Penelope

by Anya Wylde

Fairweather Sisters · Book 1 · 2013

Penelope Fairweather has a London season to find a husband, courtesy of a dowager who has invited her into the family home. Penelope arrives from the country with little social polish and a pet goat. The duke takes a dim view of his mother’s guest.

Historical Romance Historical romance Romantic comedy Farce Parody

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What makes it funny?

Lady Bathsheba, the goat, eats the duke’s underwear. Elsewhere in the household, the grandfather insists that men wear mustaches to dinner.

The comedy at work

Wylde exaggerates the familiar Regency pairing of a socially awkward young woman and a disapproving aristocrat. The household’s own ridiculous rules give Penelope plenty of competition: the people charged with teaching her how to behave have eccentricities of their own.

Try this if…

Regency romance readers with a taste for broad farce have plenty to work with here, especially if they enjoy seeing debutantes and ducal dignity mocked.

Good to know

Expect deliberate exaggeration rather than careful period realism. Reviewers differ sharply on the result: Mónica Gutiérrez enjoyed the unruly parody, while Mrs. Julien found the goat implausible and the duke’s treatment of Penelope persistently unkind.