The Grand Sophy

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For instance, it wasn’t until after WWI that women were enfranchised in most countries of the world. When he dares to try to threaten her she just pulls and gun and demands what she came for, says she will give him the money owed, or she can go to the cops or just shoot him. Not everyone was anti-semitic in 1950, and sensitivity towards Jews and Judaism was more prevalent post WWII. And while it helps explain Heyer’s anti-Semitism, and to accept it in a way we would not (I hope) in our contemporaries, that doesn’t mean we should shrug off its appearance in her fiction as “just how things were back then. These heroes are so real, so much more believable and lovable than the rich, dissolute alpha males of our contemporary historicals who manage to win the heroine simply through the hardness of their abs and the hugeness of their "manhood".

But she is a stranger to London, and when her father is sent on a diplomatic mission to Brazil, he persuades his sister, Lady Ombersley, to introduce Sophy to London Society. I abhor the wooden, stereotypical villain, his nearly meaningless role and the unnecessary bigotry and anti-Semitism. The setting is Regency England, and the Grand Sophy is a well-born young English woman who happens to be a British spy; her father is also a British spy; they are wealthy and fashionable and dashing; and their task is to help defeat Napoleon, the second time around.I read one of Heyer’s novels a few years ago and while the antisemitism in that one was not as glaring as the excerpts I’ve seen from The Grand Sophy, it was nevertheless very disturbing. Sophy is a source of much consternation, with her determination to be literally and narratively in the driver’s seat. Quick, intelligent and exuberantly capable, twenty-year old Sophy is a bracing reveille to her cousin’s the Rivenhall’s staid existence at Berkeley Square.

I mean seriously, the ending repulsed me, I kept seeing babies with a cyclops eye, like that guy from Goonies, when they embraced. This would be a 5-star book, easy, but unfortunately there's a really problematic minor subplot, right in the middle of the book, that involves a stereotypical greasy, evil Jewish moneylender (the name Goldhanger and his "Semitic nose" are your textual clues). Painful BUT obviously part of society then just as so many 1960s/70s “comedy” shows are racist/sexist and I find that much more offensive as society should have evolved more then – and I 100% agree about the Gringot’s goblins, they make me very uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book, would recommend it to those looking for Jane Austen substitutes (instead of those horrid zombie parodies and sequels) and will probably read Heyer in future. But Sophy’s father’s description of her is not at all the reality, and while most of Lady Ombersley’s family thinks Sophie is wonderful, her son, Charles Rivenhall, who has taken over management of the family’s finances and is as a result somewhat cranky in his responsibility, thinks Sophy is more trouble than she’s worth – and his fiancee dislikes Sophy, too.The plot is fantastic, the endless capers are quite funny, and the character development seems very real and natural. A minor quibble is that one of the younger children Theodore disappears from the book - or else is merged with another son Hubert. But she hadn't reckoned with Charles Rivenhall, the Ombersleys' heir, who is very unappreciative of her efforts.