Suitors and Sabotage is an immensely pleasurable Regency period romp following young Imogene Chively through the trials and tribulations of being wooed by a respectable and kind suitor while inadvertently falling in love with his brother and working to solve the mystery of who among their party may be intending to cause them great harm.

Cindy Antsey’s stories are beautifully written, with fun and flowery language befitting a period novel. Her characters vividly bring to life the etiquette and wit of a way of life from a popularly romanticized period, setting scenes of both great fun and drama, exploring romantic conflict and flirtation at the height of propriety, including exciting moments involving heated looks that elicit more goosebumps than a typical love scene in modern romance novels. Her novels carry the appeal and enjoyment of both a period drama and a modern romance with a writing style which beautifully blends the language and ideals of the old and the new.

I have greatly enjoyed all of Cindy Antsey’s novels as well as all Swoonworthy books I have been fortunate enough to read thus far and I eagerly await my next read by this publisher and by this author.

I highly recommend all of Cindy Antsey’s books and if you too enjoy her novels, I recommend the These Viscous Masks series by Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas (also a Swoonworthy read) and The Beautiful One’s by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (published by Thomas Dunne Books), both of which add a heavy dose of fantasy and magic to this pleasurable period.

Suitors and Sabotage certainly fulfilled my craving for a pleasant regency romance as a light snack does in between meals - while it does not leave you floored and in need of an emotional recovery, this book came to me at the right time when I wanted an easy and lighthearted read (with a touch of scandal).

I really struggled to finish "Suitors and Sabotage." While I typically really enjoy period romance, I didn't enjoy the voice and personality of the protagonist, which made it difficult for me to invest emotionally in the plot developments. Even though I didn't connect with the characters, the story was objectively good. "Suitors and Sabotage" is perfect for fans of Jane Austen and regency romance, but don't go looking for any characters quite as strongly written as Mr. Darcy.

This is my least favorite of Anstey's books, which is why it has 4 stars instead of 5. While I enjoyed it immensely, especially when I could read in one sitting, I felt it dragged on a bit longer than necessary.

I enjoyed the forbidden love aspect so much. I was dying, because I needed the two together and it just wasn't happening fast enough. Of course, they were both adorable and dutybound and I couldn't expect otherwise.

Imogene is smart and a little bit sassy, despite being shy, and she really grows throughout the novel. The end proved just far she had come.

One thing that I noticed was that important conversations were often not seen. We're told Ernest had a good conversation with Imogene, but we never really see it, and so it's hard to truly cheer for him as a suitor (besides, Ben being there and being...Ben).

Overall, I enjoyed this one, and it fits within Anstey's series as another delightful read.

What's worse than a love triangle? A love square. Most of the book only deals with the love square and nothing else. The foursome goes from one place to another together and nothing happens on these many excursions. It was so dull. I have found the author's other works nice fluff but after this I'm starting to second guess my opinion on those.

I was super excited for a new regency YA title but thought this work from Anstey was only ok. I really wanted to see more depth to the characters. Readers of quick cozy period mysteries will be happy though.

This book has such a nice cover and, as a fan of both Jane Austen and mysteries, I was hype to read <i>Suitors and Sabotage</i>. Reading the other reviews here has got me a little disquieted, because most of them are full of praise, and the one word I came away with to describe this book was "trash."

I thought it would be both a mystery, and a Regency social drama type romance. The mystery aspect is barely there at all -- mildly odd things happen occasionally, and no one even acknowledges that there's a mystery up until almost the last chapter, when it is also solved.

The romance aspect was... there? But it didn't make me care about any of the characters, or their romance, even a little. It's like a love triangle/quadrangle thing (ugh) between all four of the main characters, and three of them are POV characters, alternating every so often (ugh). It was hard to invest in any of the four mains, and outside of that the rest of the cast was one-dimensional. There was mutual pining, so I would have thought I could find at least <i>one</i> thing to like, but there just wasn't any tension outside of "I like this guy ok but I LOVE his brother what do I do" type tension, which is just pulpy and unpleasant.

<i>Suitors and Sabotage</i> disappointed me a lot, and I'm sad. It reminded me neither of Jane Austen nor of any good mystery, but rather of something to be read in desperate lack of other reading material and then immediately thrown away and forgotten.

A light easy read, perfect for a cloudy winter day.

As a huge Jane Austen and Regency-era fan this book seemed right up my ally, but unfortunately I was just so incredibly….. <i>bored</i> and uninterested that I decided it just wasn’t worth it when I could be reading something I actually want to read, you know? You feel? You get me?

First off, the characters were kind of, like, boring. And flat. And two-dimensional. And I just didn’t really <i>care</i> about any of them. I want to be able to like my characters, or, at the very least, have them be interesting to read about, but everyone here was cookie cutter and boring and just so,,,,,, I don’t want to say too Regency because this is legit a Regency novel, but they were all characters I have read time and time again in every single Regency-era romance. I thought that this book would have something new in the character department and <b>it just didn’t</b>.

Second, the plot. Uhhhh idk if I should put spoiler warnings but honestly I only made it a quarter of the way through this one so I guess don’t read this paragraph if you don’t want spoilers for <b>anything</b>. <spoiler> The pacing in this novel was jilted and choppy, at least up until what I read. Half of the time I was just sitting there thinking <i>What?? What?</i> because everything was just kind of weird and it didn’t run very smoothly. There’s one part near the beginning where Benjamin is carrying this giant dog (described as “3 and a half stones” which is, like, 50 pounds (and looking back on that, I realize that the dog isn’t truly <i>giant</i> but that would be huge to me, seeing as how I can hardly do one push up without collapsing, and I’m not saying that Benjamin isn’t stronger than me, which he probably is, but 50 pounds is still nothing to call home about)), and then the cast of the novel……. has an entire five to ten minute conversation….. and the dog is never mentioned again…….. and the whole time I’m sitting there thinking <i>???? where is the dog???? Is he okay????</i> and then everyone is like “Oh wait!!! Haha I completely forgot about the dog!! Oops we better take care of that!” and I’m like…… the dog is big and Benjamin is carrying it and it’s pretty injured……. so can someone explain to me how this is plausible?? Lol</spoiler>

Okay, so here’s the deal. I feel weird calling a book I read only one-fourth of out for lack of diversity, but I mean, come on. <b>After the popularity of The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, I never again want to see a historical fiction novel with no diversity. There’s no excuse.</b> POC, lgbt, and disabled people have been around forever, and it annoys me when authors just decide to not include them.

And another thing – one of the secondary character’s names is “Matt,” and, you know, the name Matthew really wasn’t a popular name back in the 19th century. It was popular during the middle ages, and then came back into popularity, seemingly randomly, in 1960, but between those two times, it was rare to see someone named Matthew in a primarily English-speaking country. That kind of annoyed me and every time Matt was mentioned I was just sitting there like

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I also thought that this book would be about Benjamin and Imogene falling in love, but it kind of wasn’t???? I got maybe, like, twenty pages in and Imogene is already full-fledged crushing on Benjamin and I was like where is the slow burn I wanted? Why does insta-love exist?? wtf????

So, honestly, I would probably skip this one. It wasn’t super good as a romance novel, or a historical fiction novel, or a historical romance novel. It took me like four days to get a quarter of the way through. Bleh.

This has got to be the most complicated Anstey novel yet. There's an incredibly complicated situation involving two best friends and two brothers and it is MESSY. However, the interactions between Imogene and Ben were super cute! I wasn't a fan of that ending, but the book was fun overall.

An enjoyable story, but not what I was expecting from the title. It's a sweet, predictable romance, but the espionage aspect wasn't focused on until much later in the story. Overall, an enjoyable read.

Once again I am drawn into Cindy Anstey's Regency world in another stand-alone YA novel, Suitors and Sabotage. Strong character building with friendship, trust, mystery, and potential romance. Characters have problems such as extreme shyness, loss of parent, isolation, anger. But problems are part of life. Anstey shows how our relationships help us overcome our own issues. 4.5* out of 5*
I received eArc from the publisher via NetGgalley in exchange for an honest review.