Review of “The Reluctant Heiress” by Eva Ibbotson

This book is virtually identical to Ibbotson’s The Morning Gift in many ways, but I didn’t care. I always say, when you have a good story, stick with it! It was still enjoyable to me in the way all modern fairy tales are. Nevertheless, having just read The Morning Gift before this one, there were no surprises for me, except for the occasional change in syntax:

The Morning Gift: “What I’m going to do now, is kiss you.”

The Reluctant Heiress: “’I’m going to kiss you, you see,’ he explained.”

Yes, these books are seriously alike, but it’s a timeless tale. Guy meets girl. There is instant but bewildering attraction, because the guy and girl are each convinced he or she is in love with someone else. The Someone Elses turn out to be not who they seemed to be. And, well, I won’t spoil the timeless, inevitable ending, in case you haven’t figured it out, but those quotes above should give you a hint.

In this version of Ibbotson’s upside-down Cinderella plot, we are once again in pre-World War II Vienna, where we meet Tessa, a princess in disguise working as a gofer for an opera company. She is indispensable and indefatigable. She rescues babies and puppies and mice and everyone loves her. She even cuts off her own glorious hair when a suitable wig cannot be found for a production.

Enter Guy Farne, irrepressible, indomitable, honorable, and convinced he is in love with a vapid beauty named Nerine who rejected him once before because he wasn’t rich enough. He set out to win her by becoming as rich as he possibly could, even purchasing the magnificent but too-expensive-to-maintain castle of Pfaffenstein, now owned by two old women and their grand-niece, the Princess. “The Princess” of course is none other than Tessa, who everyone thinks should marry a very dumb faded nobleman she doesn’t love.

Guy meets Tessa at the opera, not knowing she is the Princess of Pfaffenstein. The usual false impressions, miscommunications, and misunderstandings ensue common to the playing out of this tale, until at last, all the parties concerned are with exactly who they are meant to be, according, some would say, to the stars.

Discussion: I love the male protagonist, Guy – Ibbotson is great with her males. Guy is an appealing mix of not-too-handsome but definitely attractive, talented, decisive, chivalrous, kind, but with a temper when his pride is hurt and prone to bitter self-condemnation over his own follies. That is, the men are good, but not so good as to be boring.

The female heroines are pretty much the same: a combination of perfection with a ditsy vulnerability, small and thin, long blonde hair, and a snub nose, beloved by everyone. Although one can’t help but root for the heroine in Ibbotson’s books, to me she is generally the least interesting of the characters. (While the ditsy vulnerability reinforces her “innocence” and serves to draw the “strong yet tender” male hero to her, such a protagonist can be very irritating to the reader.) Ibbotson is especially good, however, with her auxiliary cast, the members of which are drawn with precision and affection.

I do wish I could find out what it is with Ibbotson and the valorization of small, thin, blonde, and snub nose. She had said in an interview that she wrote for women, so she couldn’t really be pandering to a perceived predilection by men, could she? Is this possibly how she wanted to look because she suffered discrimination (from anti-Semites) if she didn’t? Is she perhaps just trying to fit her heroine within the traditional parameters of the fairy tale? Or, Heaven forfend, is she reflecting what she learned to be beautiful in the racist, pre-World War II buildup in the Germanic countries?

The author’s vitriolic commentary about the upper classes – particularly about those who gain their status by heredity rather than by working for it – is especially marked in this book. While amusing, I think she is more effective in her later books when she applies some nuance and subtlety to the matter.

Evaluation: I liked A Countess Below Stairs and The Morning Gift more than this one, but this is not to say I didn’t enjoy reading it. Like her other books, this one is full of love for Austria and music, and portrays nicely a slice of society in the time between the world wars. And of course it is a charming fairy tale-like love story.

Rating: 3.5/5

Published by St. Martin’s Press, 1982