Infamous by Minerva Spencer: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Infamous by Minerva Spencer

Infamous is the third book in Rebels of the Ton series by Minerva Spencer. It’s a Regency romance set in the early 19th century England and the world of its aristocrats.

It’s a series only in a loose sense. The people featured in this book made only a brief appearance in the epilogue of the previous book and vice versa. However, most of the characters have been introduced in Spencer’s previous series, Outcasts, and are familiar to readers of that. I haven’t read them, and as the author assumed familiarity, it left me feeling a bit of an outsider throughout the book.

The book begins a decade before the actual events. Celia, the pet of the ton is also its meanest person. Egged on by an equally mean duke, she creates a scandal that forces two people, Lucian and Phyllida, to marry. But the scandal destroys her too and a decade later she’s living retired life as a companion of an old lady. She’s learned her lesson and is transformed, but when she’s forced to spend Christmas at Luce and Phil’s manor, old hurts surface. As does her old attraction to Richard, Luce’s twin brother.

Richard hasn’t been bothered by the scandal, living his dream life as an entomologist and travelling around the world. His sister’s Christmas wedding forces him to return home, only to find Celia there, the woman he was attracted to a decade earlier. But her sister’s fiancé is the same horrible duke that ruined Celia’s life—and Lucian’s too.

There are two romances in this book, with own point of view chapters for every party: Richard and Celia, and Luce and Phil. Despite having been married for a decade, the latter are strangers to each other. Celia’s sudden presence forces them to take stock of their marriage and build a better relationship. I was more invested in their romance. I found it sweet and a bit heart-breaking too.

Richard and Celia were a more typical couple. Since Richard didn’t feel ill-done by Celia, there wasn’t a great baggage between them. Their romance was built during time spent together. They were good scenes, but at some point I began to grow bored, as they didn’t really drive the plot forward, making the middle part of the book slow and too long.

There was only a minimal plot outside the romance. The dastardly duke made his move at the end of the book, but until then no one tried to do anything about him, not even to stop an innocent girl from marrying him. Plot-wise, then, this was a bit of a disappointment. But the writing was good, people were interesting and there was a happy ending for everyone involved, so it left me feeling good.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

 

Outrageous by Minerva Spencer: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Outrageous by Minerva Spencer

Minerva Spencer’s Outrageous is the second book in her Rebels of the Ton historical romance series. I hadn’t read the first book, but I decided to give it a try when I received a free copy from NetGalley.

The story takes place in 1816, but instead of the usual balls and operas of London, it’s mostly set in carriages and seedy inns of the English countryside. Godric Fleming, a decorated war hero and a man bent on avenging his dead family on Gabriel Marlington, has decided to abduct Gabriel’s wife. Only to be abducted himself by Gabriel’s sister Eva de Courtney who has learned of his plan. Her intention is to keep him away from London long enough for Godric to give up his revenge, but weather and other unforeseen factors keep them on the road for days. And, as Godric points out, she’s now compromised in the eyes of the society and they have to marry. She’s not instantly agreeable to the plan, and he isn’t thrilled either.

This was a competent and interesting story. It relied heavily on some tropes of historical romances like forced intimacy and a clandestine marriage, but they were handled so that they felt fresh. I liked Eva and Godric both, and their inevitable falling in love happened organically and felt believable. The intimate setting meant that most of the time there was just the two of them, but they could carry the story well enough. There were enough twists and turns, some of them beggaring belief, to keep the reader entertained. The cover is somewhat misleading, making the reader expect a romance without sex scenes, but there were plenty of those.

I have a couple of complaints though. The book was too long. Especially the ending that took place after the climax was unnecessary, as it was basically a long filler scene that took several chapters. There’s only so much a reader is willing to learn about the mechanics of horse breeding. And then the reconciliation was handled hastily and was basically a sex scene and not much else despite the issues the couple had. There was nothing romantic or emotional about it. It was followed by a change in the point of view, which gave the conclusion to secondary characters. I found it highly unsatisfying, and it marred my enjoyment of the book.

I would also have liked the author to do a better work with introducing the characters from the first book. Eva had complicated family relations that I presume were handled in the previous book (and some in an earlier series even). They had some bearing in this one, yet the reader was left completely in the dark about who they were and why they mattered for this story. Not everyone read all the books in a series, so a few words here and there would’ve gone a long way to help the reader to understand some plot twists that relied on those relationships.

Nevertheless, I liked the book. It stands out in the mass of historical romances, which isn’t easy to pull off. I’ll be reading the next one too.