CBR16 Book 51: "The Earl Who Isn't" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 370 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Smart Bitches Summer Bingo: 2024 Summer Release

Disclaimer! This was an ARC from the author. This has not affected my opinions or my review. I have also paid actual money for my own copy of the book because Courtney Milan is on "my pre-order immediately when she announces a new book" list. 

Andrew Uchida works very hard to collect and cultivate seeds, plants, and vegetables, and every time he learns of a plant or vegetable that one of the diverse residents of the little town of Wedgeford misses from their homeland (Wedgeford has inhabitants who have ended up there from all sorts of corners of the globe, many of them from Asia), he does his best to figure out a way to grow it, to allow said resident to feel a bit more at home in their new homeland. He also helps run the inn that his mother, aunt and uncle own. 

Andrew has also hidden a secret for most of his life. He is, in fact, the eldest legitimate son of the Earl of Arsell, and his mother is technically a countess. Now his father (who he has never met) is dying, and Andrew is very determined not to have to become an earl. So when Lily Bei, the woman he has loved for most of his life, returns from China after seven years away, and excitedly confides in him that she has proof that he is next in line to the earldom, he isn't exactly thrilled. While he hates having to lie to and dissemble with Lily, he also can't have her "help" him by securing him a noble title he desperately doesn't want. Complicating things further, Andrew is very aware, from stories his mother told him, that the relatives of the Earl of Arsell are extremely ruthless, and are not going to accept a half-Asian man as the heir to the title. If they discover that his mother is still alive, and has a son, they are likely to try to do away with both of them.

Fear for the safety of himself, but mostly his mother, is also the reason why Andrew never told Lily how he felt about her before she was sent off to China by her grandfather. Before she left, they shared one night together (because Lily wanted to make sure she wasn't married off to anyone and made sure to ask her best friend to help divest her of her pesky virginity). Now Lily is back, and more irresistible than ever, but Andrew just cannot bear anything happening to her or any potential children they might have. 

Lily believes Andrew sees her as nothing but a good friend. She also believes her grandfather sent her to China because he was disappointed in her when she tried to join the English suffragist movement. In China, instead of learning to be a dutiful wife, she became even more radicalised and learned to use a printing press. Now she has bought one of her own and intends to print translated poetry in order to inspire universal suffrage. Never one to entirely fully understand subtle language or social cues, Lily always felt like the odd one out in Wedgeford, growing up. She is surprised to discover that many of the people she thought disliked her or wanted nothing to do with her are delighted that she's back and eager to include her in their social circle. 

The Earl Who Isn't is the third and final book in Courtney Milan's The Wedgeford Trials, about the inhabitants of the fictional village of Wedgeford in the south of England, where a large number of immigrants, especially of Asian descent have settled down and made new homes for themselves. It was established early in the series that one of the unspoken rules of the town is that newcomers aren't really asked about their past, where they came from, or why they have moved there, allowing them the possibility of a blank slate and a chance at a new beginning. In this book, we discover part of why this rule came to be. 

Andrew Uchida has been a supporting character in both the previous two novels in the series and Lily has been mentioned, although she was away when both of the other couples in the series got their happy endings. There are cameos from Chloe and Jeremy (or Posh Jim), as well as Andrew's cousin Naomi and her husband Kai, and the young and implausibly named Mr. Wilderhampsher plays a fairly significant part in the story.

In my opinion, Courtney Milan has yet to write a bad book. Some are on my all-time favourite romances list, but all are good and I always learn new things when I read them. In this, while the romance between Andrew and Lily was sweet, I found that the personal developments of each of the protagonists as well as the growing relationship between Andrew and his previously unheard-of younger brother took up more of the story than the actual romantic plot. So that makes me unable to rate it more than 4 stars. 

Judging a book by its cover: All three books in this series have had excellent covers (a far cry from the photo-shopped wedding dress covers of The Worth Saga novels). I love the colour of the woman's dress (although it seems way more bright and colourful than anything Lily is described as wearing in the story), I love the way the couple is embracing and gazing at each other. Really well done. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR15 Book 62: "The Marquis Who Mustn't" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 328 pages

Rating: 4 stars

This is an ARC I received from the author. My opinions are not influenced by my free copy. I have also already pre-ordered the book.

Official book description:

Miss Naomi Kwan has long wanted to take ambulance classes so that she can save lives. But when she tries to register, she’s told she needs permission from the man in charge of her. It would be incredibly wrong to claim that the tall, taciturn Chinese nobleman she just met is her fiancé, but Naomi is desperate, and desperate times call for fake engagements. To her unending surprise, Liu Ji Kai goes along with her ruse. 

It’s not that Kai is nice. He’s in Wedgeford to practice his family business, and there’s no room for “nice” when you’re out to steal a fortune. It’s not that the engagement is convenient; a fake fiancée winding herself into his life and his heart is suboptimal when he plans to commit fraud and flee the country. His reason is Kai and Naomi were betrothed as children. He may have disappeared for seventeen years, but their engagement isn’t actually fake. It’s the only truth he’s telling.

Naomi works hard to help her parents run the inn in Wedgeford and rarely says or does anything that could be perceived as making trouble. She feels plain and unappreciated and while she's received several offers of marriage, they're all from men who clearly just want someone to cook and clean for them. She fears becoming just like her mother, who seems to live an unexciting and quiet life, in a loveless union with Naomi's father. She's not entirely sure why the handsome man she ran into by accident in Dover has agreed to pose as her fiancée, but he seems to see things in her that no one else has.

Liu Ji Kai is the son of a disgraced con man who swindled most of the adults in Wedgeford and fled into the night, abandoning his six-year-old son to face the wrath of the villagers. Kai has worked since he was fourteen to distance himself from his odious father. He wants desperately to repay all of the inhabitants of Wedgeford who suffered for his father's actions, but the only way he can think of to do so is to commit one last audacious fraud, after which he will need to leave the country and disappear. 

While he was young, his father arranged a marriage between Kai and Naomi. So Naomi asking him to pretend to be her fiancée isn't really a lie. He also thinks that once Naomi's friends and family discover his return and that he's supposedly a serious suitor to Naomi, they're going to warn her away from him immediately. He is very clear to her that he's not to be trusted and that he is an excellent liar, but he also spends weeks restoring the abandoned cottage in which he once lived and starts doing pottery, all while refusing help from anyone in the village. He insists on paying for all his meals at the inn, and once he actually gets his kiln working, he keeps making beautiful pottery and keeps insisting the villagers take some for free, as it would only be going to waste otherwise.

Kai keeps being surprised that while a few of the villagers are understandably upset and distrustful of him, the majority seem to welcome him back and try to make him comfortable as part of the community. Kai is so deeply aware of the wrongs his father did, and while he has spent half his life living away from his father and trying to undo the man's mistakes, he still hears his father's cruel and unforgiving voice in his head. He desperately tries to keep himself apart from the townsfolk in general and Naomi in particular. Kai has lived his entire life holding himself separate from those around him, never allowing himself to create any bonds. Attachments just lead to complications. He knows he's going to leave Wedgeford after his audacious fraud is complete, he'll never actually be able to marry Naomi - so he has to keep from falling for her (good luck with that).

Naomi is fully aware that Kai has some sort of grand plan and that he's not telling the entire truth about his stay in Wedgeford. However, just like everyone else in the village, she sees how honest and hard-working he really is, and having accepted the fact that she might not ever find someone to love or marry, she is pragmatic about the fact that while Kai might not stay forever, he sees her and cares for her like no other when he's around. She feels a few months of being loved and happy is better than a lifetime of mundane chores and loneliness.

Naomi is forced to reevaluate a lot about herself and her family and the ideas she's had about her little world. While her self-esteem and self-image are rather warped at the beginning of the story, she trusts her own instincts and despite him constantly warning her away, Naomi trusts Kai and believes him to be a good and caring man. No matter what his words about being a liar and a fraud say, his actions prove time and time again that he is honest, hard-working, and stubborn to a fault. He never accepts any kind of kindness or gesture of help from anyone and spends so much time keeping himself apart from village life.

Kai's life has been pretty awful since he was a young child. Abandoned in Wedgeford for months after his father ran off, having stolen the life savings of many of the townsfolk, he was entirely reliant on the charity of others to survive. His father eventually came to collect him, but kept uprooting him from new homes, because they kept having to flee and create new identities. Once Kai became somewhat older, his father demanded that he help out in the fraudulent schemes and punished him harshly every time he made a mistake. Even when he tries not to, Kai has internalised his father's lessons too well and refuses to believe that there is anything worthwhile about himself. He is so prepared for being shunned in Wedgeford because of the past, but entirely flummoxed when people start trusting him and wanting to include him in things. He is ruthless about himself and reacts way worse to kind treatment than abuse and harsh words.

Chloe and Jeremy, the protagonists of the first book in the series, The Duke Who Didn't, do eventually appear in the story, but not until about two-thirds of the way in. It was lovely to catch glimpses of their married life and the comfortable existence they've made for themselves in Wedgeford. While I really enjoyed this story, I didn't love it as much as I did Chloe and Jeremy's love story. There is quite a lot more angst in this story, and it takes Kai a long time to acknowledge that he deserves love and can make a happy ending with Naomi. If it didn't hit me quite as much in the swoony feels as the previous book, this is still a Courtney Milan novel. If you've liked any of her previous books, this is well worth your time.  The first book made me intensely hungry, this one taught me a lot of fascinating things about pottery.

Judging a book by its cover: I think this cover is lovely, even if the people on it look a bit stiff. The passionate embrace on The Duke Who Didn't felt more natural. Nevertheless, there are attractive Asian people embracing, and the woman doesn't appear to be wearing a photoshopped wedding dress. I will happily take it over many of the alternatives.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR13 Book 15: "The Devil Comes Courting" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 416 pages

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer! This was an ARC granted to me by the author, which has in no way influenced my review. I had also pre-ordered the books many months ago, because Courtney Milan is an auto-buy for me, every time.

Amelia Smith is a Chinese woman raised by English missionaries in China. When she was just a little girl, her birth mother, a woman fleeing during one of the many conflicts in the country, asked Mrs. Acheson, the woman who Amelia has thought of as her mother ever since, to help her child and take care of her. Amelia has faint memories of her birth mother asking her to wait for her, promising to return, but it's been nearly two decades and Amelia has long since given up hope. In her mid-twenties, she has already been widowed once, after a marriage to a much older missionary who worked in India. Now it looks like marriage to another missionary is imminent, although she hasn't actually met the man himself, only his prim and officious mother. Amelia didn't particularly enjoy marriage, and isn't exactly happy about the thought of another one to a complete stranger. So she fairly jumps at the chance at a different fate when an unusual job offer is presented to her.

The alternative fate in question comes thanks to Captain Grayson Hunter, an African American man in Asia to lay cables for an overseas telegraph line. He's told by Amelia's brother that Amelia has a brilliant mind and criminally underestimated potential, so comes to the town where she lives to find her. He doesn't actually know the person he's looking for is a woman at first but doesn't let his initial attraction to Amelia get in the way of his business plans. He finds her beautiful and enthralling, but what he desires most is her mind and the possibility that she may be able to find a way to encode Chinese characters for his telegraph network, a feat no one has yet to achieve. Grayson is used to burying his true emotions and pushing on to make his business plans become a reality, not just in matters of romance and sexual attraction, but also with regards to the serious losses he has suffered so far in his life. A relationship between him and the intriguing Mrs. Smith would be impossible, so he tries his best to ignore their obvious mutual attraction and chemistry. 

The Devil Comes Courting is the third full novel in The Worth Saga, published a full three years after the second novel in the series, After the Wedding. The Worth family, who we first meet in Once Upon a Marquess are mostly side-lined in this story, which focuses on Captain Grayson Hunter, brother of the hero in After the Wedding, and his ambitious plans to establish a world-spanning telegraph network. Unfortunately, most of the people he laid the initial plans with, including two of his brothers, are now dead and Grayson suffers terribly from survivor's guilt. We do have a member of the Worth family as a secondary character in the story - young Benedict Worth is now seventeen years old, and has left his home in England, where he was always miserable (your noble father and brother being convicted of treason will make life a lot less fun). He is now working for Captain Hunter under the pretense of looking for his sister Theresa, who ran off to Asia many years ago in search of their previously unheard-of half-sister. He doesn't feel like he can return to Europe until he has exhausted his search, so he diligently looks (but not too hard) for his sister in every port they come to. Captain Hunter assigns him to be Mrs. Smith's liaison in Shanghai and the two strike up a close friendship.

In her afterword, Ms. Milan says that this is the novel she structured her entire series to centre around. That probably explains why neither Once Upon a Marquess nor After the Wedding, the two first books in the series, felt entirely up to her gold standard of historical romance writing. However, I would gladly take ten slightly underwhelming (but still good) romances if the result I get is this masterpiece of a novel. Apparently, it's her longest novel yet, clocking in at over 400 pages. It doesn't feel long at all, the pages just fly by and both Amelia and Grayson are such amazing protagonists to spend time with, so you don't even mind (too much) that for much of the story they are separated and often on the other side of the world from one another. Grayson spends a lot of his time on ships, getting telegraphic cable pulled across the ocean floor. Amelia is stuck in Shanghai, trying to puzzle out a way to encode Chinese for the telegraph, since Grayson's dream is that the telegraph should make communication available for everyone, both in the interior of China and around the world. 

One of the obstacles in the way of their telegraphic empire is, in fact, to convince Chinese officials to allow telegraph lines within China, not exactly an easy task when the Chinese (pretty rightfully, in many cases) saw foreigners as barbarians and had two European-caused wars in their recent past to make the animosity towards outsiders even greater. Luckily, both Amelia and Grayson are brilliant and driven and work diligently both together and apart to achieve their goals, which means they have both professional and personal triumphs to celebrate by the end of the book.

There are so many issues covered in this book, so much interesting and unusual history explored and I'm not going to lie, I cried several times, both sad and happy, moved tears. Amelia and Grayson are impossible not to love, both separate and together, and they've both been through a lot throughout their lives. Amelia, already separated from her birth family and believing them to be lost forever, comes to realise several difficult truths about her new adopted family that forces her to reassess entirely who she believed herself to be and what she's going to do with her life going forward. Grayson, as I mentioned earlier, suffers terribly from survivor's guilt and believes that his surviving family, especially his mother, only sees his dead brothers and laments their deaths whenever he's around. So he ignores his family's frequent requests that he visit them in the States and spends most of his time away, laying telegraph cables. He believes he may finally find some peace and satisfaction if he finishes what he and his dead brothers started, and is prepared to go without close personal relationships or affection until that dream is achieved.

Courtney Milan is my favourite historical romance writer currently working. Every time she releases a new book, it's a treat, and this book just blew me away with how good it was. It almost rivals my absolutely favourite of her books, The Suffragette Scandal. Once I reread it, who knows, it may even overtake it? I'm only sorry that my hectic personal life and struggles with depression and executive dysfunction mean it has taken me so long to review the book. This should be read by absolutely everyone - you don't even need to have read anything by Milan before, it works marvelously on its own. This will clearly be in my top 10 at the end of the year. 

Judging a book by its cover: While I'm really not a fan of the continued tradition of "find a stock image of a woman in a wedding dress and then colour it in with any colour required to make a period-style dress, sort of" on these covers, at least this one is better than whatever was going on with After the Wedding, which might be the worst cover on any Courtney Milan novel ever. There's also the fact that Asian protagonists feature front and centre on romance covers, so yay for that, no matter how anachronistic the dress she's wearing is. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

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#CBR12 Book 71: "The Duke Who Didn't" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 311 pages

Rating: 5 stars

This was an ARC sent to me by the author. I had already pre-ordered the book, and the free copy has not influenced my review in any way.

Official book description: 

Miss Chloe Fong has plans for her life, lists for her days, and absolutely no time for nonsense. Three years ago, she told her childhood sweetheart that he could talk to her once he planned to be serious. He disappeared that very night.

Except now he’s back. Jeremy Wentworth, the Duke of Lansing, has returned to the tiny village he once visited with the hope of wooing Chloe. In his defense, it took him years of attempting to be serious to realize that the endeavor was incompatible with his personality.

All he has to do is convince Chloe to make room for a mischievous trickster in her life, then disclose that in all the years they’ve known each other, he’s failed to mention his real name, his title… and the minor fact that he owns her entire village.

Only one thing can go wrong: Everything.

Chloe Fong is seen as strict, stern, intimidating, and demanding by everyone in the little village of Wedgeford Downs, where she lives with her father. Chloe's mother died when she was a baby, and Chloe's father was taken advantage of by unscrupulous businessmen, who have now gotten rich because of the sauce he developed for them. Chloe wants to help her father perfect his new sauce, launch a rival sauce production company and eventually achieve revenge over the men who left her father to fend for himself once he had used his culinary skills to their advantage. Her father is just as much of a perfectionist as she is, and loathe to accept help from anyone, least alone the child he promised her mother he would provide for and keep safe. 

The only man who ever seemed to show any romantic interest in Chloe was Jeremy Yu, also affectionately known in Wedgeford Downs as "Posh Jim". For nine years, he would come to visit during the big festival, charming everyone in general and Chloe in particular. However, once she asked him to go away until he could be serious, he disappeared, and for the last two years, despite Chloe trying to pretend that she doesn't miss him, he has stayed away. Now, when Chloe is facing possibly the most challenging weekend of her life, when the decades-long plans of her father and her may come to fruition (she just needs to figure out a name for the sauce first), he suddenly shows up again, and asks Chloe to make him a list. A list to help him find a wife...

The man known as Jeremy Yu or "Posh Jim" in Wedgeford Downs has several secrets. The fact that he is absolutely besotted with Miss Chloe Fong isn't really a secret to anyone who has ever seen them together, except to Chloe herself. No, his biggest secret is that he is, in actuality, Jeremy Wentworth, the Duke of Lansing, he owns the village of Wedgeford Downs, and everyone who lives there probably owes him about forty years worth of back rent. Jeremy was only a teenager the first time he came to Wedgeford during their famous Trials festival, and he was warmly accepted by everyone there and felt a sense of belonging he hasn't felt anywhere else, so he couldn't very well confess his true identity then. And with each passing year, confessing the truth became harder and harder.

Now Jeremy's aunt wants him to settle down and find a wife, and for him, there is only one candidate. He went away to try to be serious for Chloe, but can't seem to stop making jokes and looking for the positive in every situation. Jeremy knows he will need to tell her the truth about himself and his title before he proposes, but he is also aware that asking Chloe to become a Duchess is no easy thing. His mother hated the way she was treated by British high society and went back to China as soon as she could after his father's death. Nevertheless, if he must marry, Chloe is the only one he could imagine spending his life with. In order to get to spend as much time with her as possible, he promises her ten pounds if she'll write him a list with all of her qualities, as the only woman he'd consider marrying needs to have ALL of her qualities. He also insists on helping her and her father with their many tasks in preparing for the festival and the launch of their (hopefully soon to be famous) sauce. 

It's been a year and a half since Courtney Milan published anything at all, and two and a half years since she published a full-length novel. If you follow Ms. Milan on Twitter and other social media, or have read anything online about the complete implosion of the RWA (Romance Writers of America) over the last few years, you can see that she hasn't exactly had the best of times. While she was never tested, it also seems very likely that she had Covid-19 and was pretty seriously ill earlier this year. So the fact that she's written this new historical novel, which does not fit into her ongoing historical Worth Saga, nor her contemporary Cyclone series, was a wonderful surprise. As soon as the pre-order links were available, I rushed to make sure I'd have my copy on release day. It was therefore a wonderful surprise to open my e-mail about three weeks ago and discover an e-mail with an ARC of this book - I had completely forgotten that I had qualified to be on Ms. Milan's ARC mailing list.

I devoured the book in less than 24 hours. The book made me laugh out loud more than once because Ms. Milan is very funny when she wants to be. Moreover, reading this book filled me with a satisfying warmth, like being wrapped in a cozy blanket or given a really good hug (something I think many of us are starved of at present). It's such a ray of golden light in these dark times, the entire narrative is focused on finding, recognising, and seizing your happiness with both hands, and it felt like a balm. 

I love pretty much everything about this book. I love how effortlessly sweet it is, how full of warmth and joy it is. I love that Ms. Milan imagined this tiny village in Kent filled mostly with immigrants from all over the world, making up a vibrant and diverse community. I love Chloe and Jeremy as protagonists, I love the supporting characters, especially Chloe's gruff father, who shows his deep affection for her by constantly nagging her to eat. He's not necessarily happy about Jeremy's interest in her, and he certainly doesn't like that he's keeping secrets. He keeps torturing Jeremy with excessive amounts of chili added to his food until the young man comes clean about the things he's been hiding from Chloe, and Jeremy, knowing that he deserves it, dutifully eats the fiery food and suffers in silence. 

I loved how determined, loyal and strong Chloe is and how Jeremy loves her exactly the way she is, not threatened or put off by her ambition and independence. I love that Ms. Milan gave us a half-Chinese duke, which may not be entirely historically accurate, but is no less implausible than the scores of dukes, viscounts and earls that already make up historical Romancelandia. I loved learning more about the Hakka people of China and as with Jackie Lau's contemporary romances, that frequently feature a lot of descriptions of food, reading about all the things that Chloe's father cooked made my mouth water. 

My only initial complaint when finishing this book was that it was possibly too free of conflict and effortlessly happy. Ms. Milan has said that she specifically set out to subvert the tradition that there needs to be some big third act complication, which frequently requires angst and emotional turmoil for the protagonists to work through. There are no big misunderstandings here, this book is decidedly anti-angst, and yes, maybe the path to true love actually does run too smooth here. Having thought about it for these last three weeks, I've come to the conclusion that I was wrong, and this book just being one long escapist fantasy isn't a flaw, it's a gift. This is exactly the sort of story we need right now and I'm so glad that I was able to read it a few weeks early. I sincerely hope Ms. Milan felt as happy writing the book as I did reading it. 

Judging a book by its cover: I've commented when reviewing Jackie Lau's books that you very rarely get to see Asian people represented on romance covers. While seeing a couple passionately embracing and looking as completely entranced by one another is something you can expect from a romance cover, the sad lack of representation for BIPOC people is such that this very sexy, super steamy cover is unusual, because both the cover models on it are Asian. It's also a far cry from a lot of Milan's covers, with poofy wedding dresses photo-shopped into various period gowns, so personally, I'm a huge fan, and hope this trend continues. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR11 Book 27: "Mrs Martin's Incomparable Adventure" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 144 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

This novella is part of The Worth Saga, and stars one of the minor supporting characters of After the Wedding. You really don't need to have read that book, though (unless you want to, it's good, but sad), this story stands perfectly on its own.

From the author's website:
Mrs. Bertrice Martin—a widow, some seventy-three years young—has kept her youthful-ish appearance with the most powerful of home remedies: daily doses of spite, regular baths in man-tears, and refusing to give so much as a single damn about her Terrible Nephew. 

Then proper, correct Miss Violetta Beauchamps, a sprightly young thing of nine and sixty, crashes into her life. The Terrible Nephew is living in her rooming house, and Violetta wants him gone. 

Mrs. Martin isn’t about to start giving damns, not even for someone as intriguing as Miss Violetta. But she hatches another plan—to make her nephew sorry, to make Miss Violetta smile, and to have the finest adventure of all time. 

If she makes Terrible Men angry and wins the hand of a lovely lady in the process? Those are just added bonuses. 

Author’s Note: Sometimes I write villains who are subtle and nuanced. This is not one of those times. The Terrible Nephew is terrible, and terrible things happen to him. Sometime villains really are bad and wrong, and sometimes, we want them to suffer a lot of consequences. 

Courtney Milan is a marvel. She writes incredibly satisfying, yet informative romance novels (you are unlikely to find historical inaccuracies in her stories, unless she's changed something on purpose) and manages to take a genre so full of tropes and frequent repetition and create new and interesting things with it. While most of her stories are about cis-gendered, heterosexual couples, she's big on at least a supporting cast of queer characters. She's had several bi-racial pairings, and one of her best books has a trans heroine and an Asian hero, not something you see in a lot of contemporary novels these days.

In this novella, while both the protagonists are cis-gendered white women, she manages to diversify the genre that little bit more. While m/m (male/male) pairings are getting a lot more common, in both historical and contemporary romance (so many athletes), you still don't see a lot of f/f (female/female) stories. You certainly do't see them about women around my mother's age. Romance really is so much about young people, I literally don't think I've ever read a story with characters who are in the later stages of their lives.

That the story is also full of righteous female rage and how powerless they can feel, and how important it is to learn to not give a f*ck and making yourself heard and fighting back against the patriarchy, that's just a bonus. I don't want to give too much away, but there is a LITERAL "watch it all burn down and make cheese toast among the embers" scene in this story, and it felt earned.

The two women in the story are from different social classes and while they interact and come to love one another, they also learn a lot and expand their horizons. Violetta has never had the chance to be brave and impetuous, Bertrice has always had the privilege of her wealth to protect her, even in a world entirely ruled by men. She has never really had to consider how difficult life is for women of the lower classes, and becomes kinder, wiser and less bitter over the course of the story.

This novella wasn't in the original outline for Courtney Milan's Worth Saga, but came to be as a result of some of the truly depressing developments we've seen in the news over the last few years. It's a terrible time to be a woman in America, the patriarchy keeps trying to wrest away hard-earned rights and this very angry little story is her result of some of the frustrations she's clearly felt. While I despair at the direction the world is currently turning, I'm glad Ms. Milan turned some of her anger and fury into another piece of great art.

Judging a book by its cover: The covers are never going to be a selling point for Ms Milan's stories, but this one is even more badly photo shopped than some. You once again get what I'm assuming is stock photo formal wear, this time with an elderly lady wearing it, slightly awkwardly placed in front of an image of the British Houses of Parliament. I love your writing, Ms. Milan, but your covers just really make me sad. No one's going to pick up a story based on this. However, the cover is tons better than that for After the Wedding, so that's something.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 41: "After the Wedding" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

I was very kindly granted an ARC of this book in return for an unbiased review. I had already pre-ordered the book when I was given the ARC. The book is on sale now, and I recommend that you buy it.

This is the second novel in The Worth Saga. While it might work fine as a stand alone book, I would recommend beginning with the first book in the series, Once Upon a Marquess, to get a better idea of whom all the various supporting characters from Camilla's family are.

Lady Camilla Worth was twelve when her father and oldest brother were convicted of treason and her family lost their money and social standing. Her father committed suicide in prison, her brother Anthony was transported to Australia, but there was a big storm and a shipwreck on the way and he is believed to have died on the journey. A family friend offered to take in the remaining Worth siblings, with the exception of Camilla's younger sister, Theresa (who could most kindly be described as difficult). Judith, the eldest remaining Worth, promptly refused, and when Camilla wanted to stay, because she wanted "pretty dresses and lemon cakes", very harsh words were had, then Judith took her other two siblings and left. Camilla has never been able to forget Judith's angry words, and sadly didn't get to stay with their "uncle" for many weeks before he shipped her off to some friends, unable to care for a moody young girl. Camilla never gets to stay in one place for very long, getting sent on whenever she is deemed too difficult or whomever she ended up serving (usually unpaid) died and after eight years, believes she is being punished for having chosen material comfort over love all those years ago. Now she's working for a pittance for a minister who claims he's saving her soul. This is where she meets, and is married at gunpoint to Adrian.

Adrian Hunter is the grandson of a duke. His mother married a black abolitionist, and as a result, some of her family don't really want to acknowledge her or her family. Three of Adrian's brothers died fighting in the American Civil War, so now he's desperate to prove himself in some way and one of the ways in which he tries to do that is by getting his uncle, Bishop Denmore, to publicly support Adrian and his remaining brother. His uncle just needs a teeny tiny little favour first - which involves Adrian posing as a valet for a rival bishop, and finding proof of said man's corruption. Once he obtains this proof, Denmore promises to openly acknowledge his nephews and sister. Adrian is not a very good valet and before he has any chance of finding anything incriminating, he finds himself married at gunpoint to Camilla, a flirtatious housemaid in the house Bishop Lassiter is visiting.

Camilla just wants someone, anyone, to love her or even like her. She hasn't had anywhere to call home for so long and never had any responses to the letters she sent her family, so she assumes they still want nothing to do with her. While she is rather taken aback by being forced to marry a near-stranger, she's also briefly hopeful that at least she'll finally have someone - a hope that dies when Adrian insists they need to get an annulment. Ms Milan is really good at writing characters whose suffering break your heart, and Camilla's loneliness and hopes for belonging are truly heart-wrenching. Unbeknownst to Camilla, however, her family haven't actually given up on her. Her sister Judith and her new husband have spent massive resources trying to track her down, only to fail, and her younger siblings, Benedict and Theresa, are determined to find Camilla, as a gift for Judith. While Theresa may have annoyed the crap out of me in Once Upon a Marquess, she's so much better written in this book, and I am very much looking forward to seeing where her story goes in future books.

I felt a lot more for Camilla than for Adrian in this book, but that's probably also because of my anxiety and being left without anyone is literally one of the biggest fears I have, so our poor heroine having suffered abandonment after abandonment, without ever giving up that last sliver of hope really got to me. The main theme of this book is the importance of consent and choice and how no one should have to settle, but be allowed to choose who they spend their lives with. Adrian wants their marriage annulled because he wants what his parents had, a slow falling in love and a mutual choosing of each other. As the story progresses, Camilla comes to realise that even though she loves Adrian, she also deserves someone who chose HER, whose fondest wish is to share their life with hers. It's not her fault that she's been abandoned so many times and it's simply bad luck and a series of unfortunate circumstances that's caused her to be so harshly punished for a moment of youthful bad judgement.

There is a need for added diversity in romance and Ms Milan has proven before that historical England really wasn't as white-washed as a lot of books would like you to think it is. In this book, we get a bisexual heroine marrying a biracial hero, while there is a large cast of diverse supporting characters from a number of countries and cultures making a difference, without it ever seeming forced or like she's trying to prove some sort of point. Adrian's brother is going to be the hero of the next book, if I'm to believe Ms. Milan's website and this will be the last book in the Worth Saga set in England. She's moving the action into the big wider world instead.

I'm sorry if this review is disjointed and a bit incoherent. I'm desperately behind on my reviews as my now four month old little boy is spending more of his days awake and demanding a lot more of my attention. My brain goes a bit muddled, and this was the best I could do under the circumstances. TL, DR - this is a moving and engaging romance, well worth your time, and you should consider buying it. I'm already looking forward to seeing what the next book holds, and hope the wait for it will not be as long as for this one.

Judging a book by its cover: I keep looking at this cover and trying to understand what in the world is going on. There's the strangely yellow sky, the random field of red flowers (poppies maybe?) and our poor cover model, obviously supposed to portray Camilla, with some sort of hazy lace tablecloth stuck to her head at an implausible angle. There's the voluminous purple ballgown the woman is wearing (resembling nothing like I recall Camilla wearing at any point in the book - certainly NOT when she is being forced to marry), but it's the awful veil that gets me every time. I've seen a lot of bad book covers over the years, this is near the top.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 40: "Once Upon a Marquess" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 372 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

This is a re-read. My original review of the book can be found here.

This book was such a disappointment to me when it came out, and as I mention in my original review, it was not an easy book for Ms. Milan to write, and felt a bit cobbled together and nothing really worked all that well as a result.

With the next volume in the series just around the corner, I found myself barely remembering anything about this book and wanted to re-read it. I'm glad I did, because I had forgotten pretty much everything but the major plot-beats (and that I hated Theresa, the youngest Worth sister). One thing that changed between my first read and this re-read is that I read a short story (given away as a freebie to Courtney Milan newsletter subscribers) about Theresa, set some time after this book, and it gave me more insight into her character. With hindsight, knowing how much Ms Milan struggled to get this whole novel to work, I suspect Theresa and her neuro-atypical outlook at the world, let alone her completely different life goals from Judith got short shrift in the book and she came across as rather more insufferable than the author intended. And I had forgotten just how much I enjoyed her adventures in bread-baking in the latter part of the book.

Re-reading the book with lowered expectations absolutely helped, but I didn't find myself able to adjust the rating, as there are just too many story lines battling for space in the book and Christian and Judith's romance really gets lost. While I'm sure it was supposed to be cute and quirky, I also found myself rather annoyed by Judith's tendency to use water fowl terminology to swear. Can't really blame the woman for her love of bread and sandwiches though. The description of her gorging herself on freshly baked bread and butter when visiting Christian made me really hungry.

As part one of a long (and I suspect rather sprawling) series, I think this is probably a good book. It does a good job of introducing all the characters in the Worth family, even if Anthony and Camilla are mostly talked about, rather than appearing in person. It's just not a very satisfying romance, as too many other things and characters fight for the reader's attention throughout the book.

Judging a book by its cover: Another Courtney Milan, another photo-shopped wedding dress, this one with one of the seemingly endless skirts that can be found on so many romance covers. I'm not a big fan of the muted brown countryside in the background, although the sky is pleasant. Since Judith and her siblings live in the city, I would have much preferred an urban backdrop rather than pastoral fields.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 37: "The Suffragette Scandal" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 260 pages
Audio book length: 10 hrs 54 mins
Rating: 5 stars, because that's the highest I can rate.

This is a re-read. My original review can be found here.

If you do read my original write-up of this book, you will see just how full of superlatives I was for this book. It is very rare that I just can't concentrate on other books before I've read a book at least twice, just to get it out of my system a little bit. This is one of the few books I can remember that happening with. There are very few books out there that are just perfection to me - I can usually think of at least one or two things that could have been improved or that annoyed me in some way. Not so with The Suffragette Scandal. It delighted me from the first page until the last. It made me laugh, it made me cry and it made me sigh with satisfaction. Some people might think it could have done with more *insert funky bass line here*. Like many of Milan's romances, it's lighter on the smexy times than a lot of historical romances. I don't think the story suffers for it.

There are a lot of books published every year, and as someone who reads so much romance, there was always the chance that someone had written and published something that surpassed this in the four years since I first read it. Having just re-read it, I can't think of any book that just worked for me on so many levels. I was both surprised and pleased to discover that this book completely and utterly held up to the pedestal I'd put it on in my memory. It doesn't just have two very satisfying slow-burn romances, it has a wonderful heroine, who even in the face of absolutely impossible and staggering odds refuses to be stopped or discouraged. Edward starts out cynical and disillusioned, but finds new purpose in his life because of the dogged optimism and determination of Free.

Most of the things I can say about this book are already in my original review. Even four years later, it absolutely holds up. I adore this book and think it's the best thing Courtney Milan has ever written.

Judging a book by its cover: I really like the deep blue of the dress, and I think it's one of the better results of the photo-shopped and edited wedding dresses.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 36: "The Countess Conspiracy" by Courtney Milan

Page count:
Audio book length: 10 hrs 49 mins
Rating: 5 stars

This is a re-read, my original review of this book can be found here. The book can be read on its own, but works better if you've read at least The Heiress Effect. 


The final book in a trilogy is always supposed to be about the most complicated of the characters, right? As it turns out, this wasn't actually the final book in the series, as the novella Ms Milan intended for Free Marshall turned into a fourth novel, but this is nevertheless the book and the characters she planned the whole series around. She always intended to write about the brilliant lady scientist, having her male best friend pass her work off as his, because it was inappropriate and unacceptable for her to present it herself (and she was unlikely to get it published in the first place). Still, when it was revealed at the end of The Heiress Effect that Violet was in fact the scandalous scientist, and that Sebastian was becoming more and more depressed having to present her research, it was a jaw-dropping revelation (I didn't really know about all the lady scientists over the years this literally happened to).

I always have to brace myself to re-read this book, because Violet breaks my heart like none other. Due to the way she's been brought up, she's so very closed off from the people around her and while she's absolutely brilliant, a genius in her field, she's so absolutely clueless about friendship and emotions and can't recognise friendship and affection when it's very much being offered up to her. Her marriage, which may have started out ok, did not end well and her husband's growing resentment and eventual callous disregard certainly didn't help with her self esteem issues. Violet loves her sister, but their relationship is also a tricky one - with Violet having to face her sister's ridiculous fecundity, while Violet herself is a childless widow, who never managed to produce the heir her husband so desperately wanted, making her a failure as both a wife and a Victorian woman.

In addition, the scientific achievements that Violet has worked on for years, her real "babies" so to speak, are seen as so inappropriate and scandalous. When she tried to have her first paper published under her own name, no one would even read it, and only once Sebastian signed his name to it did anyone deem to take notice. When he presents her findings in lectures, the crowd is half made up of interested fellow scientists, but just as much outraged citizens who are appalled and disgusted and want to protest Sebastian's audacity.

Over the course of the book, Sebastian and Violet discover that they are not the only ones who have taken to deception and chosen to present a woman's work as that of a man. Ms Milan very specifically addresses the issue in her afterword - history is full of women who have been overlooked and forgotten, because it wasn't appropriate for them to speak their minds. So many scientific discoveries are credited to men, when women were the minds behind them.

Where a lot of authors are quite happy just to write a satisfying historical romance, Ms Milan wants her books to be about more than just the HEA. What is so impressive is that she manages to cover serious issues without ever seeming heavy-handed and preachy. The Countess Conspiracy is a lovely romance - Violet and Sebastian have known each other since they were children, and Sebastian has loved her for more than half his life. He's just waiting for Violet to realise she's worth loving. And even when Violet can't believe herself worthy of love or affection, she is Sebastian's staunchest defender and champion. Their relationship is deeply satisfying, and you learn things along the way as well.

Judging a book by its cover: Another edited wedding dress, this one in purple. Violet is described as wearing a lot of purple, and on re-reading this time, I wondered if it's actually a way to signalise her mourning for all the pregnancies that never went anywhere. Purple was after all a colour of half-mourning in Victorian times.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 34: "The Heiress Effect" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 280 pages
Audio book length: 11 hrs 56 mins
Rating: 4 stars

This is my first re-read of this book (as it was my least favourite of The Brothers Sinister series). My original review can be found here.

When I first read this book, I had very high expectations, because I always do when reading a Courtney Milan novel. They are more often than not little masterpieces, that utterly transport me away and make me feel all the feels. Oliver Marshall is a good supporting character in The Duchess War, but disappointed me as a hero in his own story. He does eventually see the complete error of his ways, and how his life has crushed his confidence so much that he's willing to give up on true happiness and a truly spectacular and original woman, and he does grovel prettily when he gets to that point - but even after everything, I was still left with the feeling that Jane, our unusual heroine, could do better. You don't want to finish a romance wanting the heroine to end up with someone else.

Obviously, when I started this re-read, my expectations were no longer so high, and I just remembered this as the weakest of the books in the series. It's why I've never re-read this one, which is certainly not the case with all the other books, all of which I love. This is still the weakest book of the lot, but as always, when ranking several things, something needs to come last, and this is not a bad book, it just ended up being something very different from what I was expecting the first time around and that made me cranky when rating and reviewing it, I think.

All the things I mentioned as good things still stand. All the various female relationships in the book are great. The subplot with Free and Oliver's elderly, reclusive aunt affected me so much more this time around. I genuinely cried at her fate, and got so emotional, imagining the very lonely life she must have had and how little her family really knew about her and understood her. I still love the secondary romance, with Jane's sister Emily, and Anjan. I especially liked how he got the prejudiced uncle won over and permission to marry Emily.

I'm very glad I listened to this again and gave it a new chance. I've upgraded my rating from 3.5 stars to a full 4, and will try to judge Oliver less harshly in future.

Judging a book by its cover: I don't think any cover could really do justice to any of Jane's truly eye-gouging dresses, and the frock worn by the lady on this cover seems far too elegant and not ostentatious enough for anything in Jane's wardrobe. The green dress she wears in one memorable sequence is described as rather a lot more vivid as well, I pictured the shade almost iridescent, like the green of an insect's wing.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 33: "The Duchess War" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 270 pages
Audio book length: 11 hrs 3 mins
Rating: 4.5 stars

Wilhelmina Pursling has a deep dark secret, and a scandal in her past. Her real name is Minerva Lane, and the reason she's assumed a new name, and tries to stay as quiet, unassuming and unnoticed as possible, is because it would be disastrous if the truth came out.

Robert Blaisdell, the Duke of Clairmont, not only notices Minnie, he's fascinated by her. The son of the rather dastardly duke in The Governess Affair, Robert hates being compared to his father in any way (not easy when the physical resemblance is very strong) and has devoted his life to righting the wrongs of the former duke. He hates his elevated position of privilege, and would like nothing more than to abolish the peerage entirely.

When Minnie is accused of writing handbills that incite workers towards riots and strikes, she realizes that her carefully constructed existence is being threatened. She needs to prove that Robert is the true author, while he's determined to charm her into silence, and possibly a dalliance while he's in town. The more time he spends in her company, however, the more smitten he is with her.

Milan's heroes are always Protectors. Strong and powerful men who are determined to take care of and protect those around them, but Milan's heroes always have wretched pasts as well. Robert is no exception. He's rich, handsome and powerful and spent a dreadful childhood feeling rejected by both his parents. His father was a tyrant, who exploited people for monetary gain or his own pleasure. Robert is determined to be his exact opposite, if he can. He's sensitive, clever and deeply lonely, and the scene where he tells Minnie about a "funny childhood memory" is absolutely heartbreaking.

Milan's heroines tend to be strong, independent and very smart. Minnie is probably the cleverest one yet. She's fully aware that most people will underestimate her, and uses it to her advantage. One of the few niggles I have about the story is the fact that in the beginning of the novel, Robert is so impressed and aware of Minnie's brains, but when it comes to sorting things out towards the end of the book, he seems to completely forget that she's clearly more brilliant than him and goes behind her back instead of of including her in the planning.

However, even with this minor annoyance, I would still rate this as one of Milan's best books, and it's not for nothing that she's my favourite historical romance author writing today (her contemporaries aren't bad either).

Judging a book by its cover: One of the many photo-shopped "lady in a wedding dress" covers that Ms Milan tends to use for her self-published romances, I nonetheless really love the deep red cover of the dress on this one. I don't really think the title of the book is very appropriate. Minnie and the dowager duchess (Robert's mother) are never at war, and none of the two duchesses ever wage war on anyone else either.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 31: "The Governess Affair" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 152 pages
Audio book length: 3 hrs 50 mins
Rating: 5 stars

Serena Barton was a governess until she was fired without references. She wants the duke who is responsible to fork out suitable compensation and intends to sit on a park bench immediately outside his house until she is given her due. If that takes days or even weeks, she's nevertheless determined to persevere.

The duke of Clermont doesn't want to deal with Ms Barton, as he is currently trying to figure out a way to get his duchess back. Without his wealthy wife happy, the irresponsible duke has no income and she's really not going to be happy if she finds a scorned woman sitting outside their town house. So the duke sends his right hand man, former boxer Hugo Marshall, known in society as the Wolf of Clermont, to deal with the vexing female on his doorstep. She needs to be got rid of, and quickly at that.

Hugo Marshall is the son of a coal miner and intends to become very rich. Working for the duke is only a step on the way, but he does need to make sure the dissolute nobleman stays solvent, as if the duke doesn't have money, Hugo won't get any either. He therefore needs to deal with the "employment dispute" that Clermont has dropped in his lap - but quickly comes to find that Ms. Barton isn't easily intimidated. Come rain or shine, she shows up on her bench and while she initially refuses to tell Mr Marshall anything about why she wants compensation from the duke, as the days pass, he comes to understand more and more, and it becomes increasingly more difficult for him to stay loyal to his employer.

The Governess Affair is pretty much a perfect little novella that sets up Courtney Milan's series The Brothers Sinister. Serena and Hugo appear briefly in some of the later books, but only as supporting characters. This is the story of how they meet and fall in love, over a short enough period of time that in the hands of someone less skilled, it could be implausible. Yet, Ms Milan, ever a master of her genre makes it work, possibly because Serena and Hugo are both so desperately in need of someone to love, for someone who can take care of them and be taken care of in return.

For all that Serena has suffered a horrible indignity, she refuses to be crushed and beaten down by it. Her older sister Frederica has a pessimistic outlook, not only on Serena's situation and unlikely chance of a happy, satisfying future, but on everything, really. Frederica suffers from anxiety and gets worked up even at the thought of having to leave her comfortable rooms. Taking on the patriarchy in the way Serena does it, in her own quiet way, is entirely beyond her. Serena doesn't want great wealth, she just wants enough to buy herself a tiny farm, where she can grow lavender and other flowers that she can scent soaps with. Having lost her position as a governess, as well as her reputation, that dream is lost to her if she cannot get compensation from the Duke of Clermont.

Hugo Marshall ran away from home as a teenager, having decided after three days in a mine that he was having none of that. Having boxed as a prizefighter for a while, he eventually became Clermont's man of business, working very hard to turn the man's fortunes around, for a slight share in the profits. A wife and children don't fit anywhere into his plans for wealth and success, but once he meets Serena, who despite her petite size is so composed and formidable, he soon begins to question all his former plans.

This is a lovely, very romantic story - which in it's final section introduces three of the heroes for the novels to come, while they were still youths at Eton. As an added bonus, the novella is often offered for free at various e-book retailers, so if it's not available free of charge now, keep your eyes open - it probably will be again soon.

Judging a book by its cover: While Serena does wear a yellow dress for her wedding, I think the one pictured on this cover is rather more extravagant that anything she would be able to afford. I like that the cover model has her hair streaming down her shoulders, though, as there is a lovely scene involving the removal of hairpins in the story.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 27: "Unraveled" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 258 pages
Rating: 5 stars

This is a re-read, and my original review for this book can be found here.

As with the other Milans I've been revisiting, I wanted to listen to this in audio, but discovered, to my dismay that it wasn't narrated by Polly Lee, who did the first two books in The Turner series, but Nicole Quinn, whose voice just did NOT work for me. I tried to warm to her throughout the first chapter, but gave up and returned the audio.

Unraveled is my favourite book in this trilogy and still, so many years after I first read it (end of 2011) on of my favourite romance novels period. It's quite common in romance to save the last book in a series for the most conflicted and complicated of the characters introduced earlier in the series. This is certainly the case here. Smite Turner is scarred both physically and emotionally from the terrible things his overly religious (and quite quite mad) mother put him through growing up. All three Turner brothers are affected by the death of their sister Hope, but I'd forgotten that it was revealed in this book that she was Smite's twin - so he would likely feel the loss even more acutely.

In addition to the emotional scars he has from his mother's mistreatment and months living homeless on the streets, taking care of his younger brother, Smite is clearly neuro-atypical in some way. He has an eidetic memory and can recall everything he's ever seen or heard, making it all the harder for him to actually process and move beyond the traumas of his past. It seems being with Miranda makes him less acutely aware of them and makes them easier to bear, without their relationship being some sort of miraculous and implausible cure. One of the things I love so much about this book is that Smite is a very damaged individual and he's not magically fixed by the love of a good woman, he just finds it easier to cope when he's not all alone anymore.

As I said in my original review, this book can be read as a stand-alone, but being the third book in a trilogy, there are also scenes tying up story lines introduced earlier in the series and emotional punchlines that absolutely work better if you know the characters involved. All three books are excellent romances, so it shouldn't be a hardship for anyone to read them all.

I was very happy to see that Smite and Miranda Darling still made my heart happy, even if I'm disappointed that the audiobook didn't work for me.

Judging a book by its cover: Poor, partially decapitated cover model. While I'm grateful that we don't see the entire face of the woman who's supposed to portray Miranda (telltale red hair), so the reader can keep their own mental image of what she looks like, the "lopping the top of the person's head" off approach to covers isn't great either. Of all the dresses used for the books in the trilogy, I think this is the one I like the most, though, both in design and colour. So pretty.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 26: "Unclaimed" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 432 pages
Audio book length: 11hrs 15mins
Rating: 4 stars

This is my first re-read of this book. My original review can be found here.

With the other two books in The Turners series, I have re-read the books more than once over the years. I read Unclaimed back in 2011 and haven't revisited it since. Until now.

While I would still rank it as the weakest of the three books in the trilogy, that is only really because one of the books has to come in third place. In my memory, Mark and Jessica's story wasn't as engrossing and emotionally satisfying as that of Ash and Margaret or Smite and his Miranda Darling (review of re-read to come). On this re-read I found it a lot more rewarding, possibly because last time I read the book, I blazed through it during a Read-a-thon, while this time, I spent several days over it, listening to it in audio.

One of the nice things about this story is the reversed experience dynamic in the couple. So often you have the virginal or fairly sexually inexperienced heroine matching with the jaded and sexually prolific rake. Here, the hero is the virgin and the heroine the sexually experienced one, although at the start of the story, she's gone through a trauma bad enough that she can't even stomach being touched, let alone feel any sort of desire. Jessica has been so lonely for so long and it's a gradual process for her to even warm up to Sir Mark, the man she's been sent to seduce. Of course she eventually finds her mojo again and thanks to Mark and his unorthodox family, begins to believe that there could be a larger group of people who care for her.

I don't really want to spoil the book for anyone, so I'll not disclose exactly what sort of trauma Jessica is struggling to get over. All I will say is that on re-reading the book, the section where she reveals the truth to Mark had me in tears, my heart breaking for her, feeling her grief and loss of agency so much more strongly this time around, when I doubt I thought too much about it last time. Generally, Jessica as a heroine resonated so much more with me on this re-read than the first time I read the book.

I have long said that Courtney Milan is possibly the best historical romance writer out there, and this book is another example of why she's so very good. I'm very glad that I revisited this book and discovered that I liked it better than I remembered.

Judging a book by its cover: This, like all of Milan's books, has been reissued with Milan's own covers (she self-publishes all her books now), but my book still has the cover from the publisher. I think the cover designer could have done a better job finding a shot where the cover models looked like they were actually enjoying being in each other's company. The female model looks more like she's about to fall asleep than as if she's in the throes of desire. I like that she's wearing yellow, which is the colour of at least one of Jessica's dresses in the book. I also find the giant ring on the male model's hand funny - Jessica's tasked with getting Sir Mark's ring as proof that she's seduced him. I very much doubt his signet ring would be that gaudy and ostentatious.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 11: "Unveiled" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 384 pages
Audio book length: 12 hrs 14 mins
Rating: 4.5 stars

A long time ago now, back in April 2011, I first discovered Courtney Milan as an author, having read favourable things about her on various romance review blogs. My original review of this book, can be found here.

Fondly as I remember Ash and Margaret's story, this is not the Turner series book I've revisited most often. According to my records, I've only re-read it once before, back in 2012, so I was very interested to see if it was as good as I remembered. I listened to the book in audio (because I'm still not advanced enough to wrangle my e-reader and feed my child at the same time, certainly not at night). Nicole Quinn has one of those nice, crisp British voices that seems so very suitable for historical romances.

Even after nearly eight years, and with many, many, many more historical romances read, this is a very good book. I read through my original review, and I very much still agree with myself. So many romance heroes are domineering alphas and unrepentant rakes, who seem to think that women should just fall into their beds and can overwhelm with the sheer force of their personality. In these post-#metoo-times, having a hero who's very open and honest about what he wants, but also determined about obtaining clear and enthusiastic consent before he makes a move is encouraging (especially since back in 2011, when this book first came out, that certainly wasn't the norm among romance heroes. To a modern reader, it's also more appealing to read about a man who's not afraid of hard work. In the Victorian age, when these books are set, most of the landed classes came to realise that they couldn't survive merely on the income from their properties alone and society was changing rapidly. Ash is next in line for a dukedom, but has lived through poverty and need and worked since h was fifteen to make his fortune. He's no idle and cosseted fop.

So many of Ms. Milan's books are about clever and capable women who achieve great things, even with the limitations placed on them by the society they live in. Margaret isn't one of these heroines, having lived a sheltered and privileged life as a duke's daughter until Ash's revelations suddenly shook the very foundations of her existence. Even posing as a servant in her childhood home, she's not actually lower class, and never has to suffer true hardship. Being the youngest child of the duke, and being a woman, she's frequently been ignored by the duke an her brothers. She's never been away to school, she's been raised to be a nobleman's wife and a pretty ornament. Now that her legitimacy has been taken away, it's as if she has no worth whatsoever. Ash sees her, all of her, and does his best to build her confidence. He doesn't know that he's speaking to Lady Anna Margaret, youngest daughter to the duke he despises. He believes her to be a low-born nurse, and yet he still wants her to know that she is important, she has value, she should believe in herself. It is thanks to Ash's bolstering of Margaret's confidence that they are able to sort out the complicated tangle and find a happy ending eventually.

At some point this year, Ms Milan will hopefully publish her next historical novel (it's been years since her last one). Until then, I'm going to try to revisit her earlier books in audio format to see what I think about her back catalogue now. This was a very good start to my re-read project.

Judging a book by its cover: This is one of the books that Ms Milan published through Harlequin books, before she decided to do her own thing and self-publish. As such, my book has a somewhat different cover to the "lady in a photo-shopped wedding dress" that she so often employs on her own books. Not that this is all that much more exciting, with your trysting couple both in a state of semi-undress. I like the shades of blue they've used though.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 122: "A Kiss for Midwinter" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 121 pages
Audio book length: 4 hrs 14 mins
Rating: 5 stars

When Lydia Charingford was fifteen, she was seduced and ruined by an older man. She got pregnant, and it was only through the quick wits of her friend Minnie and the support of her family that not everyone in polite society found out about it. Lydia lost the baby, and tries very hard not to dwell on that part of her past. When Dr Jonas Grantham (the junior doctor present when she was being examined and her shame was exposed to her parents) returns to Leicester, there is suddenly someone else around who knows of her dark past, and his condescending and sarcastic demeanor makes Lydia convinced he is constantly judging her.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Jonas doesn't even recognize Lydia again when they meet upon his return, and he's classified her as the eleventh prettiest girl in town. He wants to find a wife quickly, for mostly pragmatic reasons, and has made a list of suitable women. After a conversation with Lydia, where he is reminded of the episode so long ago, he's unable to put her out of his mind, and becomes more and more infatuated with her as time goes by.

Jonas disagreed strongly with the medical advice Lydia and her parents were given so long ago, but didn't speak up because he was afraid of risking his future career. He's always regretted it, and is determined to devote his life to saving people. His father is losing his wits to dementia, and Jonas realizes that he can't pine for Lydia forever. He understands the reasons for her antipathy towards him, but needs a chance to change her mind. He proposes a wager, where Lydia has to accompany him on three visits to the poorest areas of Leicester. If he wins, he gets a kiss. If she wins, he'll never speak to her again.

This novella is a sequel of sorts to The Duchess War and feature a couple of characters introduced in that book. It can be read completely independently of that story, though. Lydia is the best friend of Minnie, the heroine of The Duchess War and in this novella she finally gets her happy ending.

Jonas falls into the line of great and unusual Milan heroes. He's an educated, yet rather socially awkward man, with clear obsessive compulsive tendencies. He doesn't mince words, is almost too honest for his own good, he's sarcastic, he has an appallingly dark sense of humor (I thought he was hilarious, myself), and he's prone to dark moods. Despite being a good and hard working doctor, he struggles to find a solution with regards to his father, who's bedridden in a house full of scrap metal that he hoards obsessively.

Lydia is, on the surface at least, almost annoyingly cheerful. She finds the positive in any situation and treats nearly everyone around her with unfailing kindness. Jonas is the exception, and she comes to realize that it's because around him, she can't repress the events of her past. She's forced to think about a dark and depressing time in her life, and whether he is to blame for her experience or not, she can't help but hold him partially responsible. Being led astray and betrayed at such a young age, she also learned to equate lust and desire with something very bad, and the attraction she feels towards Dr Grantham deeply disconcerts her.

For once, the heroine is the more wounded of the couple, but her understandable issues are dealt with so well. The pacing of the novella is absolutely perfect, and some scenes literally made me short of breath. This is an almost painfully romantic story, and 2017 is the fourth time I read it (this time listening to it in audio, read by the very talented Rosalyn Landor) in the run-up to Christmas, confirming to myself once again why it's remains one of my very favourite romances of all time. I cannot recommend it enough to anyone who likes good romance.

Judging a book by its cover: With her Brothers Sinister series, Courtney Milan began to self-publish and as such, is personally responsible for her romance covers. She revealed on her blog at one point that she tends to lock for stock images of brides wearing more or less period-appropriate wedding dresses, and mocks up the covers from that. This is an especially egregious example, with the cover model simpering and framing her face in a way I cannot possibly imagine Lydia Charingford ever having done. I hate the frilly lace gloves and the bright white dress seems a strange choice, considering Lydia's past in the story.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 120: "Hold Me" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 303 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Maria Lopez runs a small niche blog where she imagines apocalyptic disaster scenarios and uses her comprehensive knowledge of science to figure out how to best try to avoid said scenarios. While it used to be just a hobby, and the blog wasn't widely read, recently it's getting a lot more visitors, and Maria has started getting actual job offers. She has kept her real identity closely guarded, so none of the people offering to hire her know that she's a woman, working towards her actuary degree. Maria doesn't really have a lot of friends or family around to support her. There's her roommate Tina, who is also her best friend, there's Angela, who's sometimes more of a chore than a support to Maria, there's her brother and there's her grandmother. She's cautious both professionally and emotionally, because she's been badly hurt in the past.

Jay na Thalang is utterly driven, and he knows he's a genius at what he does. He works hard, never slows down and expects the same kind of all-consuming passion for science from all those who work under him as well. He has a strained relationship with his parents, due to a tragedy in their past, and he barely has any friends, as they never seem to stick around once they realise he barely has time for them. Maria's brother is one of the few people who has still stuck around, and he tries to set Maria and Jay up. It is an absolute disaster. Jay misunderstands why Maria is initially there, and has judged her and found her a frivolous airhead before she has a chance to even speak much. While they both find the other physically attractive, it's pretty much hate at first sight.

What neither Maria nor Jay know, is that they already know each other. Jay is a huge fan of Maria's apocalypse blog, and they've been exchanging messages for nearly a year. Messages that have gone from polite conversation to develop into friendship and possibly even something more. These conversations, where both are hidden behind Internet user names, continue to get more flirtatious, even as Jay and Maria keep running into each other in real life and fanning the flames of their animosity towards one another. Are they ever going to discover the truth?

This is a romance novel. Of course they are going to find out! I was very worried about how Courtney Milan was going to handle it, because in the hands of a lesser author, this situation would be drawn-out and painful and involve lies and added complication. I needn't have worried. In her normal inimitable fashion, Ms. Milan defuses the situation quickly, and while Jay initially considers lying to Maria, once he realises who she really is, he instead confesses exactly who he is to her online, and how he know who she is. He does this, knowing that their many hateful exchanges over the past months may mean that Maria never wants to see him again. He nonetheless doesn't want to lie to her.

Courtney Milan has shown herself to be quite progressive in the past, with both lesbian and homosexual supporting characters in several of her historical novels. She's had inter-racial romances, and several of her heroines have had a scientific background. In this book, the heroine is a Latina trans woman, and the fact that she is trans is never made into a huge issue. The hero is a half-Chinese, half-Thai bisexual man, where again, it's not really made into a big deal that he used to have a boyfriend, now he doesn't. Milan clearly knows a lot about the sort of discrimination and treatment women in the STEM fields face and many of these issues are addressed over the course of this book.

Jay doesn't believe himself to be a sexist, judgemental jerk. He's a big believer in what intelligent and driven women can do, after all, his mother is one of the CEOs of massive tech company Cyclone (think Apple). Yet in his early encounters with Maria, he dismisses her intelligence immediately, because she likes to wear high heels, makeup and dress in pretty clothes. Because she has interests outside of science and likes to talk to her brother about pop culture and entertainment, she can't possibly have valid thoughts or theories science or more serious topics. Through several encounters, Maria makes him see that he is, in fact, very wrong in the way he treats women, even his female grad students, whom he claims to respect and treat equally to his male ones. Jay is deeply unpleasant in the early parts of this book. Frankly, Maria is also quite unpleasant right back at him. Those parts were hard to read and is the main reason why I'm deducting half a star from the rating of this book. Also because I thought the family drama surrounding Jay was a bit contrived, and I find it very strange that it hadn't been resolved way before this book started.

In his defence, even as he desperately wants to dismiss Maria as an airhead, Jay does listen to what she tells him and he does take a long hard look at himself and is unhappy with what he sees. He is already on his way to becoming a less misogynistic, judgemental person when he connects the various dots that have been slowly revealed in the conversations with his online BFF and they all point to Maria. If Jay hadn't taken active efforts to change, he wouldn't begin to be good enough for Maria, who is pretty amazing, even though she has hang-ups and abandonment issues galore.

As well as mostly writing extremely satisfying romances, be they historical or contemporary (there are, sadly, exceptions, I'm looking at you, Once Upon a Marquess and Talk Sweetly to Me), Milan is very good about establishing a believable and enjoyable supporting cast in all of her books. In some of the stories, I like the side characters more than the actual couple. In this book, she introduces us to the somewhat difficult Angela, one of Maria's former room mates, who doesn't seem to be as socially aware as she probably should be, and whose prize science project is a glow in the dark shark. On Milan's website, it is clear that Angela is the heroine in an upcoming novel in the series, and I very much look forward to that. We also get to see Tina and Blake from Trade Me from a new point of view, as well as Blake's foul-mouthed and formidable father, Adam. Maria's relationships with both her brother and her grandmother are very touching and the way her grandmother supported Maria, when her parents couldn't, was one of the many things that brought tears to my eyes while I read the book.

Courtney Milan is more often great than not, and this is one of her really good ones. She features very progressive characters without making their gender identities or sexual preferences in any way a massive part of the story, which is probably the best way to make sure that it becomes more accepted in the mainstream. That is not to say that this is not an important book. Luckily, it's also a very enjoyable and well-written book. For a list of recommendations to Milan's best works, do check out my fellow romance enthusiast, Mrs. Julien's blog.

Judging a book by its cover: I have in vain tried to find out whether the female cover model is actually trans, or whether they just found a Latina woman and figured it was good enough. Considering how progressive Milan, both in her writing and online, I would think she will have tried her best to actually get a trans woman to portray Maria. It's would be such an important step for trans visibility. Is this how I pictured the characters? Not really, but I don't mind, and compared to many of the edited wedding dress photos of Milan's historicals, it's a perfectly nice cover.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.