Our tune is that great Disney anthem, "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" So sing it with me now: "Do you want to start a scandal?" The answer is, of course, yes. Yes I do, though the characters here would probably respond with a resounding "NO!"
When I read Say Yes to the Marquess back in 2016, one of my main comments was that I didn't particularly like the main couple, and wished instead that the book had been about the hero's brother, Piers, and his quest for love after losing his fiance to his younger brother (the hero of SYTTM). Well, it looks like I got my wish, because that is exactly what this book is. Tying together Dare's Spindle Cover series (which I haven't read) and her Castles Ever After series (which I have), this incorporates characters from both, though I think it's probably more heavily Spindle Cove than Castles Ever After, particularly as the heroine, Charlotte, is not in possession of a castle, which was a main marker of Castles Ever After.
One night at a house party, Charlotte sneaks off in pursuit of Piers to let him know that she does not plan on marrying him, despite whatever her mother might do to throw them together over the course of the party. Unfortunately for her, she's soon stuck with Piers behind some draperies as another, unknown couple proceeds to have sex on the desk in the library just feet away. When Charlotte and Piers finally find a chance to make their escape, they're caught--by the son of the house, an eleven-year-old who insists Piers was trying to murder Charlotte but who gives a pretty good impression of sex sounds to an audience, including Charlotte's mother. So Piers says he'll marry her. But Charlotte really doesn't want to marry him, because she wants to marry for love, and becomes determined to clear her good name by finding the mystery couple before their engagement can be announced. And the game is afoot.
The one word that I find myself using again and again in speaking of Dare's books is "charming," and this book is exactly that. It is charming. I love stories that take place at house parties, and this was a good example of that, though even for a house party involving a lot of guests and at least two weeks of free time, the main characters seemed to find a remarkable amount of time to have sex in obvious places--like, you know, the heroine's room that half the house has access too. But they are never caught, of course. But the reality of their supervised status (or lack thereof) is not the point here. The point is that the banter is lovely and Piers is a true honorable gentleman, even when he insists that he is not. Charlotte is clever and good at figuring things out, though Dare didn't always do the best job of showing us her train of thought and so she seems to make leaps quite a bit, though they end up being accurate. And while Piers wants to protect Charlotte, he also ultimately acknowledges her talents, which is high praise considering that Piers is (not a spoiler) a spy.
My biggest disappointment here was that the mystery didn't end up being one. It came down to, "Oh, it was just a misunderstanding!" when it seemed like there was going to be something truly dramatic going on in the background. While this makes it a cozy mystery, and cozy mysteries aren't bad, it just seemed to veer dramatically from the setup that was pursued for most of the book. A little genuine intrigue could have gone a long way to spice things up, without veering too far into outright ridiculousness, such as that one historical romance that ends with an attempted assassination by terrorists--and whose title I have evidently blacked out of my mind. Also, I was really hoping that Frances, the bitchy sister of Charlotte's best friend, would end up getting her comeuppance, which never happened. Maybe Delia will get her own book and it will happen there? I would love to read a book about Delia, she seems to be imminently deserving of her own love story.
So, I enjoyed this quite a bit, a good deal more than Say Yes to the Marquess. Was it flawless? No. I'm definitely not raving about it. But it was quite good, a fun read that only took up a couple of hours, and I would recommend it for people who like light romance and cozy mysteries.
3.5 stars out of 5.
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