If you’re already a fan of the great Georgette Heyer – the author who pretty much invented the Regency Romance single-handedly – then it won’t take much persuasion from me to send you in the direction of this newly re-issued collection of the author’s short stories, most of them written for and published in prestigious women’s magazines of the 1930s. There are fourteen in this collection, of which eleven were previously published in the anthology Pistols for Two; Snowdrift features those plus three that have been newly discovered by the author’s biographer, Jennifer Kloester. Is it worth obtaining this new collection to read those new stories? On balance, I’d say that yes, it is, especially as one of the new stories (Pursuit) turned out to be one of my favourites of the set.

I don’t plan on reviewing each individual story here, as that would take more space than I have, so instead I’ll cherry pick as, like most anthologies, there are some excellent stories and some not quite so good ones. Each one features character types and plot elements that will be familiar to regular readers of historical romance; cross-dressing heroines, elopements, mistaken identity, dashing military men, second-chance romance, duels, high-stakes card games, regency-slang and, best of all, those handsome, authoritative heroes and their intelligent, witty heroines. Fans of the author’s will no doubt recognise the seeds of some of the plots and characters who later appear in some of her full-length novels here, too. I’ll also add a couple of words of caution. While very enjoyable, this is an anthology best dipped in and out of rather than read all at once; and these are short stories, so some of the romances are fairly perfunctory and in many cases, rely on insta-love. I’m not a fan, but in this case, it’s mostly forgivable due to the short length and the fact that the stories are beautifully written and enjoyable for so many other things besides the romances, so full are they of Heyer’s trademark laser-sharp social observation, sparkling dialogue and clever characterisations.

And so to the cherry picking. Pistols for Two is a rather unusual story in that it turns a frequently used trope on its head. Two lifelong friends discover that they are in love with the same young woman – another childhood friend who has grown into a beauty – and through misunderstanding and mischance, end up facing each other on the field of honour. Told through both their points of view, the young lady in question is a peripheral character and the author does a terrific job of describing the prickly, adolescent pride of the two young gents.

In A Clandestine Affair, we have an older hero and heroine who clearly share some sort of romantic history. Elinor Tresilian’s niece, Lucy, wants badly to marry the man she loves, Mr. Arthur Roseby, who happens to be the cousin of Lord Iver – who is vehemently opposed to the match. As it happens, Miss Tresilian is not overly in favour either, but headstrong Lucy is determined to have her way. When the couple elopes, Elinor and Lord Iver set off in pursuit, bickering and sniping along the Great North Road until… they aren’t.

A Husband for Fanny sees the young widow, Honoria Wingham, shepherding her lovely daughter, Fanny through the Season and hoping to secure the best and wealthiest husband for her. The Marquis of Harleston is certainly most attentive and would be an excellent match… so why does Honoria feel just the tiniest pang of jealousy when she sees how well the marquis and her daughter get along? You can see the twist in this one coming a mile off, but it’s an engaging story nonetheless.

To Have the Honour. Newly returned from war, young Lord Allerton discovers he has inherited a mountain of debt along with his title. His mother, however, is still spending money at the old rate, because Allerton has all but been betrothed to his cousin Hetty since the cradle; as she is a great heiress, once they are married their money woes will be over. But Allerton dislikes the idea of marrying for money and tells Hetty that he will not hold her to the arrangement between their families and she is free to choose for herself. Some timely scheming behind the scenes means that all ends well.

Hazard is one of my favourites; in it a young woman is staked in a game of chance by her weaselly half-brother, and is ‘won’ by the very drunk Marquis of Carlington. Foxed though he is, Carlington admires Helen’s spirit and insists they leave for Gretna Green right away. Helen is remarkably matter-of-fact about the whole thing, and I loved the way she issued a little payback to her not-swain the next day. Their dash to Scotland is fortuitously interrupted – by Carlington’s fiancée, no less…

Of the three new stories, Pursuit, Runaway Match and Incident on the Bath Road, the first is my favourite, being another elopement story in which an older couple once again takes centre stage. Mary Fairfax and the Earl of Shane are pursuing his ward (and her charge) Lucilla, who has eloped with the man she loves, Mr. Monksley, who will shortly be shipping out to the Peninsula with his regiment. In Runaway Match, the lovely Miss Paradise convinces her friend, Rupert, to elope with her so she can foil her father’s plans to marry her to the old, odious Sir Roland. She has never met her intended, but is horrified to realise he has followed them all the way to Stamford. Or has he? And in Incident on the Bath Road, the handsome, wealthy but ennui-laden Lord Reveley (always courted, never caught) is on his way to Bath when he encounters a chaise accident and takes up the young Mr. Brown who explains that he has urgent business in the city. This urgent business turns out to be going to the aid of the lovely Miss X, who is going to be forced into a distasteful marriage… and Reveley’s life turns out not to be quite so boring after all.

While Georgette Heyer’s full-length novel allow her strengths – tightly-written plots, characterisation and witty banter – to shine fully, there are enough glimpses of all those things in these short stories to make them well worth reading, whether you’re a long-time fan (as I am) or a newcomer to her work. Snowdrift and Other Stories is just the book to have on hand when you don’t have time to settle into a full-length novel and want a quick romance fix.

I keep saying I love Georgette Heyer, so of course when a volume of her short stories appeared on Netgalley, I requested it. Originally, the story collection was released as Pistols for Two, so I’m sure I read it years before but did not remember the stories.

Each of these stories is a romance in miniature. They involve some of Heyer’s hallmarks—cases of mistaken identity, elopements gone wrong, accidental encounters, and a couple of duels. Appealing heroines meet attractive men usually while they are engaged in some mistaken folly.

These are delightful, light stories, perfect for a rainy day and a cup of tea. This is a very short review, but if you like a charming romance laced with humor, you can’t go wrong with Georgette Heyer.

This is one for the old-fashioned romance fans, where handsome dukes, love at first sight, and ladies subsiding meekly into strong, manly embraces are a plus. :) This is a lighthearted and sweet anthology of fourteen Georgette Heyer short stories for fans of traditional Regency romances, including three newer stories that haven't been published in many years.

There are grey-eyed heroes and heroines galore ... seriously, what was GH's thing with grey eyes? I started highlighting them in my Kindle and wound up with like eight different grey-eyed characters, and also one gray-eyed one, just for a change of pace. Also there's a little cross-dressing, some amateur boxing, a trip or three to Gretna Green, Scotland (the Las Vegas of the Regency era) for hasty marriages, second chance love (yay!), some misunderstandings (boo!), rampant instalove and even insta-engagements (if you abhor instalove, this collection will NOT be your cuppa tea), and all of the other Regency tropes.

The fourteen stories:

"Snowdrift" - The passengers in a post coach heading to Bath include a young woman and a "thickset young man with small eyes" (so, obviously the villain of this tale) who are spatting with each other. They're stranded when the coach crashes into a deep drift of snow. The pair are in a race to reach Bath first, but why? The young man takes off on one of the horses, leaving the woman in tears. Luckily a gentleman in a curricle happens by and is willing to take Miss Trent and her maid along with him, but what awaits everyone in Bath? ... besides instalove, I mean. It's actually quite funny.

"Full Moon" - Lord Stavely meets a rather drunk young gentleman at an inn, who confides in Stavely that he's rather reluctantly planning to elope with his childhood friend Annabella, so she won't have to marry some "old fogy" that her father has picked out, sight unseen. You can kind of tell where it's going from there, but Lord Stavely's plan runs into an unexpected hiccup or two.

"Pistols for Two" - Tom and Jack, lifelong friends, become rivals when Miss Marianne Treen comes back into town, unexpectedly grown up into a dazzling beauty. Tempers flare over a slight, and a challenge to a duel results. Can their friends and a suave gentleman from London dissuade them?

"A Clandestine Affair" - Elinor Tersilian, who's about thirty years of age and thus on the shelf, is the guardian for her lovely young niece Lucy. Lucy wants to marry one Mr. Rosely, but it develops that there's a problem: Mr. Rosely's trustee won't give his permission for the marriage ... primarily because he and Elinor have some kind of mysterious but bitter History between them. Lucy is not planning to give up so easily, though, and a mad chase to Gretna Green results. Might the adventure bring Elinor and Iver together again?

"Bath Miss" - Sir Charles Wainfleet, newly and somewhat reluctantly engaged, is prevailed upon to escort a young schoolgirl from Bath to her grandfather's house. But the schoolgirl turns out to be not quite a young as he was given to understand, and somehow gets herself (and Sir Charles) into one problem after another.

"Pink Domino" - Miss Wrexham has a lovely new rose-pink domino and plans to wear it at Vauxhall, if only she can evade her domineering older brother Giles. Giles Wrexham has been in a particularly uncertain temper ever since he met a lovely sweet-faced girl on Bond Street, but he has no idea what her name is or how to find her again.

"A Husband for Fanny" - Honoria Wingham, a young widow, is busily engaged in trying to find the best and wealthiest husband possible for her daughter Fanny, during Fanny's first London season. Mrs. Wingham has her eye on the Marquis of Harleston for Fanny, even though her friend Lady Pednor assures her that it's a hopeless cause. I saw the twist coming here, but it was still a very sweet story. And no instalove, which is cause for rejoicing in this collection of stories. :)

"To Have the Honour" - Young Lord Allerton has returned home from the war upon inheriting his father's estate, but it's in very sad financial estate. Everyone in his family expects him to solve the problem by marrying his cousin Hetty, who is an heiress. But Lord Allerton doesn't want Hetty to marry him out of some feeling of obligation, so he lets her off the hook. This story features some amusing scheming behind the scenes by interfering relatives.

"Night at the Inn" - For a change of pace, we have a mystery/suspense story here, with just a slight tinge of romance. But there's something suspicious going on in the gloomy inn, and an ominous-looking man who has been watching young Mr. Cranbrook all evening.

"The Duel" - In this second duel-based story, a young woman sneaks into a gentleman's house. It's not the house she was looking for, but she ends up telling the gentleman her sad tale of a drunken brother who unwisely insulted one Lord Rotherfield and ended up getting challenged to a duel, which her brother will surely lose. Perhaps the gentleman might be able to do something about this? Another twist that was easy to spot, but it was still a charming story.

"Hazard" - Miss Helen Moreland has the misfortune of being under the guardianship of her half-brother Sir Ralph, an unworthy gentleman whose latest misdeed is to gamble Helen away in a high stakes card game. Carlington, a Marquis, is the lucky/unlucky winner of Helen ... but what will he do with her?

"Pursuit" - The Earl of Shane is out of sorts: his rich young ward Lucilla, who he intended to marry because it seemed like a nice, tidy thing to do (it was the wish of both their fathers), has taken off for Gretna Green with a soldier. So the Earl grabs Lucilla's governess, one Miss Mary Fairfax (age 29), and commands her to accompany him in his curricle as they take off to hunt down the runaway couple. Some interesting discussions between the Earl and Miss Fairfax ensue.

"'How elevating it is to encounter such filial piety in these days!' observed Miss Fairfax soulfully."

The plot thickens when the Earl and Miss Fairfax are in turn chased down by his aunt and her son, the Earl's cousin and heir, bent on preventing what they think is the Earl's hasty marriage to Miss Fairfax.

"Runaway Match" - Yet another runaway pair heads to Gretna Green, between young Mr. Rupert Morley and Miss Paradise, a young lady with a taste for drama. At an inn along the way they meet up with Sir Roland, the man Miss Paradise's father wants her to marry. Misunderstandings, adventure, and a rather one-sided swordfight.

"Incident on the Bath Road" - The handsome, wealthy and bored Earl of Reveley is on his way to Bath when he picks up a young (and suspiciously womanish-looking) gentleman whose chaise carriage had broken down, who tells him a long and fanciful tale about planning to rescue a lovely young woman who is being forced into marriage by her heartless relatives. But the relative is hot on the trail...

These stories are delightful and humorous confections. Perhaps they're great literature for the ages, but the light historic romance fans will enjoy these. Heyer has some great witty dialogue and it was all good, fluffy fun.

My Thoughts

“Heyer delighted in writing sparkling comedies of manners, clever mysteries and incomparable Regency romances.”

For some time now, Georgette Heyer has been on my reading radar - I know! How can a historical fiction connoisseur such as myself, never have read Heyer! So here I go, and I thought these short stories for lovers of traditional Regency romances would provide a wonderful introduction.

‘Snowdrift and Other Stories’ anthology contains fourteen short stories, inclusive of three newer stories that have not been published, I am informed, for many years. What you have here is a taste test that provide lovely, entertaining escapist moments, filled with all that is good and fluffy - young women meeting (or thrown in the path) of wealthy men, in all sorts of variations; rich in period detail and filled with some of the wittiest dialogue I have come across.

“Only two things belied the air of primness she seemed so carefully to cultivate: the jaunty bow which tied her bonnet under one ear, and the twinkle in her eye, which was as sudden as it was refreshing.”

When you sign up for this, you know for certain what you are in for - and in this instance - that is a good thing. Almost every story revolves around travel or runaways, elopement, an Earl, Duke or some entitled male (always handsome of course) and a young innocent, trusting female. These are light-hearted and loads of fun, packed to the hilt with romance and intrigue. Allow yourself to get carried away with young heroines and dashing heroes. There is loads of humour, all providing for some great escapism.

On the whole, I am not a fan of short stories - with little time to develop plot or character affiliation. The few ‘insta-love’ tales may push your acceptance to the limits with their predictability; and, plot lines in some instances are quite similar and repetitive. Overall, however, it really is an enjoyable collection on the whole.

These are tales that are best taken in bite sized pieces whilst sipping that therapeutic cup of tea. If this is to your taste, you will thoroughly enjoy Heyer’s early works - an expert storyteller who can succinctly entice you with a lavish plot and engaging characters in the minimal amount of pages. Truly, take the journey to Regency England with these charming and romantic tales.

Author of over fifty books, Georgette Heyer is one of the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists, making the Regency period her own.


This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release

This was the first time I read anyhing by Georgette Heyer, and by now I'm convinced that a collection of her short stories isn't the best introduction to her writing. After the first three of these, I already knew how every single of the remaining 11 pieces (known ones as well as previously unpublished ones) would play out, and I'm not so sure that's only due to me reading one directly after the other. There's a very distinct pattern to them, for the most part including the following tropes:

a quirky, impoverished Regency maiden opposed to an arranged marriage
+ a much older gentleman of unsurpassable fortune as well as fashion sense
+ a grand misunderstanding
+ most likely an elopement or a duel, or both
+ the girl suddenly being not as disinclined to a wedding thanks to said gentleman's suave ways

That is to say, I would have found myself rather bored by the recognizable plot devices and character types... if those weren't exactly the plot devices and character types you can count on me to fall for every single time. I found myself looking forward to the next blasé, sophisticated count/viscount/earl and his feisty fiancée (my favourite story was by the way Full Moon). And surely, long-time fans of the author will love these bits of historical romance! The dialogues were incredibly amusing, and, no matter what you may think of the genre, well-researched beyond belief.

Despite the foreseeable course of events, Snowdrift and Other Stories served the purpose of giving me a taste of Heyer's more drawn-out Regency works, which I will shortly order. Very entertaining!

I've loved Georgette Heyer for a long time, and I'm real glad to discover a few more of her stories.

This is an anthology of romance stories. I love Georgette Heyer's writing style and while I prefer her mysteries, this set of stories is special, too. It'd be a great book to read during the Christmas season. It'll put you in a good mood.

Sourcebooks Casablanca and Net Galley allowed me to read this book for review (thank you). It has been published so you can grab a copy now.

The women want to marry someone they love. The men that populate the stories are all bachelors who don't want to marry at all. However, they are very good at saving the ladies from difficult situations. They also seem to fall in love almost overnight but it makes it a good read. These are all happily ever after stories and each one made me smile. I need to read a book like this every once in a while. Why don't you charm yourself with these sweet tales?

This is a re-issue of the author's short story collection, Pistols For Two, but with 3 new stories. If you need a quick, potent dose of a Heyer Regency, then this collection is for you. It has all the wit, Regency cant, and memorable characters that the author is known for. Since these are short stories, the storylines are not deep but that is to be expected. If you want a Regency pick-me-up to bring a smile to your face, I recommend this book. On a side note, I love the cover but I am not crazy about the title. I wish they would have used one of the new story titles like "Runaway Match" or "Pursuit." Otherwise, I loved it!
* I received this book free of charge from NetGalley.

I love Georgette Heyer's stories and, unsurprisingly, loved these stories. My favorite was "To Have the Honour" because of the line when the Viscount tells Henrietta that he loved her: "No, by God! If you area determined to marry a fortune-hunter, Henry, let him be me! At least I love you!" Swoon.

Sparkling and great quality, exactly what you'd expect from Heyer short stories and not a dud among them. My review on my blog is linked below.

Is there anything like a bad Georgette Heyer's bad piece of Regency fiction ? No, there isn't. This short story confirm the theory.
If you like Georgette Heyer this is a must have, you never read her books it could be nice but not the best way to discover this writer.
Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebook Casablanca for giving me the chance to review this book

My first time experiencing Heyer and I absolutely loved it, was just an amazing read and I could not put it down, simply marvelous

These are some really light-hearted traditional Regency Romances. They are all short stories so it's difficult to develop too much in such a short space of time and yet U was thoroughly entertained.

It's intriguing to see the differences between society in the regency era vs. our modern era and it was often also a source of amusement for me. There's a couple of Instalove stories here which weren't such a hit for me, but the second chance romances are done really well but expect to see quite a lot of tropes here, including mistaken identities, elopements, duels, military suitors and more.

Very easy to read and well written and entertaining.

An anthology of 14 short stories. There are stories of duels, love at first sight, second chance romances, elopements. Enjoyable

I will be purchasing Snowdrift for my mother for Christmas! The perfect gift for a Heyer fan - the three rediscovered, "new" stories are such a treat.

"Snowdrift and Other Stories" is a collection of 14 short stories by Georgette Heyer. Since the stories were so short, they were usually "love at first sight" romances with the focus on the humorous events surrounding their meeting. The hero and heroine rarely had time to actually get to know the other, and it wasn't always clear what attracted the man to the woman. In several of these short stories, you can see the core idea that was expanded into a novel. Many of the stories involved a couple racing after an eloping couple to stop them. There were also several stories involving humorous duels. There was no sex. There was occasional use of bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this collection to Heyer fans.

Georgette Heyer was my very first historical romance collection that i read.
Thankyou for re-publishing them and finding the new stories to read .I had forgotten what a brilliant writer she was , the wit the humor and above all the wonderful stories she wrote.
Thank you net galley for given me a chance to read them.

I am a very big fan of Georgette Heyer's sense of humour and style of writing. Keeping this in mind , the following review is relatively biased.

This book is a collection of some of earlier unpublished and other short stories compiled together.I gained access to it via NetGalley. Considering these were penned in the 1930s it surprises with its lightness of text and pithy humorous dialogues. It was a little hard to let go of the main characters at the tail end of the story and start on a new set of people and their mishaps. Some of the stories seem like trial runs at a bigger tale with a certain set of events being juggled around to get the right fit. This does nothing to mar its charm. The book focuses on the people who gained wealth in the feudal system and were bound , to a large extent, by the various rules that governed their strange society.

The book left me wanting more information about what happened after we left them, but I believe that might be synonymous with short stories and therefore I must resign myself to just starting on other Georgette Heyer books left on my shelf.

I always love spending time in Georgette Heyer’s world; with duels, masked balls, elopements, high-stakes card games and lively period slang, her novels provide perfect escapism – and based on this collection, so do her short stories. Originally published as Pistols for Two in 1960, Snowdrift and Other Stories contains eleven of Heyer’s tales of Regency romance and adventure plus three additional stories not included in the earlier book.

I found these stories so enjoyable and so much fun, it was tempting to read them all at once, but instead I decided to just dip in and out, reading one or two at a time over the course of a few weeks. This was probably a good idea as many of the stories in the book are very similar, so better in smaller doses, I think! In particular, there are several that deal with young couples eloping with various family members in pursuit and a series of misunderstandings ensuing along the way – and also several involving duels, fought with either pistols or swords, and never quite going according to plan. Most of the stories have a twist or two, which are usually easy for the reader to predict, but come as a complete surprise to the characters!

I don’t want to discuss all fourteen stories here, but I can honestly say that I liked all of them – some more than others, of course. Some of my favourites included Bath Miss, in which a gentleman agrees to escort the daughter of a family friend home from school in Bath, but finds that the girl is not quite what he’d expected; The Duel, which follows a young lady who goes in search of the disreputable Lord Rotherfield to beg him not to shoot her brother; and Hazard, where a nobleman ‘wins’ a friend’s sister in a drunken game of dice and is horrified when he wakes up the next day and finds himself on the way to Gretna Green. Another which stood out, although it wasn’t one I particularly loved, was Night at the Inn. Unlike the others, which are all romances of various types, this one is more of a suspense story in which three guests arrive at a lonely inn one dark, foggy night.

As for the three extra stories – Pursuit, Runaway Match and Incident on the Bath Road (all from the 1930s, I think) – they are very entertaining too, although they suffered slightly from being placed at the end. Speaking as someone who is not usually a fan of short stories, I did really enjoy this book. I prefer her full length novels but, as I’ve said, if you just want a small dose of Heyer – or maybe if you’ve never read her before and don’t want to commit to anything longer – I would recommend giving Snowdrift a try.