A Little Folly - Jude Morgan

A Little Folly by Jude Morgan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I spent the first several chapters of this book thinking "What's the point of reading this when I could be reading Jane Austen?"

Then something clicked.  Perhaps it was Morgan's clever turns of phrase:

"She would not allow praises to go to her head:--but they might be allowed to reach as far as her eyes, which, when she saw herself reflected in the hall mirror as they left, certainly seemed uncommonly bright."

"...he lounged away in a cloud of pomade and exclamation marks."

Or perhaps his clear-eyed description of trivial human failings;

"Sophie and Tom treated her with great fondness and indulgence, reassuring themselves that she had not suffered a moment's loneliness without them, commiserating her small ailments, loading her with presents they had bought at Lyme, and generally according her every sort of attention, compatible with not really taking any notice of her."

Or his sharp tongue:

"Is he not entrancing?  I could study him for hours.  It is not just the stupidity--it is the thoroughness with which it is kept up.  To remember all that slang, and not deviate into normal language here and there: to never say anything remotely interesting or thoughtful, even by accidental lapse--this requires a special kind of talent.  I can only look on in fascination.  I think the high point of the evening was when he called me a 'ninnyhammer.'"

Or his metaphoric wisdom:
"But she suspected that in many regards grown men, and women, did not grow up--that the fresh susceptibility of youth still sent its green shoots through the hard stones of experience."

Anyway, I'm hooked.  Pure Regency Fun.


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