DW knows all

[oyceter]

Lately the only thing I seem to be able to read is romantic comedy. So... rec me stuff!

I have just gone on a terrible binge through nearly all of Julia Quinn (rilina, this is all your fault!), whom I have been enjoying because her heroes tend to be less alpha, her couples genuinely seem to like each other, and she's funny. Also, it helps that her later books have been overcoming her tendency to put 100 pages too much at the end.

I am mostly looking for something rather like 1930s romantic comedies, with a lot of banter and extremely likable heroines. Non-alpha heroes are a HUGE plus. It doesn't have to be in the romance genre, although I only want recs for textual things; my brain just cannot concentrate on TV or movies lately. Sadly, this goes for manga too and basically anything visual.

I also enjoy Loretta Chase, Laura Kinsale's comedies, Connie Brockway's comedies, and Jennifer Crusie.

I have kind of bounced off Eloisa James (is she considered funny?). I don't read as many contemporaries because a lot of the romance genre rules work better for me in historicals, but if it is screwball and feminist, I am all for it. I tend to bounce off of adult chick lit because I frequently don't actually find it funny or enjoyable.

... Maybe I should finally start reading Heyer?

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Yeah, I would try Heyer. Sprig Muslin is the one which got me started. It's quite funny. (Extremely silly young couple runs off together; sensible older couple is caught in the crossfire.)

I also think you would enjoy Sylvester (heroine is snubbed by man with evil eyebrows and writes a Gothic in which a man who looks just like him is a villain; they meet and fall in love; the book comes out), Cotillion (my all-time favorite of her non-alpha heroes... Now that I think of it, most of her heroes are non-alpha), and Frederica (can't recall the plot, if any, only that it made me laugh and there's a hot air balloon, kids, and dogs.)

Two warnings:

The language may take some getting used to. I remember someone on LJ parodying it as, "Do you take me for a puff-antler, sir? What spiffery! What a squizzle!"

The Grand Sophy has an incredibly anti-Semitic scene. Either avoid entirely, or when Sophy goes to the pawn shop, skip ahead till she's out of the pawn shop.

[rilina]

I have no helpful suggestions beyond second rachelmanija's Heyer recs. I own Frederica, if you want to borrow.

Oh, wait! Have you read Janet Mullany? I enjoyed The Rules of Gentility a lot and would read her other work in a heartbeat if I could easily get my hands on it. I don't love her characters, but her writing is witty and makes me laugh and laugh.

[graygirl]

Have you read Kinsale's newest, Lessons in French? :) Also, I would have rec'd Quinn, but you seem to have read her!

[meganbmoore]

I read a Heyer last week, Lady of Quality, that had a strong 30s comedy feel (and, cvonveniently, is the first of the 4 Heyers I''ve read that i really really loved).

If you can find them, I'm very fond of Loretta Chase and Susan Carroll's older Trad. Regencies, but you may not be able to find them even in used bookstores anymore, and I think you already read Carla Kelly. They're reprinting Jo Beverley's, though, and I've liked those that I've read, and they're lighter than her historicals.

I've always been fond of Amanda Quick, but she really does kind of rewrite the same thing over and over. I like Sabrina Jeffries and Suzanne Enoch's earlier books, but both wore off for me about 6~ books into their careers, though I think I also had a general burnout on romances for a couple years around the same time. The couple of Jacquie D'Alessandro's I've read have been pretty fun, ditto for Liz Carlyle and Kathryn Caskie. Also, while not RomComs, and possibly out of print, I'm absurdly fond of Marsha Canham's swashbuckler romances, especially Swept Away and Pale Moon Rider.

[dhobikikutti]

You should read E. Lockhart's Fly On the Wall, and also probably Disreputable History of Frankie Landeu-Banks. They're light and funny enough to be entertaining, you will find the politics overall palatable, and there isn't much angst. Also, YA, so short.

[shewhohashope]

Don't read Venetia! It has this one horribly sexist bit which made me stop reading, and then I read Black Sheep which had this guy who worked for the East India Company and suddenly I can't read Heyer or any Regency novels for at least a while because of all the horrible, horrible associations I can no longer skip over.

ETA: I can never not recommend Cotillion. And I'm a fan of The Convenient Marriage, but I think a lot of people hate it. There are lots of issues with Sophy, but that one horrifically anti-semitic scene is the absolute worst.

[coffeeandink]

I am also really fond of The Convenient Marriage! Venetia and The Black Sheep also had more alpha type heroes so they are not in my top tier.

[shewhohashope]

The Convenient Marriage had an incredibly alpha hero, but I found him much more amusing!

[coffeeandink]

So does Sylvester, now that I think about it, and it's one of my favorites. Clearly writer heroines and marriages of convenience override my other objections.

[lnhammer]

Heyer!

[rilina]

I also liked The Convenient Marriage, though I wouldn't put it in my top tier. On the other hand, I hated A Civil Contract, which many people love.

[coffeeandink]

On the other hand, I hated A Civil Contract, which many people love.

I join you in Civil Contract hatred! Plain sensible girls deserve mad passionate love affairs too, Georgette Heyer!

[rachelmanija]

See, this is why I like Sprig Muslin.

[rachelmanija]

I find it impossible to take his alpha-ness seriously when he has been parodied in-book as Count Ugolino.

[shewhohashope]

I got into an argument about this once, but I didn't even want a passionate affair so much as an acknowledgement that he cared about whatsherface not just because she was convenient and low maintenance and really liked him.

[oyceter]

Ahaha, I am kind of doing the fingers in ears "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" every time the romances I read mention the East India Company or India or China or... anything. Right now am managing to ignore references as long as it's not central to the plot, or even skip over bits that are just for brain candy, but some day I will have a giant rant on the assumptions Regencies are based on.

[oyceter]

Haha, possibly I was saving Heyer just for a time like this.

[oyceter]

Oh! I have Rules of Gentility, only in Taiwan, but I should look for it in the library! I remember passing it by because of the Bridget Jones comparison.

Btw, which was the Heyer you mentioned being good to save? I vaguely remember it as Cotillion, which I found in a used bookstore, but wasn't sure.

[oyceter]

Hee, pre-ordered it so I could have it in my greedy hands the second it came out! It is super cute!

[oyceter]

I've pretty much read through all of Chase's backlist (there are one or two I've been saving), and while I like what I've read of Kelly, they're not frothy enough for my mood right now. Maybe I will try Beverley's Regencies... I bounce hard off her historicals for some reason.

I've bounced off Quick and Enoch and Carlyle, but will check out the others, thanks!

[oyceter]

Okay! Do they have a big romance component? The brain, it is going to sheer fluff.

[coffeeandink]

So, random non-romance stuff that fits the bill for me when I am in the screwball comedy kind of mood, but which may not work for you:

* Demon's Covenant! I found an early copy and am very excited about starting it as soon as I've finished the current book. Also, there is a new Diana Wynne Jones. I haven't loved DWJ's most recent stuff as much as her earlier stuff, but she is still in my literary pantheon

* Joan Aiken, especially stuff like the early Wolves Chronicles and The Serial Garden collection ("Monday was the day on which unusual things were allowed, and even expected to happen at the Armitage house.")

* Sarah Caudwell ("Scholarship asks, thank God, no recompense but Truth. It is not for the sake of material reward that she (Scholarship) pursues her (Truth) through the undergrowth of ignorance, shining on Obscurity the bright torch of Reason and clearing aside the tangled thorns of Error with the keen secateurs of Intellect. Nor is it for the sake of public glory and the applause of the multitude: the scholar is indifferent to vulgar acclaim. Nor is it even in the hope that those few intimate friends who have observed first hand the labour of the chase will mark with a rod or two of discerning congratulation its eventual achievement. Which is very fortunate, because they don't.")

* Helen Cresswell, Bagthorpes books ("The whole thing started when Uncle Parker won a cruise in the Caribbean for two after filling in a leaflet he had idly picked up in the village shop. The minute the news was known in the Bagthorpe househould disbelief, annoyance and downright jealousy began to degenerate into what became, inevitably, an All Out Furore.")

* Jane Emerson, City of Diamond - Epic space opera with witty dialogue, alas ends on cliffhanger that seems unlikely to be resolved

* Eleanor Farjeon, The Little Bookroom or The Glass Slipper

* P.C. Hodgell ("Apprehensively [Jame] recited the charm. It usually took Cleppetty half an hour to ready her bread for the oven; Jame's rose in five minutes. When the widow sliced into the baked loaf, however, they discovered that its sudden expansion had been due to the growth of rudimentary internal organs.

("That was the end of Jame's apprenticeship in the kitchen.") Also, there is significant knitting and embroidery in later books!

Naomi Mitchison, Travel Light (a fairy tale about a princess who becomes a Valkyrie) or, if you can find it, To the Chapel Perilous (minor figures from Arthurian legend are local newspaper reporters trying to chase the stories of the Grail legend through conflicting observers)

* Alis A. Rasmussen, The Labyrinth Gate - a young married couple from our world cross over into an alternate Regency where magic is accepted and bold young women can become rakes. Early Regency fantasy, much neglected. Author now writes as Kate Elliott.



Stuff I think you've probably already read, but I can't remember for sure:

* Susanna Clarke
* Pamela Dean
* Hope Mirlees
* Elizabeth Marie Pope
* Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer, Sorcery and Cecelia

[daedala]

Avoid Mullany's Forbidden Shores (written as Jane Lockwood). I haven't read it, but coffeeandink panned it.

I like Venetia a lot, but I read over a lot of Heyer's issues.

[(Anonymous)]

I've begun to read some Heyer and have liked it. I heartily recommend These Old Shades, and, though it may be a little low on banter, I still think it will suit your requirements. :)

- swanjun

[shana]

Not romance, but light and amusing: Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher mysteries. Set in Australia in 1928. When I discovered them, only six were in print in this country so I had to order the rest from Australia, but the US publisher is now caught up.

I do have to wave my hands at the continuity errors between the books (like 1928 seems to have had a few months added into the middle of it) and just what title did her father inherit... But each individual book is consistent.

You should be able to get them at the public library. Cocaine Blues is the first one, but the one that I picked up first that hooked me was Ruddy Gore.