Rating: 
Summary: Not just another Regency Romance
Review: Don't get me wrong. I love the swashbuckling air of Georgette Heyer's more usual Regency romances: the controlled, half-concealed violence of her Duke of Avon and her Earl of Rule--the lace and steel. I also love Georgette Heyer's usual clever dialogue: those heroes' biting irony and their wicked wit. It just happens that 'A Civil Contract' is not like that.Here, instead, we have an essentially gentle story, with a hero who, though a soldier, never speaks an unkind or angry word. Financial adversity forces Lord Lynton to give up the woman whom he loves with a passion, and who idolises him as a dashing soldier, and to make a marriage of convenience with the daughter of the rich but unspeakably vulgar Jonathan Chawleigh. But despite all that it is a nice and eventually happy story, in which everyone ends up getting, not perhaps what they want, but, better yet, what makes them happy.
Rating:
Summary: deeper than the usual regency romance
Review: Georgette Heyer is known for having invented the 'Regency Romance' genre. Generally this is regarded as light escapist reading, and many of her books are exactly that. A Civil Contract, however, is different--in my opinion, it rates up there with all of Jane Austen's books. A Civil Contract is the one Heyer book I know of that allows the main characters to develop, grow, and mature. An excellent read for anyone, anytime. Holly Shalt
Rating:
Summary: A most satisfying Civil Contract
Review: I have read this book so many times at various ages and stages of my life and I find that looking back it is still my very favorite romance by Georgette Heyer.
The hero is heroic in his unhappily but willingly giving up those
things that meant so much to him: his military career, his "tendre" for the frail and beautiful Julia. Trying to insure that his home stays in the family against the massive debts his
father created in his life's enjoyment, he is pushed into marriage with a gentle, plain and very pratical miss who he vaguely remembers as being a friend of Julia's. Though initially
embarrassed to be sold to a cit for his daughter to gain a title.
His natural kindness and honor come through and he does try and
treat this unwanted female with decency. For her part, Jenny has long loved Adam and is willing to marry him despite knowing he loves another because it is the only way she can help him.
(at this point the tears fall) At first shy and uncomfortable with each other and especially with the rare visits of Jenny's
overloud, overbrash and smotherng father, the two neverthe less manage to find some contentment in their relationship. Jenny never stops working on ways to please Adam and he in turn, though tempted by Julia's continued interest in him, refuses any
involvement. citing how much she does for him and how little she gets in return, honoring their relationship is the least he can do. It is not an easy read, many conversations make the reader want to beat up one or another of the protaganists but we hang in there and in the end, when he tells Jenny that Julia was a young man's dream BUT that he could never have a life without Jenny. This reader's sigh's abound. Deep, Passionate love there may not be but the kind that grows with daily contact and mutual respect will last a whole lot longer. Though hero and heroine, both have multiple scenes where their reactions to each other are often close to cruel BUT only briefly. It may have not started as a happy arrangement, but by the time we are finished reading, we are assurred that this will be a good marriage and that there is love present. A must read for those interested in
arranged marriages and in the steady growth of friendship and respect into love.
Rating:
Summary: the best Heyer romance!
Review: I probably read almost all the Georgette Heyer Regencies about 20 years ago and enjoyed them all ... but this, somewhat to my surprise, was the one that stuck with me the most. Re-reading it now, I understand why better and think that it is almost a small masterpiece. No evil villians, no larger-than-life heros (well, Jenny, but even she has her very "human" moments), no sudden mind-altering changes of heart -- but perhaps a greater miracle: the steady growth of love between some honorable and loveable people -- more than the hero and heroine, in fact. Unlike one of the other reviewers, I rather liked the last few pages because where they were left off is, really, where they would be in "real" life and you get the feeling that the story truly does continue and get even more wonderful after you leave off. I guess I would like it better if we could glimpse the changes in their more intimate moments also .... but then Georgettte Heyer wouldn't have been writing the story and it would be nothing like a masterpiece. Please read it - sometime when you have the time to savor each step of the way and some of the truly, truly funny moments, as well as the touching ones.
Rating:
Summary: A gentle, but also very real (also very funny) love story
Review: I probably read almost all the Georgette Heyer Regencies about 20 years ago and enjoyed them all ... but this, somewhat to my surprise, was the one that stuck with me the most. Re-reading it now, I understand why better and think that it is almost a small masterpiece. No evil villians, no larger-than-life heros (well, Jenny, but even she has her very "human" moments), no sudden mind-altering changes of heart -- but perhaps a greater miracle: the steady growth of love between some honorable and loveable people -- more than the hero and heroine, in fact. Unlike one of the other reviewers, I rather liked the last few pages because where they were left off is, really, where they would be in "real" life and you get the feeling that the story truly does continue and get even more wonderful after you leave off. I guess I would like it better if we could glimpse the changes in their more intimate moments also .... but then Georgettte Heyer wouldn't have been writing the story and it would be nothing like a masterpiece. Please read it - sometime when you have the time to savor each step of the way and some of the truly, truly funny moments, as well as the touching ones.
Rating:
Summary: the best Heyer romance!
Review: My mother is an audiologist, and in the early days of her career, she was an independent, and worked in various local nursing homes. Every once in a while, I was dragged along and left in the waiting room. In one of these nursing homes, they had a single bookshelf filled with old out of print books, romance novels, mainly. I picked up a civil contract because I was attracted by the title. Not being able to finish it in the one visit, I hid it behind other books in the shelf, and the next time we went to that nursing home, it was finshed. It was my first and eternal favorite Georgette Heyer novel. Don't you get tired of all those passionate, beautiful heroines? Can't you see yourself as a Jenny? I can. The novel gives me a certain hope, that there is a chance for us quiet shy bookish types. :) And it makes me cry a little every time I read it. ^_^
Rating:
Summary: The benchmark for writers in the regency genre
Review: One of my great treasures is my collection of the complete works of Georgette Heyer, started when I was still at university and completed with the publication of Lady of Quality. I haven't read any of them for over 20 years but they have travelled with me all over the world, carefully packed up every time I have moved. In preparation for a recent long-haul flight, I picked out several Heyers including A Civil Contract to re-read. The story is outlined by other reviewers and indeed it is exquisitely plotted, moving slowly through the seasons and the social, political and economic events of the times. Essentially, it is the story of unlikely opposites marrying much in accordance with the customs of the time and building a deep and affectionate relationship despite themselves. The characters are all well drawn (although perhaps Mr Chawleigh is a bit two dimensional) and they slowly grow on you so that you care what happens to them and you cheer them on as they find their way through a situation that initially seems unlikely to offer any personal happiness. What struck me when re-reading this novel was just how few writers of the regency genre have come anywhere near reaching Heyer's standards. Her intimate knowledge of every aspect of life during the Regency, her acute literary skills and sheer ability to tell a good story have never been equalled by her aspirants. She continues, to this day, to be the ultimate benchmark for regency fiction.
Rating:
Summary: The benchmark for writers in the regency genre
Review: One of my great treasures is my collection of the complete works of Georgette Heyer, started when I was still at university and completed with the publication of Lady of Quality. I haven't read any of them for over 20 years but they have travelled with me all over the world, carefully packed up every time I have moved. In preparation for a recent long-haul flight, I picked out several Heyers including A Civil Contract to re-read. The story is outlined by other reviewers and indeed it is exquisitely plotted, moving slowly through the seasons and the social, political and economic events of the times. Essentially, it is the story of unlikely opposites marrying much in accordance with the customs of the time and building a deep and affectionate relationship despite themselves. The characters are all well drawn (although perhaps Mr Chawleigh is a bit two dimensional) and they slowly grow on you so that you care what happens to them and you cheer them on as they find their way through a situation that initially seems unlikely to offer any personal happiness. What struck me when re-reading this novel was just how few writers of the regency genre have come anywhere near reaching Heyer's standards. Her intimate knowledge of every aspect of life during the Regency, her acute literary skills and sheer ability to tell a good story have never been equalled by her aspirants. She continues, to this day, to be the ultimate benchmark for regency fiction.
Rating:
Summary: A graceful, amusing social comment on Regency manners
Review: Regncy Heyer at her best, (along with the very different, proto-feminist Grand Sophie, that is!) Not unusually for the times, the young aristocratic hero has inherited crushing debts and can only redeem these by sale of the ancestral lands. Or perhaps marriage to an heiress, again a not-unusual situation of the times. Reluctantly our hero takes the latter course, to the daughter of the immenseley rich and vulgar merchant Crawleigh. The daughter, though undoubtedly not aristocracy is not vulgar however, nor is our hero a complete unknown to her.... This is, I think, the only Heyer Regency novel with a married heroine, and a real heroine she is too! These books are for fun, but my goodness the research is good and the writing is compelling. This is not Mills & Boon, this is an author! And I am not ashamed as a feminist to love her stuff. Georgette Heyer, RIP, you have provided generations of us, feminist or not, with real pleasure
Rating:
Summary: A very civil romance
Review: This has become one of my favorite Heyer novels, despite the fact that you start out believing in the wrong heroine. This is one of the few romances I've read where the hero ends up loving the plain woman he's forced to marry rather than persevering in his infatuation with the beautiful woman he had to give up. The humor is more subdued than usual for Heyer but it is still there and she even adds a little excitement related to the results of the Battle of Waterloo. If you want a good, quiet, rainy day read, this is probably the best from Georgette Heyer.
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