M.M. Bennetts is a tremendous researcher and grey contributor to the canon of historical fiction. Her work is such that all who like the period should consider time spent with her offering. Then though, one we have this tome.

There are a few things within that take one from truly sitting with the piece and knowing what one is in for. It does too much, at heart. It is not just an historical, for so much is made of the romance, the wedding of our hero. Nor is it a Regency Romance, for so much is made of the history, which has its absurdities within it. Our hero knows or is connected to all that is important at the end of April and beginning of May of 1812, and so we must know all.

Without giving away too much, our hero just can't be that one person who is so caught up in everything that there were none other to carry the water. Nor does that become more so when carrying that water is used as an artifice to prolong the consummation of the romance of our regency romance. In this genre, the romance side, we are used to circumstance getting in the way of consummation, but even at its most silly, the reasoning seems balanced.

Here we have to suspend our disbelief a little. (or a lot) We do find that the hero and heroine are well suited to each other, which also seems an unlikely bit of circumstance (again something we see in Regency Romance), but not necessarily as contrived as this seemed to bring our protagonists together. The last thing that I find hard to lay to rest is that despite often such good history, there are a few places where the research falls through, and Mrs. Bennetts has since argued extensively that her error in the manuscript and research is somehow justified when such is not supported by any primary or secondary source. That is why a star gets deducted.

A good story, tropes integrated if perhaps too over the top, and much to be learned as well. ( )

This book frustrated me, and it also made me angry at times, because it could have been a 4* or even 5* instead of the 2.5* I give it.

I absolutely adored most of the author's voice, it read like contemporary (of the Regency period) and was quite clearly very well researched in most parts. There has to have been truly intense linguistic research into the period and I did not doubt for a second that all the historical data were on the spot and even well-understood too.

I loved the uncommon length of it for a Regency romance, I loved the fact that the male main character actually had a profession, and I adored that this depicted an arranged marriage in exactly such matter of fact way as it would have taken place at the time. I loved all the bits about the Napoleonic wars and France, and wished there had been quite a lot more of that.

With which we come to what I didn't like, not at all actually, and to what the reasons are why I do not give a book with such a mindbogglingly wonderful "Regency voice" the 5* it ought to have.

You'd have to do some very fast talking to convince me that a barely 18-year-old virgin of upper middleclass origins, in England, and in 1812 has full knowledge of what takes place during a wedding night.

Here's what Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy recounts of his grandmother:

I can remember my grandmother, who was married in 1899, describing to me how on her wedding day her mother drew her aside and said, "There's just one thing I must tell you, Dorothy. Remember, whatever Gathorne does to you is right."

That's 80 years later. Except for sources which refer to usually already married women of the high aristocracy there is quite simply no clue or hint which would support that virginal girls at the time were aware of the hard biological facts or more directly the basic plumbing and what it does.

Yet either out of the wish for retroactive political correctness or because of one single Freudian historian (with Freud having long since found to be in error multiple times) whose theories are not exactly universally lauded, recently more and more romance authors describe their heroines as knowledgeable, even those who are very young and virginal.

As a result one of the most organic possibilities for conflict gets thrown out of the window. I might just have accepted if now, instead, the author chooses the Napoleonic wars as a source of conflict, including maybe the dejection of the two unwilling parties. But alas! Not so. By the way, I also fail to believe in a husband of the era who refrains from consumption for weeks on end.

Instead we get the classic romance trope of the "Big Misunderstanding", indeed we get it several times an then again another time. And it drags on and on and on. At that point the book became unfortunately boring and plotwise ceased to be above Harlequin romances which have been doing just this all the past decades.

That was truly very disappointing.

Some further nitpicking:

Why would a British lord break out into "Oh my America, my newfound land, my kingdom!" upon lifting the skirts of his quite British wife?

Edit to clarify: In 1812 we have the War of 1812 with the USA. The USA has fought and won independence. John Donne (he of the poem referring to his Mistress in this way) died 1631, barely 20 years after the colonisation of Northern America had begun. Of course he waxes romantic about undiscovered countries (belonging to the Kingdom then of course!).

Myddleton is a totally different era and aware of the fact that "America" is now practically an enemy, especially after Perceval was killed and Liverpool tried to smooth the waves with the USA. As a diplomat and spy Myddleton would of course know about the impending enemities (to happen but a fortnight later). Why the hell should he wax romantic about a country about to open war on his own? He is educated enough to also know that Donne wrote his poem under totally different political conditions.

So these are entirely different things and I can't for the life of me believe that at a moment of sexual endeavour with his British wife he'd say something like that. I find it more than just outlandish. It took me right out of that scene and came over as a major plothole.

I grasped that the author knew about the typical places and clubs famous within the ton. I grasped it about Brummel. I just would have preferred to have a tad less of the ton for once. That were my hopes. Unfortunately this did not follow.

On the whole:

I wished I had been more satisfied with this book. I loved the voice, I loved the authentic language, I loved how offhandedly confident the author was about the historical facts, but at the end of it I was sorely disappointed by the retconned heroine and the tired plot. I will certainly watch out for more books from the author, but I hope she will become fully true to the era and seek out a more individual story. ( )

Few books have left me panting and gasping, anxious to turn the next page, then the next and the next. Dickens. Austen. Gaskell. Eliot. This book has all the elements of classic literature; well wrought, multi-dimensional characters; exquisite dialogue; brilliant settings and descriptions; extraordinarily well-researched detail; a plot as textured as textured and complex as it is accessible. It's romance, it's adventure, it's mystery and true to life history all intricately and seamlessly woven to make this an unforgettable read. Since "War and Peace" and "Pride and Prejudice," I've not read anything finer. I've read it twice already, and I mean to read it again and again. It's a truly breathtaking work of the highest literary caliber.

I usually read nautical books set in the age of sail but on vacation I thought I'd have a change of pace and give this one a try. It is essentially a romance, unsurprisingly from the title, set in the short period of May 1812.

The principal characters are thrust together but despite a seeminly endless series of fateful misunderstandings which seem destined to seperate them romance blossoms. The principal character is a peer on the fringes of government and it was interesting to read what might be described as the 'ballroom diplomacy' of the time.

This is a long book, but despite that the fast paced continual twists and turns of the plot made it hard to put down and I certainly recommend it. ( )

Now here's the Regency love story we don't usually hear: England was of course up to the eyeballs in Napoleon at the time, and the war left no one and nothing untouched. That doesn't necessarily leave much time for romance, and that's one of the big problems our hero Myddelton faces in this fast-paced, engrossing story.

Myddelton is a bright sort of aristocrat who works as a cryptographer in Castlereagh's intelligence ops and has an advanced case of bacheloritis. He carouses plenty in his free time, and he seems content to travel along his path of temporary women and obsessive work until one of those "little details" he's been letting slide (like basic housekeeping) comes a-calling in the form of a peremptory final summons to a lawyer's office, where he learns that the PREVIOUS peremptory summonses he's ignored were about a matter he really might have like to have known earlier: namely, that his father's will stipulates that in order to keep his inheritance, he has to marry the daughter of a friend of the father's. Before her eighteenth birthday. Which is like -- right now. And Myddelton doesn't even know the girl.

Whoops! Well, he grits his teeth and trots off to find Janey, planning to pack her off to the country so she doesn't interfere with his work or his life. And of course she's just lovely, and he's immediately crushing on her -- but his fast-living mouth and manners don't exactly get things off on a good footing (Myddelton really could use a brain/mouth barrier, but one can't have everything). They marry, but it isn't consummated; he's not going to push himself on her while they're strangers (and especially when he likes her so well and thinks that she just plain can't stand him -- which he'd rather deserve after some of the remarks he shot off).

May 1812 could have been a splendid "trying to win what you've already got" romance, and in fact it is that, but also more. Myddelton isn't just a workaholic -- he's an important player in a desperate war, and soon after the marriage, the stakes rise dramatically. The Prime Minister is assassinated, throwing England into ferment and chaos. And then Myddelton -- whose work had previously been confined to the office, poring over ciphers -- is sent on a you-can't-turn-this-one-down-buddy mission to France that not only takes him away from Janey but puts him at mortal risk. He's got to complete the mission, save his neck, and get the girl (in bed, dammit!), and none of it is very easy.

The book offers a wealth of characters, subplots, and descriptions of England at the time -- it's a long story, but it flies by and ends satisfyingly (everything is answered, although not everything as one wishes it would be -- sigh!) but too soon! ( )