Book Review - Georgette Heyer's Devil's Cub
Published by: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: 1932
Format: Paperback, 310 Pages
Rating: ★★★
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Dominic, the Marquis of Vidal, has quite a legacy to live up to. His father, the Duke of Avon, was known as 'Satanas' and this Devil's Cub is on his way to proving he is the spit of his father. Vidal has left a string of bodies and broken hearts in his wake. But he has never trifled with women of a respectable class, until now. When his father hears that Vidal is fooling around with someone from the bourgeoisie he puts his foot down. This will not be tolerated. Vidal is starting to push boundaries that are there for a reason and when he conducts an impromptu duel in a gaming hell leaving his opponent for dead he has crossed one too many lines and his father banishes him to the continent before his crime catches up with him. But this still leaves the matter of the bourgeoisie unresolved. The young girl is a silly chit. Sophia Challoner has been encouraging Vidal all along despite his reputation, insisting to her sister Mary that she will be the one to put a ring on it. But the night before his departure for Paris he convinces Sophie to be his mistress, because in Paris such things are understood. Mary's worst fears are realized when Vidal sends Sophie the plan for their late night departure but accidentally addresses it to Mary. In that instant Mary comes up with a plan. She will take her sister's place and convince Vidal it was all a joke devised by her and her sister. He will be angry and she will return to her family, and no one will be ruined. She hadn't counted on his temper though. He takes Mary with him out of spite. When she recovers her senses she shoots him. During his recovering they come to realize that they are well suited and attracted to each other. Mary is so different than Sophia that he informs Mary that they are to be wed. This is not the outcome Mary wants. She wants to go home. But seeing as that's out of the question she'd settle for being a governess. As they duel over their future, back in England Vidal's mother is in a tizzy. Mrs. Challoner has approached her and told her of the kidnapping. The Duchess is so worried about what her husband might do to her son after he was specifically warned off the bourgeoisie that she flees to France hoping that she can figure something out before word reaches Avon. Because she is convinced that Mary is just like the odious Sophia and that she has trapped her beloved son. She couldn't be more wrong or more surprised about what happens. The course of love never has run smooth.
If there's one author that has been lurking around my to be read pile for a long time it is Georgette Heyer. I've oddly enough read two of her less lauded mysteries years ago but I have never taken the plunge into her romances until now. The first thing I should say is I probably should have read These Old Shades first as that is the first in this series but I'm not perfect. And I know that Heyer isn't either. Much like Dorothy L. Sayers she was an anti-Semite. In fact there's a push to reissue "sanitized" editions of Heyer's books for a modern audience, like they did with Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. This is something I personally disagree with. Books should be left as they are, warts and all, so that we can discuss why things that were viewed by some as acceptable weren't and how we can move forward and evolve. But say what you will, Heyer is kind of the progenitor of modern romance and thankfully Devil's Cub appears to have nothing problematic going on as far as I could tell. Here we're dealing with the common romance trope of the rake and the virgin. But never before have I come across someone who isn't just a rake but leaving tons of dead bodies in their wake. It was disturbing hearing that Dominique's mother had forewarned him that his next kill might prove problematic for him. WTF!?! Seriously, within the first third of the book he's probably killed two people, one highwayman, and one drunk, who is still clinging to life. Sure, the duel is the one that got him in trouble, but shouldn't it be more troubling that he left a corpse by the side of the road and was like, whatever, my bad. And we're supposed to believe that someone could fall in love with this!?! But the further I got into the narrative the more I realized I shouldn't take anything at face value, because this, this is a farce. The crush and commotion of Vidal's family and their over-the-top behavior was hilarious. There are serious arguments on how best to get a large quantity of wine from Dijon to London and whether a carriage or a canal would be preferable. And since the majority of the action takes place in France, yes, we can call it a French Farce. There's some Shakespeare, some Aphra Behn, some She Stoops to Conquer. If it's over the top and nearly improbable, I could totally see it happening in Devil's Cub. So it wasn't at all what I expected, but in the end I think the levity is what I needed.
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