cimorene

It features what I call and

isilya heroine - a mature, intelligent and independent adult with a lively sense of humour who is well able to manage all the other men who intrude upon her life. In this instance, Annis Wychwood is setting up house in Bath with an elderly Miss Bates-esque companion named Maria.

Oliver Carleton is a bit reminiscent of Venetia's hero just as Annis is reminiscent of Venetia - but with the striking difference of being "the rudest man in London"! Annis accidnetally gets caught in the adventures of young and pretty heiress Lucilla Carleton, Oliver's niece, and her attempt to escape from marriage with her childhood playmate Ninian. The young couple, Maria, Mr. Carleton, and Annis's starchy brother and suitors and angelic sister-in-law make the plot crowded, but not necessarily quite madcap.

The dialogue in the early Annis-Oliver encounters is sparklingly brilliant: they're fighting the whole time with extremely witty and hilarious dialogue, which adds a great deal of UST in a way that reminds me of Much Ado About Nothing. The romance, too, is particularly mature and, I think, really affecting. Annis is a self-possessed intellectual with a very familiar (and rather modern-seeming) independence and doubts about matrimony, and even about the nature of love itself.

I rate this one of Heyer's more enjoyable non-comedy romances.