#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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#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.

#CBR8 Book 39: "Her Every Wish" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 133 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Daisy Whitlaw has an almost impossible dream. She wants to open her own shop, selling affordable everyday luxuries for everyday women, but to do so, she needs money, which she doesn't have. Daisy's father is dead and her mother is ailing, and Daisy can barely make enough money working as an assistant in a flower shop to make ends meet for them. Her best friend Judith recently married a marquess, but there is no way that Daisy would ask her for a loan, she wants to make her own way in the world. When the local parish announces that they will be making a charity bequest to one lucky young person, Daisy seizes on this chance with everything she's got. There is nothing in the wording of the competition that says the grants will only be offered to men and she's determined to prove that she has what it takes to win.

Crash refuses to let his checkered family background, his questionable parentage, the colour of his skin or the many ways in which people try to bring him down affect him. While he knows his family and those who raised him were never what some might call respectable, he grew up among people that loved him and he's filled with an unshakable confidence that he's going places in the world. One of his only regrets is that Daisy no longer speaks to him. When he discovers that she's planning to apply for the charity bequest, he knows she won't be able to persuade the charity board without his help. She may despise the way he made his money and they may have parted with a lot of bitter words exchanged from either party, she may have a fiancee off at sea (this bit may in fact, unbeknownst to Crash, be completely untrue), but she needs his assistance and he's not going to let her refuse it.

Daisy needs to be supremely confident to have a chance at winning and Crash certainly has confidence enough to spare. Using his recently self-imported velocipede, he starts teaching Daisy that sometimes you have to ignore what others say and just throw yourself into things. Go fast, don't hesitate, or you'll fall and hurt yourself. Of course all this swagger training requires them to spend a lot of time together. The attraction they once shared is still there, but can they get over the horrible things they once said?

Courtney Milan is an amazing writer, and she keeps being progressive and inventive in her writing. Her most recent full-length novel, the first in The Worth Saga, featured Daisy's bestie, Judith Worth, who eventually ended up marrying the marquess she initially believed ruined her entire life. The main problem with Once Upon a Marquess was that Milan, at the start of a series that promises to be long and complicated, tried to fit so many different things into the book that the main romance seemed not just secondary, but almost tertiary. Luckily, in a novella, there is no room for anything superfluous, just the main story and Crash and Daisy's story is a lovely one.

Some of my favourite Courtney Milan stories are novellas. The Governess Affair is excellent, A Kiss for Midwinter remains one of my favourite romances of all time, no matter how many times I re-read it. Her Every Wish will be going on the list of novellas I treasure and that effected me greatly while reading them. There are no titled protagonists, fantastic dresses or elaborate balls in this story. Just two people, trying their damnedest to make something of themselves in the world, despite being told at every turn that they are reaching above themselves and shouldn't, because of the colour of their skin, or their gender or their less than privileged backgrounds. Daring to dream, being brave and strong enough to fight for a better future, even in the face of near-impossible odds is something that Daisy and Crash have in common. They are two of a kind, and once they get over the hurts dealt by the other due to a miscommunication in the past, they are very aware that they're perfect for each other.

Milan is so very passionate about rooting for the underdog, and while this book has some remarkable banter and some steamy scenes, Crash teaching Daisy to strive for more, to believe in herself, to dare to demand respect and to stop apologising for existing nearly every second of her life that really got me. I'm sure I might find flaws and nitpicks when I re-read, but I'm not sure I'll care. After the disappointment of the last book, it was very encouraging to see Milan back on form, and I'm very excited about the prospect of the next story, which seem to indicate there will be shot-gun weddings, hidden identities and all manner of complications.

Judging a book by its cover: You may be a great writer of romance and empowering books, Ms. Milan, but you're really not all that great about photo-shopping covers together. I seem to recall reading on her blog, that Ms Milan finds stock footage of women in wedding dresses and then pretty much superimposes them over a background, while changing the colour of the dress. This cover has little to nothing to do with the contents of the story, with the exception of the cover model being blond, which is suitable for Daisy. Only in her wildest fantasies does Daisy possess such a meringue of a poofy dress, which is horribly anachronistic for a Victorian era working class woman. To add insult to injury, the stock background is of some trees and a field, when Daisy lives and works in London and is unlikely to have seen such a pastoral scene for some time. Neither the awkward pose of the cover model, nor the insipid look on her face suit the resilient and determined heroine of this story either. Hopefully the cover won't actively scare new readers away.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 141: "Once Upon a Marquess" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 372 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Lady Judith Worth lost everything when her father and eldest brother, Anthony, was convicted on treason. Her father committed suicide in prison, her brother was sentenced to deportation to Australia. Due to complications during the journey, Anthony never arrived at his destination, and is presumed dead. Since losing their wealth and their privileges, Judith has been the sole breadwinner for two of her younger half-siblings; the spoiled, socially challenged and extremely cat obsessed Theresa and her youngest brother Benedict, who she's finally saved up enough money to send to Eton.

Judith has been supporting her family using her skills with clockwork design and through careful saving and scrimping has set aside money for the dowry of both her sisters. Her other sister, Camilla, was taken in by an "uncle", a friend of their father's, who offered to take all the Worth children, except Theresa. At such an ultimatum, all but Camilla refused his "kindness" and as a result, Camilla has been estranged from her family for years and years. Now Judith is worried that the solicitor handling the money may have embezzled it, and she needs help. She has no one to turn to but Christian Trent, the Marquess of Ashford. Her brother's former best friend, the man she once thought she would marry, until he became the man who provided the evidence that condemned her father and brother. She's fairly certain he'll send a trusted servant, and is none to pleased when he eagerly turns up on her door step in person, on the same day her brother comes back from his first term at Eton, clearly badly beaten, swearing never to return.

Christian Trent still loves Judith. He's never been able to forget her, and he's haunted constantly by nightmares about what his actions did to his best friend. While Judith is staunchly loyal to her brother, refusing to believe he could ever have done what he was accused of, Christian instead fears that his guilt was all but certain. Christian acted according to his conscience, but believed Anthony would serve seven years in Australia, and be able to return to his family. Instead he most likely died during the journey. He knows Judith can't possibly forgive him, because he can't really forgive himself, but if there is anything in his power he can do to help her or her siblings, he has to offer it. He and Judith make a deal. If he manages to assist her in making sure her sisters' dowries have been paid to their accounts, he will get to borrow Anthony's journals. Reading them might help him to figure out the reasons Anthony may have acted as he did.

It'll come as no surprise to anyone familiar with romance, that once they start spending time together again, Judith and Christian, despite Judith's anger and bitterness, grow closer once more. Their attraction to each other is built on a mutual understanding of each other's oddness, a shared sense of (very peculiar) humour and a deep abiding affection for the same people. Christian spent most of his school holidays with the Worths and grew to love Judith over several years, never really acting on his feelings out of respect for Anthony. He proposed to Judith at her father's funeral, but she could barely stand to see him and soundly rejected him. No woman has ever compared to her in his memory, and the more time Judith spends in his company, the more her feelings for him reemerge.

This is Courtney Milan's first historical romance in a year and a half, and while she published a contemporary New Adult novel in January, the deadline for Once Upon a Marquess kept being pushed further and further ahead. As the first book of the projected seven-volume (although some will be novellas) Worth saga, this book has a lot of things to set up. Apparently Ms. Milan had a completely different plot in mind initially, but couldn't make it work, had to throw it all out and start over nearly from scratch. I suspect that is why this book is one of her weaker efforts. There is simply too many story lines fighting for attention. Judith is a great heroine - loyal, hard-working, independent and capable. Christian is really not the villain of the story, no matter how much Judith might wish he was. He's clearly suffering from tendencies of what we know know to be OCD, deals with awkward social situations with an often inappropriate and quite strange sense of humour and is plagued by nightmares his mother wants to dim by feeding him laudanum. Their romance should have been the main event here, but it gets a bit lost in all the other plot threads.

There is the treason plot, and Anthony's possible death or disappearance. Judith and Christian discover that there is a mysterious guardian having sworn the solicitor to secrecy about the welfare of her younger siblings. I don't want to spoil anything, but I suspect anyone who's read more than about three books in their entire life can figure out where that thread is going.

The third Worth sister, Camilla, has also disappeared. It turns out that her "uncle" was in no way fit to deal with a moody and distressed teenager and had her shipped off to family friends, who again sent her off and so on. To Judith's great dismay, the reason she's never heard back from any of the letters she sent to her sister is because Camilla never got them. Her cowardly "uncle" just felt it was too awkward to confess what he'd done and hoped no one would ever come looking.

Benedict Worth, the youngest son, has been mercilessly harassed, beaten and bullied at school. No matter how much Judith wants him to return, so he can have the education he's entitled to by birth, he refuses. Their family's treason charge has made him a target and he isn't going to be subjected to years of torture at a school he never particularly wanted to attend in the first place.

There is the friendship between Judith and Daisy, one of her neighbours, who make their hardships easier by making up elaborate stories about the elaborate dishes they are planning to make, the high born guests they're planning to entertain and the luxurious fabrics they dream of dressing themselves in. They never really talk about the things that bother them, keeping things light and frivolous, until Judith's recent difficulties actually make Daisy concerned enough to start demanding details. As a result, their friendship becomes even closer. Daisy is the heroine of the next story in the series, a novella scheduled to come out some time in January.

Lastly, there's the biggest problem (to me) in the book - Theresa, the insufferable sister. Like Christian, there is clearly something neurologically atypical about her, and even as a child, she was deemed odd enough that their "uncle" refused to take her in. She really does seem to exist in a world of her own, completely oblivious to all the sacrifices Judith has to make to keep them all housed, clothed and fed, and the hard work she has to do to make money. The only thing she seems interested in, is dragging in more stray cats for the already financially challenged household to support. She's rude, neglectful of her chores, refuses to listen to simple instructions and there doesn't seem to be a single rule she won't gladly and wilfully break. I'm assuming she may be the heroine of some future book, but it's been a long time since I came across a character I so heartily wanted to slap into next week and she's going to need to do some serious growing up to be redeemed as a half-decent supporting character, let alone a protagonist. She was simply odious.

Because there were so many things that had to be covered, and I suspect the whole plot of this book was by necessity a hastily assembled plan B when the first story just didn't work out, Christian and Judith's romance suffered as a result. A sub-par Courtney Milan book, especially after such a long wait, is still cause for celebration. I nonetheless hope that some of the teething problems are now past, and that Daisy's novella, not to mention, Camilla's book, which seem to be the next in line are both stronger and more swoon-worthy than this. And if it were to be revealed, in Camilla's book, that Theresa died from some sort of painful disease before that book even started, so they've already buried her, I will not be upset in the slightest.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.