Book Review: An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer

On the eve of battle, passions are running high... In the summer of 1815, with Napolean Bonaparte marching down from the north, Brussels is a whirlwind of parties, balls and soirees. In the swirling social scene surrounding the Duke of Wellington and his noble aides de camp, no one attracts more attention than the beautiful, outrageous young widow Lady Barbara Childe. On their first meeting, dashing Colonel Charles Audley proposes to her, but even their betrothal doesn't calm her wild behavior. Finally, with the Battle of Waterloo raging just miles away, civilians fleeing and the wounded pouring back into the town, Lady Barbara discovers where her heart really lies, and like a true noblewoman, she rises to the occasion, and to the demands of love, life and war...

This is the second book I've read from Georgette Heyer (here's the first), and I've found her to be a writer of solid historical Regency romances. I've just found out by looking this book up that An Infamous Army is the third book in a trilogy, which is not mentioned at all in my 1970s copy. To be fair I skim or ignore everything before chapter one. The title comes from a phrase the Duke of Wellington wrote in a letter complaining about how ill-prepared and -uniformed his army was. 

Basically this book is Barbieheimer, if the Barbie part were a historical Regency romance novel and the Oppenheimer part were a dry, grim Napoleonic war novel. Actually, I just remembered the heroine's name is actually Barbara so that works perfectly! She's a young widow who is so beautiful and bewitching that she's constantly surrounded by enthralled lovesick men. She's scandalous because she flirts with all of them and paints her toenails gold like a Parisian prostitute!! Quel horreur!!! Alexa, play "Maneater" (either version works fine). The hero is Colonel Audrey, a dashing handsome man who is boring sensible and respectable; this is contradicted in the text by him falling in love with Barbara at first sight and proposing like the second time they meet, as well as him being stupid enough to think Barbara will stop being such a scandalous flirt after they're engaged, despite her telling him straight to his face that she won't stop and will keep doing whatever she wants. He's like "no you won't" and then gets all surprised Pikachu face when she does. Who could have foreseen this??? I don't get why he had to be so much older than her (about ten years). GH really had a thing for older male love interests; in The Nonesuch her hero was like 35 (like Audrey) and her heroine was 28. The gendered double standards re: aging are annoying to me.

The war half of this book is about the Duke of Wellington planning/preparing for war, which mostly seems to consist of him writing letters during the day and then going to balls and dances at night. He's basically the third main character of this book. Audrey is one of his aides, and other aids and their love interests are side characters. This part of the book is very dry and boring; when we get to the Battle of Waterloo it's very violent and sad with all the deaths and injuries. The injured survivors basically crawl to the town where the civilians are staying and the ladies bind up wounds etc. as best they can. The two halves of the book are very inharmonious and the nonexistent transitions between the two are jarring. It'll be like: "Her eyes flashing, Barbara bounded away. [paragraph break] The Duke of Wellington sat down to write a letter..." Heyer really did her research (she has a bibliography in the back of the book; take note, nonfiction writers) and did her best to write about the Duke of Wellington and the Battle of Waterloo in an accurate way, but it would have been better if she'd split the two books up. Pick a lane, Heyer. Don't go chasing war-terfalls; stick to the rivers and the balls that you're used to. Barbarloo was not fun; at least Barbieheimer was two different films so you could choose to skip one. Oh, and the ending was so abrupt I turned the page and was shocked to find it blank. Did they lose a page? Or did Heyer really think the best way to end the book was to have, you guessed it, the Duke of Wellington sit down to write a letter? 

Score: 3 out of 5 stars
Spice score: 0.5 out of 5 chilies 🌶 (just kissing)
Read in: March 30-31
From: a used bookstore called Griffeys' Book Emporium

Trigger warnings: death, dismemberment, limb loss, war, violence, fighting, animal (horses) death, period-typical sexism, period-typical sex shaming, teenage girl forced to marry much older man (past, off-page), infidelity I think

Book review: The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

The only book I read in June was The Passion by Jeanette Winterson. I picked it up because it sounded interesting. It's set during the Napoleonic wars, aka Regency times, and part of the book takes place in Venice, which I love and have been to. It also sounded kind of mysterious and magical. Here is the summary, from both the back of this book and Amazon:

Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice’s compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny.

Right off the bat, I can tell you that I don't like this summary. Whoever wrote it did not read the book that thoroughly. The most glaring example is that the summary says that Villanelle's husband gambled away her heart. This is not true: he gambled away her body. Because he lost at cards, the husband had to give Villanelle to his opponent to work as a "comfort woman" to Napoleon's troops. That is how she and Henri meet. Also, I don't think it's right to give away that Villanelle has webbed feet in the summary, when the book itself is very secretive about it. It gives away the surprise reveal in the last part of the book. The summary makes it sound like Henri and Villanelle meet by chance in Venice. They actually meet in Russia when both decide to run away from the doomed military enterprise (Russia in winter? Does no one ever think?), and Villanelle takes Henri to Venice to hide from Napoleon's men.

As you will have guessed, this book does not shy away from the ugliness of life or war. There was a lot of horrible stuff mentioned, and while I will not list it all, I would apply trigger warnings for explicit sexual scenarios (including non-consensual), forced prostitution, a mention of gang rape, murder, blood, gore, violence, mentions of abandoned feral children, starvation, animal death, and that's all I can think of right now. 

While I liked Henri and Villanelle individually, I don't think I really liked them together as a couple. Villanelle can do so much better than Henri, and she doesn't even feel that way towards him. I am tired of reading/seeing couple pairings that happen just because the guy is in love with the girl. I was also displeased at the ending. After all that suffering and misery, there is no happy ending for the two of them. Villanelle refuses to marry Henri (despite having a child with him) and he goes mad in an insane asylum. Like what? Why? 

However, this was really good and rather beautifully written. If you can stomach all of the ugliness listed above and like the historical setting and topics, I would recommend this book. I liked the Venice setting and events and magical fantasy stuff, such as Villanelle literally losing her heart to a married woman and Henri having to find it before Villanelle is held in thrall. The summary writer probably got this part of the book confused with Villanelle's husband's gambling problem. I also love Villanelle's name; it is a poetic form I learned about in college. (Parents, do not get any ideas.)

The above cover is the one my copy has, and it's ok. Obviously the cards are due to Villanelle's job before she's gambled away, and the mask is because it takes place in Venice. I don't think I've ever seen a book with the author's picture on the front (apart from important literary people like C.S. Lewis). I didn't realize this when I bought the book, but Jeanette Winterson is an important lesbian/LGBT+  writer. I'm not a huge fan of the cover art, but all the other covers were just as bad if not worse. A lot of them featured chickens since Henri works plucking and preparing chickens for Napoleon and apparently the artists only read up to that point in the book.


Score: 4 out of 5 stars
Read in: early June
From: the thrift store
Format: paperback
Status: idk I might give it away at some point