This is a quiet book: no romping and no hilarity, although the premise might’ve supported such excesses. In this tale of two identical twins, all the preconceptions are turned on their heads. Kit, a diplomatic secretary in Vienna, is the rational younger twin to Evelyn, the impulsive and rakish Earl of Denville. Sensing through the twins’ bond that Evelyn is in trouble, Kit hurries home to England, but when he arrives in the middle of the night, he discovers that Evelyn has disappeared. What is even worse, Evelyn offered a marriage of convenience to Cressy, the daughter of Lord Stavely, and tomorrow is the dinner party in Evelyn’s honor at his betrothed’s home. Evelyn needs this marriage to untangle the complicated financial knot his mother, the lovely and irresponsible Lady Denville, tied around her charming neck. If he doesn’t make a good impression on Cressy’s formidable grandma, the marriage might be off, and the financial imbroglio might plunge the entire family into the nightmare of Lady Denville’s debts. To salvage the situation, Lady Denville persuades her younger son to impersonate his twin. For one dinner only, she pleads, and he reluctantly accedes to her entreaties. Unfortunately, this one dinner evolves into a prolonged house party at the Denville’s country seat, with Cressy and her grandma as the guests of honor. Kit dislikes impersonating his twin immensely. He hates lying to Cressy even more because, as the young people spend time together, they irrevocably fall in love. He feels like a traitor: betraying Cressy as well as his twin, but what can he do? Several weeks later, Evelyn still hasn’t come home, and nobody knows what has become of him. Of only one thing Kit is certain: his twin is in no physical danger; he is alive and well. So Kit keeps the masquerade going, waits for his brother to show up, and hopes for the best.Cressy, Evelyn’s betrothed, should’ve been the female lead in this novel, but she isn’t. She is practically transparent, a silhouette made of cellophane. Instead, another three-dimensional female protagonist arises, as the story progresses: the twins’ mother, Lady Denville. Beautiful, flighty, and invariably optimistic, she loves her sons to distraction. She laughs easily; her irreverent escapades and fantastic ideas drive the plot forward. And while her skewed notions of economy might immerse even her beloved sons in despair, her sunny disposition illuminates the lives of everyone around her. She is one of the most colorful female portraits in Heyer’s fiction; so alive I wanted to wag my finger at her and admonish her not to be such a goose. You might like or dislike such women, but you probably know one or two like her: empty-headed, good-natured, and usually very good mothers. Another picturesque personage in this novel is Lady Denville’s aged but loyal beau, Sir Bonamy. A grossly overweighed gourmand and hedonists, he is responsible for the majority of funny scenes in the novel. His love of food, combined with Heyer’s tendency to describe her characters’ meals in all their gastronomic splendor, resulted in such a comprehensive list of mouth-watering dishes that one could compile a full menu of a top-notch restaurant out of this novel. The dialog is a bit convoluted though. When an explanation for some scatterbrained caper is required, and it often is in the involved charade the characters play, it takes people four or five pages to come to the point instead of a few sharp remarks it could’ve been. But Heyer’s humor never betrays her, although in this novel, it is meek, hardly above a chuckle, only once or twice morphing into a soft laughter. A delightful book, destined to lift even the grimmest of moods.
Well, according to"The Georgette Heyer Theory of Regency Romance" assuming a very many constants in people's beliefs and perceptions and assumptions based on absurd coincidences and the unfailing and obviously expected conclusion of a happily ever after, False Colours is truly Georgette Heyer personified!Though this one is not my favourite of the lot, it has a few things I much admire. Kit, for instance, with his ingenuity and tact is a superb character. Secondly, The Fancot Twins together do capture my fancy. But one "feeling" what the other goes through is 'doing it much too brown'! But again, as I said it is 'The Georgette Heyer Theory of Regency Romance' and there ought to be the unbelievable and outrageous to make it an out and out endearing story!It seems impossible to believe in many things happening in the story in today's times, but taking things with a pinch of salt, why not?? After all it is fiction, and fiction is supposed to be just that: Fantastic!Kit is definitely one well thought after character. I liked him to say the least! He is intelligent, witty and has a sense of humour; all the things that are really appreciable. Plus the love for his mother and twin is kinda cute. For all his simplicity, you just can't ignore him! He is worth a dozen Evelyns!I read at many places about people's opinions regarding Lady Denville being really annoying; but I for my part found her amazing! I mean she is just so different. She sure must be difficult to bear with in real life circumstances, a challenge even; but there is no denying her being quite adorable! For all her carelessness she does love her sons! And she can cook up ingenious plans (read scarlet fever!) just to get her way. And how she takes things lightly is what really surprises me for how can a person with tremendous debts ever feel so light n without a jot of discernible care I couldn't fathom!Cressy is not one of my favourite Georgette Heyer heroines. I couldn't make up her character well (as I could say of Frederica or Sophy or Venetia or Kit from Cotillion). Could be my mistake or fault at reading between the lines, but being described as reserved in the beginning she is anything but that! Please correct me if I am wrong!Bonamy Ripple was fun to read about! What a couple he should form with Lady Denville! The scene of his undoing was hilarious! What a spot he is in! I did like him a lot!I also do like the twins' chemistry and love for each other. I am much inclined to accept the unbelievable gut feelings, or whatever those may be that they feel for each other, to be true because it gives the story the impetus necessary. I liked the Dowager excessively and she was very true to such real life tormentors that do exist! Also, I liked the secondary characters of Fimber and Challow.Overall Georgette Heyer took good care to plan and plot the story amazingly, just so that you are persuaded to believe in the unbelievable! No one can match her wit and humour with the pen. What I could actually want was an ending where everything was further elaborated and not just with Kit's plan for the same. Also how Evelyn's pursuance of Miss Askham is taken care of could of course give us the happily ever after details of Evelyn's story, but then Kit was the hero and he was shown to be achieving that! And then some things are best left on their own to be understood by the clever reader
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This is one of those Heyer novels I remember being disappointed in, my first run through. I just finished reading it again, and I see now why it didn't rate high amongst the list of glittering Heyer works- it was boring! Way too much dialogue (and I LIKE dialogue)- most of it between mother and son, and while the mother is a delightful disaster, the discourse between them isn't nearly as interesting as the verbal exchanges between Kit and his brother's fiancée, or even between Dowager Fancot and her devoted cavalier servente. However, I must give credit to the more mature plot. Compared to some of her other works, there was very little swordplay, abduction, cross-dressing, etc. I would have loved to have seen more of Cressy- she really shines in the few scenes she makes an appearance in; especially when she foils the mercenary plans of the matron of "easy virtue". Having Evelyn play least-in-sight until the end of the novel was poorly contrived, I think. More twin hi-jinx would have been deeply appreciated and would have enlivened the plot. In the end, the resolution seemed a hurried, patched up thing that was not at all satisfying. Better than I remembered it, but not at all my favorite.
—Adrianna
The Honourable Christopher "Kit" Fancot, convinced that his (elder) identical twin has suffered some kind of mischance, returns from Vienna to investigate and assist him. His twin, the unfortunately (imho) named Evelyn, is missing and cannot be found, but in the meantime there are pressing social obligations to be met! In particular, there is Evelyn's engagement to a young heiress to secure, and Kit finds himself masquerading as his brother for one evening, in order to make a good impression on the young lady's imperious Grandmama. This is quickly done, but Evelyn doesn't quickly return, and Kit is obliged to perpetuate the masquerade, which curtails his ability to look for the brother he is pretending to be. Heyer uses some classical comedy motifs (identical twins, mistaken identity, deception with the potential for disaster) here, to good effect. The characters are all likable and fun, though it may well be that Kit's mother, Lady Denville, and her longtime cicisbeo, Sir Bonamy Ripple*, steal the show just a tad, and leave the relatively normal Kit and Cressida in the dust. The story is interestingly complex, and the denouement (apart from the HEA for Kit and Cressy) though happy, was not entirely as expected. The story was also blessedly less loaded with the slang and cant that infests so many of the others I have read by Heyer. I wish I had started keeping track of the double-barrelled rhyming terms she uses: this book used 'havey-cavey' (meaning: dubious), and 'mingle-mangle' (meaning: tangle) and at least one other that my eyes slid over. I have to wonder if I'm the only reader who feels pulled out of the story upon encountering a speech laden with this Heyer hallmark.In all, I quite enjoyed this book. I do think the cover deserves some distinction, though; the art on my cover (see photo) is perfectly awful. *~*~** Best-Ever Name For a Character, as awarded by me.
—Wendy
What a delightful romp!! Kit Fancot comes home unexpectedly from Vienna because he ‘has a feeling’ that his twin in his trouble – and he’s right; Evelyn has not been seen or heard from for almost 2 weeks, and no one knows where he is. To make matters worse, he’s supposed to attend a family dinner the very next night – the family of the woman he recently proposed to! The twins’ Mama decides that Kit should masquerade as his brother ‘just for the night’, and Kit has the devil of a time trying to persuade her that it just won’t do. Of course he’s not successful, so off he goes the following night to be Evelyn, having been assured by his Mama that the only person he really has to fool is his betrothed, who has only briefly met him. Love is not the reason for the marriage-proposal; Evelyn needs to marry to prove to his uncle that he is settled down enough to be put in charge of the inheritance that should have come along with his succession to the title of Earl of Denville. Evelyn is the older, titled twin, but Kit has always been the more reliable one, and all his skills are called upon to pull off this masquerade. He is successful with that on the night of the dinner, but the following day Evelyn still has not shown up, and Kit knows that he’ll never to able to maintain the masquerade in town, so he decides to repair to the estate in Sussex, but – you guessed it – Cressy’s grandmama decides on the perfect idea of having the two of them come for a visit so that Cressy & Evelyn can get better acquainted. Now Kit is really in the soup!The twins’ Mama is such a lovable widgeon that it is almost too easy to forgive her propensity for getting into serious debt, which is really what’s behind Evelyn’s need to marry. But since her sons have forgiven her, who am I to cavil?!And then there’s Sir Bonamy Ripple, a “grossly fat and elderly dandy” of sedentary disposition – he does so love his food – but he’s always been there for Lady Denville and honestly cares for her, so this reader cared for him as well, and chuckled about the “wary look in his eye” when she told him he was her “best of friends” and he was very afraid of where that would lead!Oh! Lest the reader worry – all the romances in the book work out happily!
—BJ Rose
