Cute and giggle-inducing. I thoroughly enjoyed this silly romance novel.

It would have been five stars had I not felt the need to box Ludovic's ears a couple of times.

I might go for more like 2.5 stars. The story was funny, (and as I've been looking further into it, it seems that Heyer meant it as a parody) but I felt it lacked something. Still haven't put my finger on it.

I love this Heyer tale and Phyllida Nash renders it beautifully! Lovely!

Silly, fluffy, and quite entertaining. Not Heyer's best work, but all sorts of fun.

Rereading, because in the month of February, and having read two sobering books (The Road and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch), I needed something light and sparkly. And this is one of the sparkliest of the Heyer romances. Completely enjoyable, with a wonderful heroine in Sarah Thane, and handsome hero in Sir Tristram, this is more a mystery/adventure than a romance. Though, of course, there is that, too!

And Sir Hugo Thane is one of the great secondary characters in Heyer's universe. So, so funny.

I think this would make an excellent movie and I don't know why Julian Fellowes or someone like that has never tried it!

2nd read:
I'm not as bowled away on the second read as I was in the first (and I picked up on some potential antisemitism in the beginning that I didn't seem to notice the first time around, but also we're reading about people who made their money through enclosing the commons, coercion, and colonialism so IDK). Anyway, I did enjoy this as a re-read. I needed something frothy and unserious and that's exactly what I got.

1st read:
This was so much fun! The setting is Georgian England, but the story structure and tone seemed much more 1930s to me, a slapstick comedy that had me casting Carole Lombard as the mischievous Miss Thane, Errol Flynn as the dashing Ludovic, Fredric March as the level-headed Tristram, and... I'm still struggling to figure out who could do justice to Eustacie's morbid enthusiasms, prompted by too many Gothic romances.

If I hadn't been reading a library book, I would have dog-earred about half the pages in search of the perfect quote to share. But instead of quoting half the book, I'll share what is probably my favorite passage (along with the scene where Eustacie describes her imagined trip to the guillotine and the scene where Miss Thane and Tristram announce their betrothal. So many possible choices!)

"A secret panel?" repeated Miss Thane in an awed voice. "You mean actually a secret panel?"
Ludovic regarded her with some slight concern. "Yes, why not?"
"I thought it too good to be true," said Miss Thane. "If there is one thing above all others I have wanted all my life to do it is to search for a secret panel! I suppose," she added hopefully, "it would be too much to expect to find an underground passage leading from the secret panel?"
Eustacie clasped her hands ecstatically. "But yes, of course! An underground passage--"
"With bats and dead men's bones," shuddered Miss Thane.
French common sense asserted itself. Eustacie frowned. "Not bats, no. That is not reasonable. But certainly some bones, chained to the wall."
"And damp--it must be damp!"
"Not damp; cobwebs," put in Ludovic. "Huge ones, which cling to you like--"
"Ghostly fingers!" supplied Miss Thane.
"Oh, Ludovic, there is a passage?" breated Eustacie.
He laughed, "Lord, no! It's just a priests' hole, that's all."
"How wretched!" said Miss Thane, quite disgusted. "It makes me lose all heart."

Loved this! So fun and so FUNNY. And this audio version (Phyllida Nash) is marvelous.