Minerva (The Six Sisters, Book #1)
Marion Chesney
Fawcett, 1983

I read all of the books in the Six Sisters series within a couple of days, and my reaction to all of them is basically the same, so I’m only going to review the first. Even though it’s clear almost from the first few pages who is going to end up with whom and the books are mildly formulaic, the path the characters take to come together is enjoyable and relatively unique in each book, as Chesney (M.C. Beaton) does a good job of making each of the six sisters their own person, and not simply pale imitations of each other (the male halves of the couples seem more interchangeable). I also liked that there’s lots of delicious (?) information about the habits and fashions of the Ton, although I notice that Chesney very carefully avoids assigning any of the grosser habits to the romantic leads.

Because the books themselves are fairly short, you don’t drag your way through page after page waiting for the main characters to come to their senses, making the books a fun way to wile away a couple of hours. Some of the situations/characters border on the farcical, but the most ludicrous character, Lady Godolphin, surprised me by continuing to be amusing without becoming as tiresome as I thought she would be. And the vicar is really quite fun.

These are not great literature, but they aren’t pretending to be either. They are the British sit-com version of Regency England.

Amazon tells me these books are out of print, so your best bet for finding them is probably your local library (although they are available for the Kindle at ~$10/each).