Book 47: The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan

This book is actually the final book in The Brothers Sinister series, which The Governess Affair and The Duchess War start. While I am definitely planning on going back and reading the books that go between The Duchess War and this one once I've finished this project, I didn't have any trouble following the plot or the emotional arc. I also think that there are a number of parallels between the two books that were probably more heightened by reading them back to back, which I enjoyed.

The character with the secret past in this book is Edward Clark, who was once Edward Delacey, the next Viscount Claridge. He was disavowed by his family during the Seige of Strasbourg and presumed dead, and now his younger brother James is set to inherit the title. Edward has no interest in claiming the title, but he comes back to England to prevent his brother from causing problems for Edward's childhood friend. Those efforts throw him into the path of Federica Marshall, the titular suffragette.

Federica, or Free as she's known, is an absolute delight of a character. She runs a newspaper that's for women and by women, and she is completely unintimidated by a scoundrel like Edward. That doesn't means she's not attracted to him, and her willingness to acknowledge such attraction completely disarms Edward. She is so fantastic, a character who is grounded in the realities of 19th century England while demonstrating exactly what women were doing to agitate and win the vote and the painstaking effort involved in achieving incremental victories. It isn't a fantasy, but it is inspirational, and doggedly optimistic, and I just loved her and their relationship so much. She made me want to go out there and do something and make some noise. A wonderful read, start to finish.

Grade: A

Book 46: The Duchess War by Courtney Milan

This book picks up many years after the end of The Governess Affair, the novella that is essentially a prequel to this entire series. It focuses on Robert, the Duke of Clermont, who is the son of the villain in The Governess Affair (and the half-brother of Oliver, Hugo and Serena's son). Robert is a duke who wishes to use his power and privilege to right the wrongs his father had committed while drawing as little attention to himself as he can. This brings him to Leicester, where he meets Minnie, a young woman who also wishes to blend in after a childhood that was anything but average. She discovers one of his secrets, and continues to outwit him while he falls more and more in love with her.

Honestly, a simple description of the main characters and the plot doesn't do the story justice at all, not least because I don't actually want to mention too many of the secrets because my god was I not expecting any of those twists. As Robert says when Minnie reveals the first of multiple secrets about her scandalous past, "I was...definitely not going to guess that." Minnie and Robert are both wonderful, the obstacles to their relationship are genuine problems and the route they take to overcome those obstacles feels plausible and right, and they're surrounded by fantastic supporting characters. They are both Good People in ways that make them exceptional to their time but not anachronistic, a character type which Milan writes extremely well. And the sexual tension and subsequent sex scenes are incredible.  

What a delightful book. I am so charmed by everything about it! SO CHARMED. Milan is writing the gold standard of historical romances these days.

Grade: A 

Book 45: The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan

So I got a quarter of the way through this novella before I had that light bulb moment of ...wait I've already read this, haven't I. And indeed, while I confess that I didn't remember the details of the story as well as I would have expected to, given that I had to have read it fairly recently, this definitely was a re-read rather than a first time read. Which is bugging me a BIT since it goes against the premise of this challenge, but oh well.

It was also a good thing that I read it before starting the next book in this series, because this novella starts off the universe with a nice chunk of backstory that will clearly inform the rest of the books. Serena Barton is a governess who is pregnant by the Duke of Clermont. Hugo Marshall is the Duke's man, the notorious Wolf of Clermont, who is in charge of handling such sticky situations on behalf of the Duke. Hugo finds Serena hard to treat as just another faceless problem to be solved, however, and the two of them fall in love. The attraction between the two of them is delightful, and the sex scene is simply fantastic, one of the best in historical m/f romance I've read in quite some time. And it sets the scene for the main series of the books so well. I can't wait to read the next one this weekend.

Grade: A

Book 44: Sole Support by Kaje Harper

This is the kind of book that would probably make a lot of people happy but dealt with a topic that I just didn't want to read about in romance. It's one part two internet nerds find love together (I'm in!) and one part dealing with a parent's decline due to dementia (I'm out). The romance between Mike and Kellen was lovely and pretty recognizable, for the most part, although neither of them really felt their age to me; they each seemed much closer to early twenties rather than late thirties or early forties. Part of that is probably due to the fact that Mike had never had any kind of relationship before, but I didn't really buy it. And 90% of the drama or tension in the book was due not to Kellen's mother's failing health, but his complete inability to communicate with anyone in his life about it and accept help. I am not suggesting that it is easy in a situation like that to reach out to people; I know it's not. But my problem with it was that it felt like merely a plot point in a romance, rather than something bigger and more important. I don't think that romances can only be about trivial problems and must avoid serious emotional issues altogether, but the way this book dealt with it didn't work for me, unfortunately.

Grade: C

Book 43: Save Me a Seat by Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadarajan

This is a middle grade book I read for my YA book club. It tells the story of the first week of fifth grade for two students in alternating POVs, with each author writing one character's POV. Ravi and his family have just moved to New Jersey from India, and the culture shock is pretty rough. Joe isn't particularly popular due in part to his sensory sensitivity, and the fact that his mom has just been hired as a lunch monitor at his school doesn't help him feel like he can fit in.

I found parts of this book really difficult to read, because Ravi in particular tries so hard to be liked and through no fault of his own gets everything wrong and doesn't understand why Dillon, the big bad bully, is being mean to him. Joe understands perfectly well why Dillon is being mean, but feels powerless to do anything about it for the first half of the book. I don't usually get second-hand embarrassment that easily, but when it comes to kids I find it all but unbearable. Luckily none of the individual moments of embarrassment last too long, and the knowledge that by the end Joe and Ravi will be bound together in friendship helped me make it through.

I also really liked that the back of the book had a glossary for both Ravi and for Joe; the book doesn't assume that all of the readers would know all of the terms in Joe's chapters but not in Ravi's, or that the main audience for this book is white American kids.

Grade: B

Book 42: The Closer You Get by LA Witt

Man, I really enjoyed this book. It tells the story of Kieran, a 27-year-old self-described slut who may have the slightest fear of commitment due to his parents' terrible divorce. His dedication to playing the field shouldn't interfere at all with being something of a one man welcome wagon for Alex, a 21-year-old friend of a friend who is trying to escape his homophobic upbringing and explore the LGBTQ scene in Seattle for the first time. Oh, and did I mention that Alex is a never been kissed virgin?

The developing relationship between Kieran and Alex is told really well, and in a lot of ways the predictability of the story adds to its charm. Kieran behaves badly for a bit while figuring out his shit, but never so terribly that it made me turn on him or totally lose patience, and Alex is a delightful wide-eyed ingenue who grows as a character and stands up to Kieran when he needs to. Kieran's backstory lands a bit too heavily at times, but for the most part it works. Overall it's a very solid contemporary romance, and I will be picking up other titles by this author once I've finished this challenge.

Grade: B

Book 41: Cabin Nights by Ashley John

Late last night and early this morning, I was in desperate need of fictional distraction from the all-too-real world. So I decided to read a romance about an adorable university student on a ski vacation who gets snowed in over Christmas with an intriguing ski bum in a cabin with a fireplace and mulled wine and sex coupons. I make excellent life choices.

This novella definitely scratched the itch I had, and fulfilled my need for distraction by delivering exactly what you would expect from that synopsis. It wasn't the best written version of that story that I've ever read, and there could have been more depth to the attraction between the couple. I also found it really jarring when they had unprotected sex without even a cursory nod to the standard "I've been tested and I'm safe" handwave; it felt both unrealistic and also worrying. But on the whole it did its job.

Grade: B