Friday's Child

 

By Georgette Heyer (read by Eve Matheson)

 

 

Terrible cover

Lord Sherringham comes of age.

While it would appear from the title that this story is about the heroine, the more I listen to it, the more I feel that it is more the hero's coming of age story. The title comes from the nameless nursery rhyme:

Monday's child is fair of face

Tuesday's child is full of grace

Wednesday's child is full of woe

Thursday's child has far to go,

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

In a fit of pique, young Sherringham marries his childhood friend, Hero. She is a bit of a Cinderella -- orphaned, living with relatives, poorly treated. He married, first, because his inamorata rejected him and, second, to gain control of his fortune; she married because at age 17 she was going to be packed off to be a governess. Neither of the pair was ready for marriage but both in their immaturity agreed that it was the only solution. The rest of the story is their merry path to adulthood and happily ever after

Sadly, the narrator is a bit whiny and screechy and I seem to notice it more and more with every read. Still, I have seen what has been done with re-issues and for me it is a case of "better the devil you know."

Three and a half stars for the humor and the romance. Not her best Regency romance but far from her worst.