A Little Folly by Jude Morgan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A sweet and gentle examination of a brother and sister who decide to undertake the enterprise of living upon the demise of their harsh and tyrannical father. Such an overbearing and omniscient influence as that of the late Mr. Carnell is not so easily shaken off though, and thus it is that Valentine and Louisa find themselves indulging in a little folly, now that they have the freedom to do so.

This book wasn't the charming read that Indiscretion was but nonetheless it was engaging even as it was frustrating. Frustrating because you want the siblings to know better and do better: you feel like Louisa should be a bit firmer with her older brother when she notices him being imprudent, or you want Valentine to throw her a word of caution when she is being a bit indiscreet, but their relationship is so firmly based on not acting with each other like their father that censuring each other's conducts is something they are simply incapable of doing.

Thankfully there is ever reliable, and long-time friend to the young Carnells, James Tresilian around to keep a watchful eye. His wry sense of humour, his dedication to his sister, his patience with Valentine and his equation with Lousia are what kept me turning the page perhaps. Equally interesting was the unexpected character development of Pearce Lynley, the man Louisa's father decided would be her husband, which meant that ofcourse in her eyes he would be no such thing. After being compared so much to Georgette Heyer, Jude's depiction of Tom, a cousin of the Carnells, and his apparently up-to-the-snuff friend, The Top, provides some winking humour as the author makes fun of all those slang-spouting, capital fellows in Regencies that make an art of obscuring any meaning that may be derived from their conversation.

After an encounter with Colonel Eversholt, estranged husband to the defiant and lonely Lady Harriet, Valentine declares that "He is everything one supposed. It is almost satisfying" by which he means that the man is just the monster he assumed he would be. Louisa's uncertainty, if not the scene itself, tells you how blind Valentine has become in his sympathy for Lady Harriet. But less obvious is the fact that Louisa herself is quite an unreliable narrator - we often see people coloured through her filter and she always sees her own actions as irreproachable where others would consider them ill-advised. Jude Morgan commendably portrays how in trying to cast off influences that have been imposed on you your whole life you sometimes end up being very influenced after all.

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