Book Review: A Little Folly

Jude Morgan
Review, 2010
384 pages
hard cover
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I have a fondness for Jude Morgan. I especially enjoyed his novel Indiscretion, and I rather liked this one as well. Morgan takes on the mantel of a would-be Austen with relative ease, peppering his prose with just the right balance of wit and sensibility. His characters are flawed and quirky and interesting enough to pull the reader through the story, even when it starts to be clear exactly how and where that story is likely to end.

At first I could see A Little Folly going in any number of directions, but at a little shy of halfway through it became clear where Morgan was aiming. I don't know how much of this was due to Morgan tipping his hand and how much was simply because I've read enough of these kinds of books to see what's coming. In in case, it only diminished the enjoyment very slightly. The prose bears up even when the reader knows how the story will finish.

An example of Morgan's pitch-perfect humor:

To excite in a man a state of violent loathing was, as any novel-reader knew, to stand in a fair light of winning him at last; but no woman could ever recover from the humiliation of being respected.

Morgan's writing is full of these lovely tidbits, and I often recommend his books to friends who enjoy Austen or Regency stories in general. A Little Folly is, then, another in a list of his good works.