An Infamous Army (Alastair, #4) by Georgette

Heyer

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Original Title: An Infamous Army (Alastair, #4)

ISBN: 0099465760
ISBN13: 9780099465768
Autor: Georgette Heyer
Rating: 5 of 5 stars (689) counts
Original Format: Paperback, 448 pages
Download Format: PDF, DJVU, iBook, MP3.
Published: January 15th 2004 / by Arrow / (first published 1937)
Language: English
Genre(s):
Romance- 176 users
Historical Fiction- 161 users
Romance >Historical Romance- 88 users
Historical- 88 users
Historical >Regency- 67 users
Fiction- 59 users
Historical Romance >Regency Romance- 27 users

Description:

ALL IS FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR

Brussels is a lively place to be in 1815, and red-haired widow Lady Barbara Childe is at the centre
of the social whirl. However, the city was a nest of intrigue --Napoleon threatened Europe--but the
talk was only of this dazzling and tempestuous young. Every brilliant ball, supper, and concert in
the feverish spring seemed to bring her a new conquest by storm.

Threatened by the growing tide of scandal, she allowed one of her adorers--the dashing Colonel
Charles Audley, an aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington--to claim her for his bride. But as the
clouds of war gathered, he turned from her in a sudden, mysterious indifference. Stunned,
bewildered, Barbara wondered what secret she must fathom, what new seduction must she
devise, to regain the one man who--she ruefully realized--had truly claimed her heart?

About Author:
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Other Editions:

- An Infamous Army (Paperback)

- An Infamous Army (Alistair, #3)

- An Infamous Army (Alistair, #3)

- An Infamous Army

- An Infamous Army

Books By Author:
- The Grand Sophy

- Frederica

- Arabella

- These Old Shades (Alastair, #1)

 - Devil's Cub (Alastair, #2)

Books In The Series:

- These Old Shades (Alastair, #1)

- Devil's Cub (Alastair, #2)

- Regency Buck (Alastair, #3)

Related Books On Our Site:

- The Private World of Georgette Heyer

- Georgette Heyer's Regency World

- The Captain's Inheritance (Rothschild Trilogy #3)

- The Fortune Hunter (Lord Rival, #2)

- Marrying The Royal Marine (Channel Fleet, #3)

- The Weather in the Streets

- The Parfit Knight (Rockliffe, #1)

- A Proper Companion (Regency Rakes, #1)

- The Phantom Lover

- Maurice Guest

- A Most Unusual Governess

- Christmas Belle (Frazer, #2)

- Elyza
 - Lady Elizabeth's Comet (Clanross, #1)

- Love For Lydia

- Lord Heartless

- Isabella & The English Witch (Trevelyan Family, #1 & #2)

Rewiews:

Jul 15, 2014

Madeline
Rated it: really liked it
Shelves: historic-fiction
Although I had read three other Georgette Heyer novels before this one, those were all detective
stories, instead of the historical romances that she's more well-known for. I found this one in a
bookstore a few weeks ago and thought that it would be a good introduction to Heyer's other body
of work - although her mysteries aren't the best I've ever read, her characters are always well-
formed and the writing is witty and clever, so I was looking forward to seeing how she applied this
skill to ano
Although I had read three other Georgette Heyer novels before this one, those were all detective
stories, instead of the historical romances that she's more well-known for. I found this one in a
bookstore a few weeks ago and thought that it would be a good introduction to Heyer's other body
of work - although her mysteries aren't the best I've ever read, her characters are always well-
formed and the writing is witty and clever, so I was looking forward to seeing how she applied this
skill to another kind of story. (A quick note: although this book is technically part of a series, it
functions very well as a stand-alone novel, to the point where I didn't even realize that I was
reading a book from a series until I went to write this review)
Brussels, 1815. The summer of love. While the Congress of Vienna winds down, English and
French society congregates in Brussels for endless parties, balls, and general rich-people fun
times. Off in France, Napoleon has escaped exile and is gathering an army, but no one is overly
worried about this, because parties. The cast of characters is vast (and apparently consists almost
entirely of real historical figures who were involved in the Battle of Waterloo), but our main
characters are Barbara Childe and Colonel Charles Audley. Barbara is a widow who, having been
freed early on by her husband's death, now has an amount of freedom that most women of the
time can only dream of, and uses that freedom to the best of her ability. Barbara scandalizes the
town by wearing revealing clothing, painting her toenails gold, swearing like a soldier, and having
a series of very public affairs and generally not giving a single flying fuck what anyone thinks.
Needless to say, I loved her from the get-go. Enter Colonel Charles Audley, an aide-de-camp to
Wellington. He falls in love with Barbara and proposes to her, and she's like, "sure, this could be
fun." The way Heyer develops Charles and Barbara's relationship is very nicely done, and equal
parts delightful and heartbreaking: Barbara, subconsciously afraid that she doesn't deserve a man
as good as Charles, tries to sabotage the relationship by behaving badly, like she's constantly
daring Charles to break up with her. For his part, Charles handles things beautifully - he wants
Barbara to be the decent person he knows she's capable of being, but in the same breath says
that the last thing he wants is to tell Barbara what to do with her life. Basically imagine what would
happen if Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler were actually concealing decent human beings under
their protective layers of anger and cynicism, instead of just being a borderline-sociopath and a
smug asshole. Barbara and Charles are the best, and we get to spend a few hundred pages
watching their romance develop before the Battle of Waterloo hits, and everything goes to shit.
The research that went into this book, a seemingly-fluffy story of love during war, is staggering. I
know very little of the Napoleonic wars, so I can't comment on the accuracy of Heyer's version of
the Battle of Waterloo, but it certainly felt accurate. The battle takes up a significant portion of the
story, with Heyer giving us an almost blow-by-blow account of the battle. She manages to give us
a technical overview of the battle, while also showing the horrific reality of war (there are several
brief scenes and images during the battle that still haunt me, as they very well should). It's a
significant departure from the romantic shenanigans and gossip of the rest of the book, and
readers can expect some kind of whiplash from the change in tone. But if you're reading the book,
you know that the sudden depictions of war and all its brutality don't come out of nowhere:
throughout the book, the war looms in the background, and the approaching battle is always
present. It starts out subtle:
"The balls, the concerts, the theatres continued, but picnics were added to the gaieties now,
charming expeditions, with flowering muslins squired by hot scarlet uniforms; the ladies in open
carriages; the gentlemen riding gallantly beside; hampers of cold chicken and champagne on the
boxes; everyone lighthearted; flirtation the order of the day. There were reviews to watch, fetes to
attend; day after day slid by in the pursuit of pleasure; days that were not quite real, but belonged
to some half-realised dream. Somewhere to the south was a Corsican ogre, who might at any
moment break into the dream and shatter it, but distance shrouded him..."
and then the war is on people's doorsteps, even as they're trying to ignore it and keep having
parties and pretending that everything is fine:
"From scores of faces the polite company masks seemed to have slipped. People had forgotten
that at balls they must smile, and hide whatever care or grief they owned under bright, artificial
fronts. Some of the senior officers were looking grave; here and there a rigid, meaningless smile
was pinned to a mother's white face, or a girl stood with a fallen mouth, and blank eyes fixed on a
scarlet uniform. A queer, almost greedy emotion shone in many countenances. Life had become
suddenly an urgent business, racing towards disaster, and the craving for excitement, the
breathless moment compound of fear, and grief, and exaltation, when the mind sharpened, and
the senses were stretched as taut as as the strings of a violin, surged up under the veneer of good
manners, and shone behind the dread in shocked young eyes. For all the shrinking from tragedy
looming ahead, there was yet an unacknowledged eagerness to hurry to meet whatever horror
lurked in the future; if existence were to sink back to the humdrum, there would be disappointment
behind the relief, and a sense of frustration."
It's beautiful and powerful and I loved every single character - I definitely need to seek out more of
Heyer's romances, and soon.
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