out and start yelling about how they should get the insurance payout, then the third driver - the male lead - just completely baffled, because he was just refused a carpool with the female lead, so why did she have to go veering into two other lanes and smashing into him and other cars... and then he and his dad pays out all the insurance for her (but everyone except Cleone has fun doing so). Basically Cleone can't drive for shit and Phillip deserves better, but at least she acknowledges her faults in the end.

I love who Phillip becomes, with the exception of his taste in women, and I'm glad Cleonne is aware of how silly she was (I spent a good deal of the book wanting to smack my head into a wall because of her). I was worried based on other reviews, but while this one of Heyer's won't be my favorite, it was still enjoyable.

Just don't take any of the themes too seriously! Heyer herself seems to acknowledge that it's ridiculous for a young girl to desire that a man overrule her, but that's the advice an old woman gives to Phillip, and seems to be Cleonne's (misplaced) expectations for him, which lead to her short downfall. Good thing is he doesn't really have any point at which he follows through, staying honest and just helping her get out of the stupid situation she got herself into!

Not up to snuff.

I love Georgette Heyer; but this is her weakest story. It is silly and poorly plotted. However, the narrator does a great job with the material.