Mayfair (U)

by Waverly Fitzgerald

The two youngest of the seven Merrell sisters, daughters of the Earl and Countess of Corrough, have been looking forward to their debuts in London for many years. It isn’t long before they discover that what goes on in polite society is often neither polite nor social. The machinations of their chaperone, Mrs Pleet, and the scandal that surrounds the disappearance of their older sister, Kitty, dampen their prospects. Sibilla is determined to forge her own destiny while Sophia is all too willing to give in to what convention demands despite the urgings of her heart.
A delightful high-spirited Victorian romp, capturing the spirit and conventions of a colorful, aristocratic set, during the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Genres: Historical Romance

592 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

I'm a writer, teacher and publisher, calendar creator and advocate for slow time.

I've written 14 novels and 9 are published under 3 names. I write humorous mysteries with Curt Colbert under the name Waverly Curtis. I write historical fiction and non-fiction under the name Waverly Fitzgerald. And my historical romances were first published under Nancy Fitzgerald. I occasionally blog for the Seattle PI as the Urban Naturalist. And i write about slow time and seasonal time at my website Living in Season.

I read fiction to learn more about how to write the novels I love, so I am generally reading historical fiction and mysteries. In non-fiction, I like almost anything that teaches me something, with a special emphasis on topics I am writing about in my fiction (Victorian London, the English Civil War) or essays (flowers, family history, walking). And I love memoirs.

Reviews

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this obsessively as a teenager -- first discovered it because the author's last name, Fitzgerald, put her on the library shelf next to F. Scott, who I was also reading at the time. So I decided to pick it up again now that I've gotten back into reading historical romance, to see how it stacks up.

A well-researched, well-written romance set in mid-Victorian London. An interesting panoply of characters, too. If only the two protagonists had been more fully developed...