The Toll-Gate - Book 25 (Day 7 of 100 Days of Hygge)

This cover seems to have very little to do with the actual story.

With all the heavy stuff going down in the news, I felt the need to find comfort in a Georgette Heyer novel.  Good thing she wrote so many!  I still haven't read them all.  The Toll-Gate was new to me.  It did just the trick.  Captain Staple is back from fighting Napoleon.  And frankly, life's a little boring.  He's a soldier through and through, a hugely built man, who doesn't conform well to society's rules and likes a bit of danger.

Georgette Heyer Hygge.  My bookshelf

Fleeing a boring engagement party of his cousin's, he gets lost on the moors one night in the pouring rain and winds up stumbling on a road with a toll-gate.  When he calls for the gate to be opened a little boy emerges, frightened to death.  The boy's father has disappeared.  Captain Staple has a kind heart and anyway, it is night and he is sopping wet, so he stays with the boy thinking the father will return in the morning.  But he never does.  The next day, enjoying his role as gate keeper, he meets Nell, the daughter of the local squire and falls for her instantly.  She is a great-hearted and independent woman, and tall too.  She feels the chemistry also.   But whatever happened to the boy  Ben's father?  And why is Nell's odious cousin and his horrible, lascivious friend overstaying their welcome while grandfather squire is rapidly coming to the end of his days?

Lots of fun characters and adventure.  Captain Staple to the rescue; he solves the mystery.

While I enjoyed the story once it got going I have to agree with the TOR reviewer on one point.*  The book starts out going in one direction but suddenly switches gears and we never hear about any of the characters that were introduced at the beginning.  That's odd.  And I have to say the end left me rather repulsed.  I never am good at accepting the excuse of preserving one's 'honor' for taking the law into one's own hands.  It made me shudder a bit, it seemed so cold hearted.

So maybe not Heyer's absolute best, but a fun read.

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* I enjoy the TOR reviews of Georgette Heyer's books in spite of their rather strained post-modern critiques that seem so typical of current English/gender studies thinking.  The reviewer is so steeped this particular mindset and she writes in such a glib, overtly witty way, it's a tiny bit nauseating.  But she does make some interesting observations  and she obviously appreciates Heyer, so I forgive her her cookie-cutter, straight out of the politically correct classroom approach.  She does make me think a bit more about what's going on in the plot and with the characters.  It is gratifying to read intelligent takes on Heyer's works.