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I was in the mood for something light and funny the other day, so I went to see what the internet had to offer in the way of non-Charlie Chan novels by Earl Derr Biggers. I found Love Insurance, which was exactly what I was looking for, except in that it didn’t really thrill me in any way.

The premise is kind of excellent, to a point, and if the book had revolved around Owen Jephson, underwriter for Lloyd’s of London, I think I would have liked it more. Jephson specializes in insuring incedibly peculiar things: he’s insured an actor against losing weight, a duchess against rain at her garden party, etc. I want very badly for Herbert George Jenkins to have written a book about Jephson, but sadly the world doesn’t work that way. And Biggers is more concerned first with Allan, Lord Harrowby, who wants to insure his wedding date, and then, more centrally, with Dick Minot, who Lloyd’s sends to Florida and protect their assets by making sure that Harrowby’s wedding to the beautiful Cynthia Meyrick goes as planned. Minot, inevitably, falls in love with Cynthia almost at first sight, and that’s only the first of many complications — there are jewel thieves, long-lost relatives, blackmail, and a society matron who hires a guy to write bon mots for her. And that list barely scrapes the surface.

In general, I really, really like about the first 3/4 of any given Earl Derr Biggers book, but this one felt more consistent. I never liked it as much as the beginning of Seven Keys to Baldpate or The Agony Column, but I liked it pretty much equally all the way through. Possibly that was because it was pretty intensely predictable, but that was okay, beasue it was all pretty silly and fun, too.

This is one of those books I sort of vaguely like but can’t work up any enthusiasm about, and I don’t know whether that’s my fault, or if it’s that Biggers didn’t expend any effort on characterization, or that the most interesting character disappeared after the first few chapters or what. I suspect a lot of people will enjoy it more than I did.

There have been a lot of articles and blog posts floating around lately about what to read if you’re into Downton Abbey. One in particular, which talked about Elizabeth von Arnim apropos of one character giving a copy of Elizabeth and Her German Garden to another, made Evangeline at Edwardian Promenade say, “hey, what about Elinor Glyn?” Which, obviously, is the correct response to everything. And then I read it, and thought, “yeah, Elizabeth and her German Garden was popular when it came out in 1898, but would people really be trying to get each other to read a fifteen rear-old(ish) novel by a German author during World War I?” And then we decided that we could probably come up with an excellent list of Edwardian and World War I-era fiction that tied in the Downton Abbey. And so we did.

It’s a pretty casual list, mostly composed of things we came up with off the tops of out heads, a bit of research on Evangeline’s part and a bit of flipping through advertisements on mine, so we’re making no claims to be exhaustive. If you have suggestions for additions to the list, leave a comment.

Here goes possibly the nicest of the reader recommendations from week before last. Thank you Mark; I am exceedingly grateful.

I tend not to deal well with characters who seem to go out of their way to mire themselves in difficulties, but Patricia Brent, Spinster — by Herbert George Jenkins — did it so charmingly that I can’t really bring myself to complain. The title character overhears some of the catty older women at her boarding house gossiping about her — and, incidentally, adding a few years to her age — and tries to get back at them by casually referring to a fiancé over dinner that night. She’s not ready for the questions they throw at her, and she ends up being a lot more specific about the fake fiancé than she intended. Like, to the point of making up a name, rank and regiment for him. This is sort of embarrassingly awkward, obviously, and then it gets worse. Patricia goes out to dinner the following night for a nonexistent date with the fictional Major Brown and some of her fellow boarders follow her, which, a) aren’t you glad you’re not friends with them? and b) things are now acutely, humiliatingly awkward.

So Patricia does the insane, inevitable thing. She grabs of hold of the first soldier she sees and makes him have dinner with her. She continues to be pretty embarrassed by the situation, but she shouldn’t be, because Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Peter Bowen, D.S.O., is very pleased to have met her. The rest of the book is Peter dancing attendance while Patricia tries to make him go away — while secretly wishing that she could continue their fake engagement in some way that doesn’t mean her pride has to take a fall.

The book can be frustrating at times, because Peter is ridiculously perfect, and he and Patricia really like each other, but to Patricia it looks like all the advantages are on his side, and it’s only when she’s been convinced that he needs her as much as she needs him that she admits she loves him.  I mean, these characters really don’t seem like equals when they meet, and 90% of the book is Patricia figuring out that they can be. I don’t know if I can adequately convey how much I like that.

I also really enjoyed the supporting characters, in spite of the fact that they tend to fall into good guy/bad guy groups. On one hand you’ve got Patricia’s fellow boarders, her employer and his wife, and Patricia’s self-designated “only surviving relative.” They’re oblivious, and misguided, but funny in a way that didn’t make me cringe. Then you have Peter’s family and friends and Mr. Triggs, Patricia’s employer’s father-in-law. They’re sensible, welcoming, fun to be around, and, with the exception of Mr. Triggs, pretty glamorous. I particularly loved Lady Tanagra, Peter’s sister. And Lady Peggy, who introduces Patricia to her salon-like household and makes her slide down the stairs on a tea tray. I find it a little weird that pretty much all of the good people come from Peter’s world and not Patricia’s, but Patricia feels weird about it, too, so I don’t mind so much.

Another cool thing is the World War I setting. For much of the book the characters seem to be blissfully unaware that there’s a war going on, in spite of the fact that the hero is in the army. And I thought, okay, this is a lighthearted romantic comedy, albeit a surprisingly sophisticated one (Yes, I use the word ‘albeit’ in my internal monologue. Frequently.). We’re mostly pretending there isn’t a war on, and that’s fine. But then