Fiorella is cleaning out her bookcase of beloved paperback romances, ones she never thought she'd toss, but the time has come (the Walrus said). However, there's at least one that ain't a-gonna go, and that's The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer, the woman who invented historical romance--and don't send me corrective little notes mentioning Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott. Jane was writing contemporary romances while Walt wrote adventure stories for armchair cavaliers. Avant garde!
The plot of The Masqueraders is hard to explain without a few sniggers coming from a modern audience because it faetures a brother and sister being disguised as the opposite sex, but nothing untoward happens. Not that sexual entendre is nonexistent in Heyer's works--it's just not played out on the public page.
Anyway, the story involves the sibs' father establishing his birthright, the son wooing his ladylove in the spirit of adventure, the daughter being wooed by the man she is in love with but does not feel worthy of, and a bad guy who plots with another bad guy to bring them all down. Complicated and interwoven, but Heyer makes it work--wandering POVs, long expository passages, and all..
Yeah, The Masqueraders is a keeper.
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