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World Hotels - Penelope Goes to Portsmouth (The Travelling Matchmaker, Vol. 3)
![Penelope Goes to Portsmouth (The Travelling Matchmaker, Vol. 3)]()
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List Price: $3.99
Our Price: $3.95
Your Save: $ 0.04 ( 1% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: St Martins Paperbacks
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780312927202
ISBN: 0312927207
Label: St Martins Paperbacks
Manufacturer: St Martins Paperbacks
Number Of Pages: 155
Publication Date: 1992-03
Publisher: St Martins Paperbacks
Studio: St Martins Paperbacks
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Editorial Reviews:
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Certain that practical-minded Penelope Wilkins, the daughter of a rich merchant, would be the perfect mate for handsome but carefree Lord Augustus, Miss Pym uses her skills to bridge the gap between their personality differences. Reprint. K.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Fine piece of work
Comment: Here is another fascinating look back into England during what has become known as the Regency, the early years of the 19th century, when George III was thought to be mad and his son stood in for him. The class system, which was almost a caste system, is clear again in this novel. A person was where God placed him and should not question the Creator. Or as John D. Rockefeller said a century later, "God gave me my money." As an egalitarian I find it disturbing but accurate from the Chesney pen.
As ever, an interesting plot is melded with excellent characters, but it is still the ambience that fuels Ms. Chesney's success. This is no sugar sweet, hearts and flowers romance of the sort too common from lesser writers. It has the feeling of reality, as the reader travels from London by stagecoach to Portsmouth on the southern coast. Along the way we meet diverse people, high and low, a villainous harridan who in effect condemns an honest man to death for refusing her advances. We see a drunken man reformed and heroic.
I can't imagine any serious reader not being taken by this book. It is serious literature that anyone can enjoy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sorry, Ms. Chesney....
Comment: Marion Chesney has written a lot of books, if you count the books written under the name M.C.Beaton, there are probably over 100. It is inevitable that some books should be better than others, and this, to my mind, was not her best book. Not even close.
This is the third book of The Travelling Matchmaker, featuring Miss Pym - thin, not beautiful, in her forties, formally a housekeeper and now fulfilling a life-long interest in travel with the help of a small legacy. In "Penelope Goes to Portsmouth", we get to meet Penelope, a beautiful daughter of a "cit", and Lord Augustus, the beautiful younger brother without money or title. And of course, plenty of fast paced action, even if the outcome is inevitable - rather more obvious than most stories.
Marion Chesney is always a light read, and she writes with a dry humor and tongue-firmly-in-cheek, so that if you have ever read her "Agatha Raisin" series you will recognize the same writer in this story. Obviously, characters such as she writes about have never walked the earth, but usually it does make for an amusing read. This time, however, the book seemed "too" light to me, as if she had taken every trite plot device that she remembered and through them all together to write a book. Consider ... they are about to put the noose around his neck!When suddenly!!! complete with wicked "Lady", who is intent upon "revenge", etc. Also, while I enjoyed the first book because of the vivid descriptions of Regency travel, and the second book, too, if a little bit less, I felt that this book was simply the same thing rehashed. I actually groaned when the requisite wagon tumble happened - this already happened twice before - even though the reason was different this time?
I also could not warm up to the hero of this story - for three quarters of the book he was an indolent wastrel, without a single redeeming quality, and suddenly, as we reach the last page, he is "Transformed!!" Hmmm... And the deaf and dumb footman - how in the world did he learn to read and write? In Regency England, no less? (Keeping in mind that there are special schools today for deaf and dumb).
I am being charitable with the three stars, I personally felt the true rating closer to two stars, but I thought that perhaps someone else would enjoy it more than I did.
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