Ep 18 - Venetia

Spoilers ahead. Possibly the most romantic of all Heyer novels, in this episode we fall under the spell of Dameral - a young Classics nerd turned rake, rejected by his family and society; and Venetia - pragmatic, brave, witty and kind despite a lifetime of loneliness. Theirs is an uncommon love, and we absolutely luxuriate in it.

But it's not all about the love story, because when Mrs Scorrier and Edward Yardley are on the scene the red mist of anger descends upon us. We simply cannot bear to see these domineering and outrageous figures persecute our lovely heroine. But of course, it's always fun to have villains you can happily hate.

Finally, apologies for making precisely zero references to any of the many literary allusions scattered throughout the book. We ran out of time and Flurry ate our homework. Instead we stick to our usual level and discuss Regency orgies and take bets on Dameral's faithfulness (in summary: we think he's clearly reformed).

"The thing is that even if you were to hold an orgy here the chances are he would only think it pretty tame, compared to the Romans, not to mention the Bacchae, who, from anything I can discover, were precisely the sort of females one would wish a boy not to know about!"

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