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I have realised, over the course of being immensely dissatisfied with Regencies, that what I have been subconsciously looking for has been 'Heyer with a little more porn'. There are authors whom I have enjoyed (Meredith Duran (except for that book set in India because I decided I don't want to read it), Courtney Milan, Sherry Thomas), some whom I enjoy in certain books and not at all in others (Loretta Chase has a habit of orientalism, which may derive in some part from the historical nature of the setting, but I don't like it), and some whom I like almost against my will (Eileen Dreyer's Regencies are emotionally exhausting like man, I recognise that the writing is good, but the situations are soapily compelling and I can't deal with the heaviness of it), but nothing really in the style of Heyer, for all that she pretty much created the Regency subgenre.

But then I found Julie Benson -- which, full disclosure, I had to skip past certain scenes in two of her books due to second-hand embarrassment cringe, but they do have that farcical Heyer bubbliness, wit, and self-awareness, if a little too much reliance on love triangles -- and I loved The Accidental Duchess, frothy and delightful first person as it is. So that helped me realise what I wanted, and then I discovered Mary Balogh.

Who is almost exactly what I wanted. I'm reading her Mistress series right now, and I loved Jane in the first book, Jane who always has the last word, and in the second book, despite an annoying tendency to claim no courtesans would ever be in that line of work unless circumstances had forced them, Viola and Ferdinand were delightful. And, of course, there was Angeline in every single book and then she had her own book and omg I love Angeline.

I am reading her book, which is chronologically first and written last, and omg I just love her. She fell in love with a stick in the mud entirely unlike her rakish brothers and decided after he saved her that she would marry him. And when Eunice could have been set up as a goody-goody rival, which I was afraid of, they have instead come to respect each other and become friends and ahhhhh. That is exactly what I wanted!! And Edward is grumpy and hilarious and he doesn't quite know what to do with Angeline because he is fundamentally a decent fellow and I know because of the other books that she doesn't accept his suit straight away sooooo I am excited!

♥Angeline♥

(Oh, Jane and Jocelyn are Regency versions of Wodehouse's Tuppy and Angela, which is actually my secondary J&W OTP, SO. Yes.)

Edit: omg now they have BOTH tried to clear the way for each other to marry Edward ahhhhhh And Angeline wants to be Eunice's friend even though she thinks Eunice is above her touch because she's booksmart and Angeline is so shatterbrained and and

I love ladies who are friends.

Edit: omg and now they are both creating convoluted schemes for each other and it is hilarious.