Venetia is another Georgette Heyer novel. I enjoyed it immensely. Very Austenesque with great characters and really funny dialogue.
Venetia has been confined to her home in Yorkshire, never able to come out in London, and now she is an old maid at 25. But Venetia is beautiful, smart, practical and an incurable optimist. She loves her younger brainy brother who is an aspiring classicist, preparing to to go to Cambridge. He also has a deformed leg which makes him rather prickly. Venetia's older brother has gone off to fight Napoleon, but now seems to be taking a very long time to come home. He seems to be having too good a time to think about Venetia holding down the estate while he enjoys his travels. Venetia's father was a recluse but has now passed away, and her mother died when she was ten (so she's been told).
One day she goes next door to The Priory to pick berries; this is the land of Lord Jasper Dameral who is never, ever there. He is a 'rake' who ran off with a married woman back when he was 22. That turned out badly and since then he has spent his life with wine, women and song. Now he is 38, and unexpectedly has returned home surprising Venetia at her blackberrying in a very Heyeresque way.
The secondary characters are just a scream. I hooted my way through this book. A very satisfying read with a very satisfactory romantic ending. The Latin references in the book were fun too!
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