Deborah Goes to Dover

March 2, 1992
In another of her lighthearted Regency romps, Chesney follows Hannah Pym on her fifth adventure in the Travelling Matchmaker series that started with Emily Goes to Brighton . During a coach trip to Dover, the intrepid Miss Pym encounters the hoydenish Lady Deborah Western, who, dressed as a boy, is being escorted to a prizefight by her scapegrace twin brother, Lord William. While trying to keep her footman, Benjamin Stubbs, from taking part in a boxing match to recover his gaming losses, Miss Pym gives Lady Deborah some social protection after she is revealed as a female. When the earl of Ashton, an old friend of the Westerns' father, tries to exert some control over the twins, Miss Pym scents the potential for a match, the second she is maneuvering on the trip, the first involving her coach companions Abigail Conningham, traveling with her mother to a loveless marriage arranged by an uncle, and Capt. Beltravers, an Army officer still mourning his dead wife and child. Lady Deborah's transition to womanhood and the reappearance of an old enemy of Miss Pym's liven up the proceedings before all ends well. As always, Chesney's story is frothily entertaining.

February 1, 1992
Miss Hannah Pym ventures forth on her fifth journey in the latest volume in Chesney's popular Travelling Matchmaker series. Voyaging by coach from London to Dover may seem a tame event, but with Pym along, the only predictable matter is that romance will surely blossom. When the coach is boarded by a tearful girl and her mother, a gruff military man, and a clergyman with a mousy wife, even Pym considers them "a dull lot." However, a boxing match, an old vendetta, a spiteful sister, and a pair of mischievous twins add sparkle to the story. ((Reviewed Feb. 1, 1992))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1992, American Library Association.)