The Talisman Ring

Posted by Michele @ North Bend on November 23, 2008 @ 01:13 PM

TalismannRing.jpgI am sure you well know that when a young girl runs away to London to avoid an arranged marriage, she becomes a governess in a ducal household. While there she and the handsome young heir fall in love and after much travail they marry and live happily ever after. You didn't know that? Well that is what Eustacie de Vauban, the young heroine believes in Georgette Heyer's The Talisman Ring. She takes off in the middle of the night and is quickly captured by smugglers, or free traders as they like to be known. She discovers that the leader of the group is her cousin, Ludovic who has been accused of killing a man and therefore has gone into hiding. He became a smuggler uh, free trader because it seemed like an exciting thing to do. While taking her to safety, the Excisemen arrive and shoot at the free traders, hitting Ludovic.

Arriving at the nearby inn, with a sympathic landlord ( he buys the smuggled brandy), they encounter Sarah Thane who has a pragmatic outlook on life and also a keen sense of the ridiculous. Sarah helps in hiding and doctoring the wounded Ludovic. Eustacie soon trusts Sarah and tells her all that has happened. Sarah realizes that the young woman needs a chaperon and a co-conspirator to prove that Ludovic is not a murderer. Sir Tristram, the run-away-from-fiance arrives and is enlisted into helping clear Ludovic from the murder charges. And this is just in the first four chapters! Georgette Heyer is my favorite author. Her sprightly romances with ditzy women and clueless men are so funny. The ditzy and the clueless are not the main characters, they are the spurs or should I say burrs to the practical heroes and heroines. In The Talisman Ring, Ludovic and Eustacie drag the sardonic Sir Tristram and the willing Sarah into their escapades to discover who has the talisman ring and therefore is the actual murderer. Sir Tristram foils their plans with a direct no, while Sarah agrees to all their foolishness and then gently steers the two in a practical direction.

This charming romance and mystery is one of my favorite stories by my favorite author, who is considered the great grandmother of the Regency and Georgian romances. (Jane Austen is the great-great-great-grandmother). Miss Heyer is true to the manners and mores of the times of which she writes; no young girl is going to go to Oxford although she may chafe at the rules that say she can't. The heroes and heroines realize that they must marry for themselves and for their families. That is the life of the gentry and nobility in the 17th and 18th century England. I wouldn't want to live there but I certainly enjoy reading about them.

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