#powder and patch

I just finished reading Powder and Patch by Georgette Heyer and I really enjoyed it; I love her writing style! Though you can sort of tell this is one of her earlier works (she improved!) it was very humorous in some of its absurdities, as a large part of the plot took place in pre-Revolutionary Paris, and there was a sweet love story at the heart of all of it.

Powder and patch by Georgette Heyer

“Philip Jettan was an early version of a ‘Heyer hero’, in whom the author worked to bring together ‘mastery’ with gentleness and refined taste. Today’s readers sometimes baulk at the mastery, but the template proved itself to have enduring appeal, especially when envisaged alongside a form of personality development which entailed the hero accommodating himself to feminine inclinations. This is more than just the classic romantic narrative where the hero mellows under the influence of true love. He has to abjure boorishness, to show a softer sensibility, a capacity to understand and to respect feminine desires. As one reader pointed out on Amazon’s Goodreads review site in 2013, Jettan is effectively ‘Cinderella-ized’: here it is the prince, and not the scullery maid, who gets the total makeover.”

Find out more on the history of Heartthrobs.

Young Philip Jettan was very unlike the other men in the Jettan family line.  He had no interest in being Fashionable, found Society boring, and was more than happy living in the country at the family home, Jettan's Pride.  He was the despair of his father.  Cleone Charteris, a childhood friend, returned from polishing and time in Town, quickly gained the attention of Philip as well as his love.  Unfortunately Cleone found Philip to be boorish and lacking in the social graces.

After losing a duel in Cleone's honor and having his marriage proposal refused cruelly with a comment that she would never marry a raw country bumpkin, Philip decides to give her and his father what they claimed to want, a change from an honest, hardworking man to a painted fop.  He flees to Town and his Uncle Thomas who promptly takes him to Paris for the transformation.  His absence is greatly felt, but once Philip returns to London, he isn't the same man they once knew.

Originally published as "The Transformation of Philip Jettan" by Stella Martin in 1923, the first and only time that Heyer used a pen name.  This particular publication from Harlequin under their Historical Romance line had a lovely foreword by Susan Wiggs, an accomplished historical romance author as well as a fan of Heyer's works.

This is a Georgian romance rather than a Regency one.  Considering the fashions of that time, only a few authors manage to pull off the fine line between fashion and folly.  Heyer is one of the few.  

This is an early work, published when she was just 21 years old, that holds remarkably well over the years since.  The level of racism in some of her other later works isn't as present here.  Yes, there is a black page, but that was quite common in England of that era.  I admit that the almost Southern American accent was strange.  And my heart did stutter when it was revealed that the page's name was Sambo.  But I put it down to the time period and attitudes of that age, something I tend to do when reading authors from before the 1950s whenever possible.

I'm one of those people who hate when a person changes themselves for the love of another.  Hence, I absolutely despised the transformation of Sandy from nice girl to slut at the end of GREASE.  That said, I enjoy how Philip managed to weave his true self into the outer changes.  Still bugs me, but the book was fun to read.  Personally I think little Miss Cleone isn't good enough for him, a spoiled brat who will drive him bonkers as time passes.