The Man in Grey – a Regency Romance (1941), by Eleanor Smith

It’s tosh and I loved it.  Bath gentility, Almack’s assemblies, gauzy frocks, curricles and phaetons, two aristocrats in a marriage of convenience, her lover and his mistress. I can’t help feeling that Georgette Heyer would have arranged matters very differently.  The cynical, bored Marquis of Rohan, the Man in Grey, would have met not the … Continue reading →

She Was His Wife (1936) by Augusta Varty-Smith

Book Review by Sylvia D: My second book from the Mark Valentine donation is Augusta Varty-Smith’s She Was His Wife, published by Heath Cranton in 1936. Peter Carmichael is a successful, third generation City businessman whose father had built up an extensive estate, Long Ashes, a train ride away from the City, and had provided … Continue reading →

1944 (1926) by the Earl of Halsbury

Book review by George S: The Earl of Halsbury’s novel, 1944 (published in 1926) is a very readable example of the ‘Future War’ genre’. Before 1914, such books had mostly been grim warnings about possible German invasions. After 1918,  they still proliferated, though with a change of emphasis. My favourites are the ones where Bolshevik … Continue reading →