Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency by Bea Koch

Author:Bea Koch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2020-09-01T23:00:00+00:00

CONCLUSION

In her Capital Theater Series (Somewhere I’ll Find You and Because You’re Mine) Lisa Kleypas harnesses all the drama and intrigue of the Regency theater world.

In Somewhere I’ll Find You, the heroine Julia Wentworth ran away from her arranged marriage to follow her passion for the stage. But her fiancé shows up, determined to end their engagement and free himself, before he quickly falls in love with her. Julia’s fiancé is Damon Savage, the Duke of Leeds, and while the pair fight about Julia’s determination to continue her career after their marriage, they eventually come to an agreement. Julia continues as a director and actress even after she becomes a duchess.

In Because You’re Mine, Miss Madeline Matthews is also trying to escape an arranged marriage, and decides the best way to do that is to ruin her reputation by sleeping with leading actor Logan Scott. Unfortunately, her plan goes awry and Madeline and Logan end up married to each other, trying to figure out how they fit into each other’s worlds.

Both books bring us into the intimate, chaotic world of Regency theaters, full of characters like chatty dressers, ambitious aspiring actresses, clever set designers, and domineering directors—all of whom we could easily find real-life counterparts to in the pages of history. While Julia and Madeline are both running away from their families, and therefore devoid of a familial network to help with their careers, they find community within the theater. Both make friends with other aspiring actresses and actors while finding their way, including with each other. Julia even helps Madeline find housing with her old friend Nell Florence, a long-retired actress.

Through these different generations of actresses, Kleypas draws on the very real history of the Regency theater world to show the difficulties and the joys of life as an actress in the early nineteenth century.

Regency romance novels have also plumbed the depths of the art world, finding inspiration in the female artists of the Regency, like River of Fire by Mary Jo Putney, with heroine Rebecca Seaton who is not only an artist herself, but also the daughter of famous artist Sir Anthony Seaton. Or Sophia Hathaway from Tessa Dare’s Surrender of a Siren, who leaves her life and advantageous marriage behind to secure the life she wants, as an artist.

These artists, much like the actresses from Kleypas’s books, are drawn to art from somewhere deep within. It’s innate in their character that they are artists who create.

In the words and art of the real female artists of the Regency we see this same passion and drive. And in the consecutive generations we see the fires of that passion fanned until each woman gets a chance to set the Regency world ablaze with her art.

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