The Wrong Marquess
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4.3 • 147 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
USA Today bestselling author Vivienne Lorret continues the Mating Habits of Scoundrels series with a debutante who believes she is destined to marry the lord next door until a fateful encounter with a rogue makes her wonder… if she might be falling for the wrong marquess!
The wrong place…
Elodie Parrish can feel spinsterhood breathing down her neck. That’s the trouble with waiting for the marquess next door her entire life. But Ellie knows if she gives him one last Season, he’ll finally propose. The only problem is, her path keeps crossing with the arrogant Lord Hullworth, who is convinced she has designs on him.
The wrong time…
Brandon, Marquess of Hullworth, never wanted to be “London’s Most Elusive Bachelor,” or have a horde of hopeful debutantes and their scheming mamas follow him around. His past has left him too jaded to consider marrying any of them. At least, that’s what he thinks... until he meets Ellie. She’s quirky, opinionated, blushes easily, and drives him absolutely wild. The only problem is, she believes she’s in love with someone else.
Ellie never imagined that one sultry summer could change everything. But the more time she spends with Brandon researching her book on the mating habits of scoundrels, the more she starts to fall for…
The Wrong Marquess
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lorret's sparkling third Mating Habits of Scoundrels historical romance (after My Kind of Earl) finds polyphobic Elodie "Ellie" Parrish confused and intrigued by "London's most elusive bachelor." Ellie has had her cap set on George Nethersole since they were children, but he constantly procrastinates on committing to her. Brandon Stredwick, Marquess of Hullworth, is used to marriage-minded women contriving ridiculous ways to fling themselves at him, so when Ellie first stumbles into him at a party, then befriends his sister, Meg, he assumes she's just the same. Brandon is determined to protect Meg, who's been hurt by so-called friends using her to get to Brandon in the past, but soon realizes he's misjudged the alluring Ellie. Mistaking physical attraction for sickness, Ellie prefers to avoid Brandon—but she can't resist his offer to provide material for the book on courtship she's coauthoring with her friends. As they spend time together, her feelings for Brandon change, but despite their intense chemistry and George's continued neglect, Ellie struggles to let go of her long-held dream of being George's wife. Her refusal to see George for who he is grows frustrating, but the swoon-worthy Brandon more than makes up for this shortcoming. Readers will be eager for the next installment.
Customer Reviews
Not too bad
This one was actually pretty good! I wanted to smack George. Which is a good thing - It made becoming emotionally vested in the characters easy and it made the plot that much better.
I enjoyed the story and it was a perfect read for this dreary, rainy day.
Writing is a slog to get through
I haven't finished the book but this might be one of five (out of thousands) books I've ever DNF'd. The sentences are very flowery- not too bad when sporadically thrown in but when it's paragraph after paragraph it's a little grating. There is a lot of "tell, not show" in this book but the most grievous of writing mistakes is that fact that something we've just read is repeated to us all the time. For example, early in the book the heroine says to the hero: "I'm sorry...I didn't...that is to say..." and the hero thinks "her words came out in short, unformed sentences with a raspy quality" (not exact words but you get the gist). It's like yeah, man, I was there too. Definitely notices that she didn't say fully formed sentences judging by the several ellipses and the fact that I just read it. I really didn't need it explained to me.
The writer seems more focused on writing interesting sentences rather than painting the world and making it engrossing. The book feels very much like "floating head syndrome" but bloated with pompous, omniscient sentences and the "telling" style of story writing. The dialogue is ridiculous and felt like it had never been repeated aloud and/or remained unedited. Within the first few chapters, a conversation starts out on topic A before randomly shifting to topic B before they were like 'oh right, back to topic A'. LITERALLY. I'm too lazy to find it but one of them was like "silly me, we stopping talking about topic A!" While this can be done believably, it was not in this instance. It felt like the conversation was gutted open, stuffed with a second conversation, and then sewn back together in a weird turducken of dialogue.
The writing style is so difficult to get through, it completely eclipses the story. It feels like you are being told what happens rather than being immersed in the action. If you've ever read old-style fairytales, that's the way this writing style comes across. Super disappointed because it sounded like a cool topic.
I've gotten about 100 pages in and will try to keep slogging but a good 30-40 pages could have been cut without losing the thread of the story and would have made it a tighter, better read
Loved!
I loved this book! Great characters! Meg and the aunts !!! I couldn’t put this down!