CBR18 Book 44: "Scandal of the Summer" by Alexandra Vasti

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC. This book is on sale now.

Lady Ruby Ballimore has tried her very best to be the perfect debutante, but no matter how hard she tries, she can't be quiet and biddable and seemingly empty-headed. After yet another disastrous dinner party, which has shown off her unladylike academic prowess to the Ton and enraged her father, she decides that she needs a change of setting.

Ruby's father is the ambassador to a small European principality, and Ruby happens to know that the Princess has a mansion in Cornwall that's just conveniently standing empty. She forges a letter of introduction from her father, claiming that she and her two best friends are ladies-in-waiting to the Princess and have been sent to prepare the house for her possible visit in the future. 

The ladies are not prepared to find a mostly derelict house full of an odd assortment of supposed staff. Malcolm Archer has, in fact, been hired as the steward of the estate, but none of his former crew, who are basically his family, have been officially hired. They are squatting in the house and running multiple smuggling schemes to make enough money to survive. None of them was expecting the arrival of Ruby and her friends, so they set a number of schemes in motion to try to scare away the ladies. Terrible food, an infestation of beetles, and a made-up sea monster. Nothing works. The ladies keep ignoring the discomforts and work diligently to make the mansion habitable again. Which turns out to be good, because it seems like the Princess may be making an unexpected visit, and her arrival will force the deceptions of both groups of occupants of the house out in the open.

I've been lucky enough to read several of Ms. Vasti's romances as ARCs. They are usually well-researched and very entertaining. In this, we get the unlikely pairing of a bluestocking wallflower and a disgraced naval captain turned smuggler. Both protagonists have found families of sorts. Ruby has her ride-or-die friends, both of whom I'm assuming will be getting books later in the series. Malcolm has a number of former crew members who left the navy when he was dismissed, and while he may be a former privateer and now a smuggler and occasional con man, all his lies and schemes and his considerable charm are used to support his people and create a safe haven for them. Unfortunately, he is so used to lying and tricking people that even when he may be hurting those close to him with his deceptions, he sometimes has trouble being truthful.

Ruby is the eldest daughter of an earl, and no matter what she says or does, she ends up making a mess of things. She has travelled through Europe with her father and younger sister (who is now a viscountess) and is very well-educated, but lacks the necessary social skills to be a hit on the Marriage Mart. One of her two best friends, Alice, is the daughter of a man who was accused of treason and therefore mostly shunned by polite society. She's rather shy and soft-spoken, but also a keen entomologist (and hence is delighted by the bugs, rather than scared off). Ruby's other BFF, Tamsin, is a self-proclaimed sapphist, has cut her hair into a pixie cut and prefers to wear trousers. The aunt she had been living with got married and conveniently moved to Cornwall, so Ruby lied to her father about spending the summer there. 

As well as being rather run-down when the ladies arrive, the manor house is also full of dogs, since Wall, one of Malcolm's former crew members, has begun to specialise in veterinary medicine, and keeps adopting stray litters of puppies. So there's a surprising number of dogs for a historical romance, some even prove central to the second half of the plot. 

If you haven't read any Alexandra Vasti before, this is a good place to start. If you have read any of her books and enjoyed them, this is another delightful read.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR18 Book 12: "In Which Winnie Halifax is Utterly Ruined" by Alexandra Vasti

Page count: 196 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Reading Rainbow - Purple/violet cover

It's 1811. Winnifred "Winnie" Wallace just wants to settle down in a small town in Wales and raise sheep. She has a modest amount of money, given to her by her con woman mother before said woman absconded to France. However, being a single woman trying to establish herself leads to a lot of suspicion, so Winnie fibs a tiny bit and claims to be married, but estranged from her husband. She literally makes up a name and an address for her fictional spouse, and suddenly she's welcomed into the community.

Ten years later, Spencer Halifax, the Earl of Warren, is told by his solicitor, Henry Mortimer, that it has come to his attention that a woman claims to be married to Spencer, and has copies of banns that very much seem to suggest that the wedding took place. Because all the church records of the place where they supposedly got married were lost when the church burned down, legally speaking, there is no way to disprove the claim, and Spencer may in fact have a wife in Wales. 

Spencer has to rescue his fake wife from the local jail, where she's ended up after punching a rival farmer who accused her of theft. Once she cleans up all the grime, he is, of course, stunned by her beauty (they are never just plain and average in these stories). She convinces him that she in no way wanted to defraud or entrap him in any way, and is rather shocked to realise that her clever lies and external circumstances might mean they are actually legally married. She agrees to accompany him to London, but there is a chance they may have to ask for an actual annulment.

Margo's novella was the shortest of the three stories, and the one I liked the least. Matilda's is probably the longest, and the one I liked the most. That puts Spencer's novella smack bang in the middle, at four stars. It's the most farcical of the three stories, and the plot just keeps getting more and more preposterous as the story progresses. There's the fake marriage to be dealt with, and Winnie's secret plan to return the stolen necklaces her mother gave her to their rightful owners, which involves showing up at dinner parties and hiding in broom closets, and sneaking about at the opera, and what have you. It's not quite insta-love in this story, but it comes very close. Winnie and Spencer don't spend a lot of time together before it becomes clear that their fake marriage should become a real one, and that both of them are sick of being alone and terribly responsible apart, when they have so much fun together. 

I'm really glad that I have discovered Alexandra Vasti as a writer. I have an ARC of the novel she's releasing in June, and I'm really looking forward to reading it.

Judging a book by its cover: The covers of Vasti's self-published novellas are a lot less elaborate than her current romance covers. I do really like the shade of purple used for the background and the little white flowers. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR18 Book 11: "The Halifax Hellions" by Alexandra Vasti

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Novella 1: In Which Margo Halifax Earns Her Shocking Reputation (3.5 stars)

Novella 2: In Which Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of Restraint (4.5 stars)

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC. My opinions are my own.

This book collects two previously self-published novellas of Alexandra Vasti's, and includes an additional epilogue which has never before been available.

Margo and Matilda Halifax are identical twins, the wealthy younger sisters of an Earl and have basically been seen as outrageous scandals for the years since they made their debut. Both are fiercely loyal and protective of the other; however, neither of them knows that the other has grown rather weary of being seen as shocking and extreme, and they mostly now long to settle down and live quieter lives.

Lady Margaret "Margo" Halifax shows up, soaking wet, on the doorstep of Henry Mortimer, her brother's solicitor and best friend. She believes Matilda has eloped with a dangerous and unpleasant man, and wants to intercept her sister before she gets to Scotland to get married. Henry has been a responsible and steady presence in her life since they met seven years ago, and he's the only one she can think of to ask for help in this situation. 

Henry Mortimer has been in lust with Margo since the first moment he saw her, tying a cherry stem into a knot with her mouth, while fending off suitors in her family's drawing room. He's been in love with her almost as long, because as her brother's best friend, he has seen other sides to Margo than most people in the ton have. The thought of being alone in a carriage with Margo for days on end is pure torture, because he's not sure he'll be able to keep his feelings hidden, but he can't let her endanger herself by running off alone to rescue Matilda.

I'm sure it will be no surprise to anyone that Henry's absolutely right, and that after days in close confinement, they are ready to jump each other's bones. Margo is less in tune with her feelings than Henry, so it takes her a bit longer to realise that she doesn't just want a quick fling with Henry, she'd like to spend the rest of her life with him (whether they manage to stop Matilda or not). 

My notes show me that I read this novella in August 2024, and despite this, I only barely remembered any details. It felt like I was reading it for the first time, not re-reading an old favourite. I can only imagine I was in a very strange headspace when I first read it, which made the details of the story slip from my mind. 

Margo and Henry's novella is the shorter of the two, taking up the first third of the book. Towards the end of the story, our bumbling pursuers actually manage to catch up to Matilda and her potential groom, and it's clear that the sisters should have been a lot more honest and forthcoming with one another. 

Matilda has not been entirely truthful about her true relationship to Christian de Bord, the Marquess of Ashford, who has a very fearsome reputation and possibly murdered his wife. Ashford normally resides alone with his sister in Northumberland, but travels to London because very erotic images of him have been printed in a lewd pamphlet, and he has identified the artist as none other than the infamous Matilda Halifax. She's rather shocked when he confronts her, and while she proves to him that the original drawings have been tampered with, probably to sell more pamphlets, she also feels compelled to confess that he was the inspiration for a lot of her drawings (she's been illustrating erotica in secret for years). Our Matilda has heard rumours about Ashford that he may share certain sexual proclivities of hers, and has apparently been nursing some pretty spicy fantasies about the reclusive nobleman.

Because of the drawings and his already rather dark reputation, Ashford hasn't been able to find an art tutor for his younger sister. Matilda, who is an accomplished artist (she doesn't only draw erotic images) and feels guitly about her part in his difficulties. So she offers to go with him to his estate in Northumberland to tutor his sister, and hopefully persuade her that she might want to travel to London in the near future. Instead of explaining this to her sister, however, Matilda concocts a lie about eloping, and the situation is further complicated because Margo disguised herself as her sister and tried to confront Ashford. Feeling rather irritated because of his inconvenient attraction to the young lady, Ashford said some very shocking things, only to realise shortly afterwards that he'd made suggestive and rather threatening remarks to the wrong twin. So Margo believe her sister to be running off to marry a deranged, perverted wife-murderer. 

While Margo's novella takes place in quite a short space of time, Matilda's story is spread out over a longer time period. There is delighful bantery letters exchanged between her and Ashford, and there's all sorts of mutual pining, Matilda adopting a cat she plans to give to Christian's sister (and him allowing the cat to stay, despite being violently allergic). There's also winning over the Mrs. Danvers-esque housekeeper and trying to befriend Ashford's painfully shy younger sister. I liked the second novella a lot more, mainly because I felt the relationship between Christian and Matilda had time and space to develop properly.

I enjoyed both novellas, though, and am glad I also have the third one Ms. Vasti self-published, where we find out how the elder brother of the twins meets and falls for his wife. 

Judging a book by its cover: I like the bright colours and whimsical details on this cover. The dark and forboding castle in one corner, with the implication that Matilda has been carried off by the brooding Christian, while Margo and Henry pursue them in a carriage. The cherries and the cat are also nice touches (although the cat decribed in the story seems a lot closer to a Persian than the cat on this cover). 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 57: "Ladies in Hating" by Alexandra Vasti

Page count: 345 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for this ARC. My opinions are my own. 

Lady Georgiana Cleeve was disowned by her father when she announced that she was the author of several popular novels, and has lived alone with her mother ever since, cut off from all contact with her brothers, convinced that the scandal she brought on herself and her family would irrevocably tarnish the reputations of anyone connected to her. She is selling well and her books are popular, but for the last few years, she has noticed a number of worrying similarities between her own books and those of another lady novelist, who also writes Gothic romances. Could the preposterously named Lady Darling be plagiarising Georgina? And if so, how is she getting her information?

Georgina becomes obsessed with unmasking this mysterious rival, and eventually resorts to hiding in the bushes outside Belvoir Library, which distributes for both of them. She is shocked to discover that not only is Lady Darling someone she recognises, but someone she shares a past with. Catriona Rose Lacey is the daughter of a butler who worked for Georgina's family, but was suddenly fired and banished from the estate by Georgina's imperious father. She hasn't seen Catriona for over a decade, but seeing her again reawakens feelings that Georgina had almost forgotten existed. 

When confronted by the furious Georgina, Catriona fervently denies all her claims of plagiarism. While she read some of Georgina's early novels, she's been so busy writing and building her own career for the past few years that she's not had time to read anything at all. Cat writes to support herself, her cousin and her teenage brother, who now has a position as a clerk. For many years, after her father died, it was only the money Cat could bring in, from her writing and working in a pie shop, that kept the family from starving. Unlike what Georgina fears, Cat doesn't really hold a grudge against Georgina's father for firing her father and sending them packing, but that obviously takes some time to be revealed.

Since this is a romance, obviously, the two women can't stop thinking of each other, even when they are annoyed and consider the other a rival. Despite their attempts to avoid each other, they keep being thrown together, and once they end up literally trapped together in a crumbling Gothic mansion, which may or may not be actually haunted, their forced proximity leads to them eventually going from mutual pining to actually snogging (and eventually more). 

Cat and her family are worried that she's going to get her heart broken, mostly because of the big class difference between the two women. They aren't aware that Lady Georgina was cut off entirely by her father, and even after his death, has refused to contact her brothers for fear that they will reject her. Because of her father's treatment of her, she's convinced that she will lead anyone close to her to be tarnished by her scandal and ostracised by society, so she keeps herself entirely isolated, which, of course, is very destructive in the long run. 

This is a fairly slow-burn romance, and there is a fair amount of angst from Georgina, which keeps her from being able to fully open up to Cat or accept affection from anyone. There's a lot of fun shenanigans in the dilapidated mansion they spend a bunch of time in, and it's never entirely clear whether the place is actually haunted, or whether this is more the vivid imagination of the two women. 

This is the third and final novel in the Belvoir's Library series, but it works fine as a stand-alone novel. You don't need to have read any of the previous two, but for the curious, it's fun to see Lady Georgina as a supporting character in Ne'er Duke Well (where she avoids marriage proposals by pretending to be the most vacuous of airheads) and in Earl Crush, where she is a very supportive and entertaining friend to the heroine. She was a great supporting character in both of these previous novels, which is why I'm glad she got a romance of her own. It seems that Iris, another supporting character in these novels, is going to be denied her happy ending, since Ms. Vasti didn't get to continue the series to a fourth book. I am nevertheless very excited to see what she writes next. 

Judging a book by its cover: While I'm not exactly super fond of the various shades of pink of the cover, the cover image shows a fun and rather dramatic scene in the novel (where our two heroines are trying to escape the Gothic ruins they find themselves trapped in). I especially like the inclusion of Georgina's fluffy dog, (Francis) Bacon, in all his derpy glory.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 8: "Earl Crush" by Alexandra Vasti

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Nowhere Books Bingo 25: Book about a road trip or travelling

Disclaimer! This was an ARC granted to me from St. Martin's Press through NetGalley. My opinions are my own. 

Lydia Hope-Wallace is a wallflower, and perfectly happy to remain so, because she has crippling social anxiety and tends to throw up if forced to interact too much with people outside her immediate family or friends. She's been secretly writing seditious pamphlets and publishing them anonymously for the past three years, and for almost as long, she has been corresponding with a man she believes to be the Earl of Strathrannnoch. When she discovers that Strathrannoch castle is pretty much falling down and the earldom has no funds to fix this with, she rather impulsively decides to go see her penpal and offer him a marriage of convenience. Lydia may be a wallflower, but she's also the second richest heiress on the marriage mart, and all those buckets of money that come with her hand in marriage should be enough to restore any mouldering old castle and struggling estate.

Unfortunately, when she arrives in Scotland, her pragmatic and sensible friend Georgiana in tow, she discovers that Arthur Baird, the Earl of Strathrannoch, has no idea who she is. It turns out that it's Arthur's younger brother who has been writing to Lydia for all these years, and he's currently gone missing, having stolen one of Arthur's inventions to boot. Arthur isn't entirely sure what to do with the beautiful flustered redhead on his doorstep, let alone why she might be proposing to marry him, but Lydia is his best chance at trying to track down his missing brother, who might be wanting to use Arthur's invention (a telescopic rifle sight) for nefarious means. So while she's initially mortified and tries to run away, he's able to persuade her to help him locate his brother. 

What follows is a road trip romp, involving zebras, awkward house parties, Arthur and Lydia having to pretend to be married, lying to family friends, and lying to Lydia's brother, who suddenly shows up in Scotland under an assumed name, possibly treasonous French people, spies, a possible plot against the Duke of Wellington and more. There is a whole lot of travelling from Scotland to London or from London to Scotland at speeds that seem implausible to me, and the rigours of travel mostly being ignored in service of the light-hearted plot. 

Arthur is convinced Lydia is in love with his brother (she's not, she really did want to offer him a platonic marriage of convenience so he could use her money). Lydia is cripplingly shy and struggles in any social situation, and doesn't think anyone could ever want her. Both are madly attracted to the other, but it takes some time for them to realise this and act on their feelings. Once they do, there's a fair amount of smexy times, including outside in what seems to be rather a cold forest grove. There's a lot of pining and angst from both characters, even after they've actually started acting on their pants feelings, culminating in Arthur doing something truly stupid towards the end of the book (it's OK, he grovels and makes it all better after a while). 

As well as the reappearance of characters the reader may have met in Ne'er Duke Well (Selina and her husband, as well as Georgiana), there is a rather large supporting cast, including the lovely retainers at Arthur's castle, who keep conspiring to make sure he and Lydia end up together, Lydia's four older brothers and even her rather meddlesome mother are all a lot of fun. This was an entertaining book, but there seemed to be too many shenanigans and a bit too much "he/she couldn't possibly love ME" for it to be one that I see myself revisiting for comfort rereads. I'm very excited for the third book in the series, though, where Georgiana finally meets her (sapphic) match. That's not out until September, sadly.

Judging a book by its cover: I like that while the cover for Ne'er Duke Well was mostly in blue and green, here there is a lot of violet and purple to complement the green. What I don't like is how tiny the guy in the carriage is. Arthur is described as a big hulking giant of a man so many times throughout the book, this guy looks perfectly normal-sized. Disappointing. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR17 Book 7: "Ne'er Duke Well" by Alexandra Vasti

Page count: 354 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo 25: Recommended by a friend (see, Des, I finally read it!)

Buzzwords 2025 Cover Challenge: Foliage

Peter Kent has lived most of his life in America, and certainly never expected to inherit a dukedom. Now he's the Duke of Stanhope and desperately trying to be granted custody of his younger half-siblings, both of whom treat him with disdain and claim they are perfectly happy living with their decrepit guardian. It doesn't help his case that Peter's inexperience with English high society keeps inadvertently landing him in scandalous situations. He needs help to rehabilitate his reputation and turns to the cleverest woman he knows.

Lady Selina Ravenscroft has an impeccable pedigree and a flawless reputation because no one knows that she organises and runs a circulating library of erotic literature for women. The way to clean up Peter's somewhat shaky image would be for him to court and preferably marry a thoroughly respectable woman, preferably before the court hearing about the custody of his siblings. Selina quickly makes a list of three perfectly suitable young women and tries to coach Peter on how best to court them. Unfortunately, the only woman Peter feels any sort of interest in is Selina, and the more time they spend together, trying to make him fall for another woman, the more certain he becomes that the only woman he wants to marry is her. 

My friend Desdemona has been nagging me to read Alexandra Vasti for absolutely ages, since long before this novel was even published. I did take her advice and read the first of Vasti's Halifax Hellions novellas last year and enjoyed it, but then got distracted by something else shiny on my ever-expanding TBR list, and I never got around to reading any more. When I was granted an ARC of Vasti's second novel through NetGalley (so exciting!), it seemed natural to read this one first. As far as I understand, that novel's heroine is Selina's best friend Lydia (also the name of my best friend!), who here features as one of Peter's potential brides-to-be. Unfortunately, Lydia has crippling social anxiety, frequently vomits in potted plants at balls, and can't seem to manage to speak to anyone outside her immediate family and friends - so doesn't really respond too well to Peter's advances. Plus, it's obvious to her and everyone who sees them together that Peter is mad for Selina, and he doesn't have eyes for anyone else when she's nearby.

There were several scenes in this book that felt a bit farcical, but I enjoyed the chemistry and banter between Peter and Selina enough to overlook a lot of it. Peter's half-siblings are given enough characterisation to not just be plot moppets, and his determination to become their guardian and give them safe and happy lives is explained once the reader is given insight into his past and the half-sibling he lost while growing up in America. I love a nursing back-to-health scene in a romance, but not really involving potentially dying children - that's just a bummer all-round. 

The supporting cast, featuring Selina's family members (her twin brother Will only appears in letters they exchange - he's off being a soldier, mourning his dead wife and child), and her various friends who she tries to set Peter up with, are mostly a delight. I would not be surprised to see all of them in future novels of Vasti's, finding their own HEAs. I also liked that there was no actual villain in this story. The baron who is set to judge the court hearing is portrayed as stern and concerned with traditional values, but he clearly adores his wife and seems somewhat concerned that Peter may not be up for the task of raising headstrong children (which, considering his townhouse barely has furniture when Selina first moves in(!) is a fair thing to be concerned about. 

This was a fun little romance, and a heroine who takes it upon herself to educate the women of the ton in matters of sexuality, to ensure that they're not woefully unprepared for married life is impossible not to admire. 

Judging a book by its cover: If there have to be animated covers (and what romance doesn't have those these days?), at least it's nice to see one that tries to depict something close to a scene that actually appears in the novel. Not that the character supposed to be Selina looks like she just took a swim in a river. So points deducted for that. I do like all the blues and greens on the cover - they please the eye.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.