This book is about a woman trapped in a loveless engagement who joins forces with a mysterious man bent on vengeance against her fiancé in this lively tale of intrigue, revenge, and romance.

What would you propose?
Clemency Fry has always been certain that marriage is a ludicrous arrangement—a notion she has believed ever since reading a scandalous feminist treatise as a girl. But her outlook on romance suddenly changes after meeting the handsome Lord Boyle. With promises of a different sort of union, one with mutual respect and financial security for her family, Clemency is won over, but when the wedding is set and the plans are in motion, Lord Boyle turns cold and dismissive. Clemency fears the worst has come to fruition; she had been right all along about affairs of the heart. She has fallen into the one trap she swore she never would.
Then Audric Ferrand comes to town seeking revenge against Lord Boyle on behalf of his sister, who also fell for his charm and wealth. Audric sees Clemency’s predicament as the opportunity he needs. He suggests they join forces, a proposition that is risky and outrageous, and could possibly lead to the destruction of both their reputations. Falling in love was never in the bargain, but the season has just begun—and romance is surely in the air.
I liked this book. I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley. This in no way affects my opinion of this book which I read and reviewed voluntarily.

Different type of story. Slow moving at first but then picked up the pace and you will love it! Good character development, too!

The writing style was a bit hard for me to adjust to. After awhile, I got into the rhythm of it and it was ok.
All in all, a ok read but not a particular favorite of mine.
Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this book for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Clemency Fry finds herself betrothed to Lord Boyle. He pursued her relentlessly but now seems to dismiss her. Enter Audric Ferrand who comes to town to prove that Boyle is a fraud. Audric sister was misused and abandoned years ago by Boyle and he wants to ruin the man. He convinces Clemency of the truth and come up with a convoluted plot that she will continue to prepare for marriage until the moment they can expose him. That all sounds well and good but the plotting isn’t fun. The author does bring extras like visiting a Molly house or a sister that may have a relationship with another woman (all handled vaguely). But it isn’t enough make the book compelling.

Even after all the plotting the comeuppance comes at the hands of another person and the main characters aren’t there for the moment. This is a very slow burn romance taking till the 96% point before there is acknowledgment of feelings. I read a lot of historical romances but this misses the mark on a several levels. The writing makes the story feel much longer than the number of pages in the book. There is never real courtship between the main characters just plotting. And I was very disappointed that how the ending plays out. I don’t expect everything to go as planned but the heroine should have a real part in exposing Boyle. The ending is very rushed and finishes up everything in a few pages. And I’m not sure I got all my questions answered.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. (2.5 stars)

Take a step back in time to the Regency era with this romance tale of the state of being a woman in those times.
The heroine is convinced that the arranged marriage that has been brokered for her is not going to happen. Then a mystery man comes into her life. The book drags for the first half but then takes off as the plot thickens. Deception is afoot. My thanks to the author and NetGalley for a complimentary copy.

This story was not a favorite of mine.
Spoiler alerts ahead,
There were many things that I did not like or were confused about in this story. The story opens when the heroine is staring at her husband-to-be, and hating him. The chapter is a long and involved thesis about how the heroine found a book in a shed, and since she loves to read, took the book, or what is left of it, home. The heroine cleaned years of mouse turds, mud and muck from the book and found it was written by a young lady in her village that does not support love or marriage. The heroine found this book at an impressionable age and decided she never wanted to get married. And she informed her parents of this. But she has a dowry and needs to have a season. The author was a supporter of Mary Wollonscroft, was trying to get rights for woman and the heroine picked up on all of her ideas and was not a supporter of men or marriage. It was such a long chapter. We do eventually find out how she was tricked into marriage and does get around to meeting her hero but that all seems secondary to the heroine's feelings of womans rights, free thinking, and that marriage is bad.
I did not like the characters in this book. There was no feeling or emotions coming from them. The heroine would discuss in her head and dither about, and not make any decision until the chance to make the decision passed. And this happens often. The characters spend so much time talking to each and never saying anything. It was very off putting. And in addition to the main couple, there are about 5 other secondary story lines and the ending feel contrived and not happy ever after. I was so happy that they married because that meant the book was nearing the end. I give it one star because it is a book with little grammatical errors. I would not suggest reading this unless you are a fan of wordy and proxy books like this.

It took me a little to get into the writing style of this book. I did end up liking the story in the end though. The wanted to know how it would turned out for the characters kept me going.
I was not a fan of the footnotes and didn’t think they added to the story.

3.5 stars

In her Acknowledgments, Madeleine Roux discusses her inspiration for The Proposition, stating that her love for Austen combined with the stress of the pandemic led her to create this story as a means of escaping into a simpler times. The Austen influence, along with more modern historical romance conventions, are constantly colliding throughout this book to varying levels of success.

The concept has a lot of potential that is somewhat hindered in the first half of the novel by some inconsistent characterization and slow pacing. Once we hit the 50 percent mark, things do keep up immensely and I found myself enjoying the read a lot more. In the end, The Proposition turned out to be a decent read that took far too long to sell me on the love story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dell for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Enjoyers of regency-era romance, Jane Austen, or the Bridgerton series will enjoy this. The Proposition alternates between the points-of-view of Clemency Fry, a young woman who has sworn never to fall in love or get married, but who has been duped into a match by a true villain, Mr. Turner Boyle. The other point-of-view is Audric Ferrand, a wealthy gentleman who arrives in Clemency's small village seeking vengeance on one Mr. Boyle, vowing to destroy him. To that end, Audric makes "the proposition" to Clemency, that they team up, and together take him down.

I enjoyed the prose in this book, and it was well-written. The voice brought me back to the feeling of reading Jane Austen when I was younger. Of course, there is romance in this book, and I loved Audric and Clemency's dynamic, well-rounded characters, but I also enjoyed that there was a lot of capital-d Drama...the gossip, the scandal, the machinations behind closed doors. Overall, this was a fun and easy read and would be a good book to pull someone out of a reading slump.

There were parts of this historical romance that I really enjoyed, and it started off strong for me. The storyline involved the marrying for money/title trope, the lying, scheming villain trope and a revenge trope.

But somewhere midway it just began to go off the rails, and even the characters didn’t seem to be staying “in character”. There were also several times that I questioned whether a social action/comment would have taken place in this time period. And I found myself feeling that the romance was too sudden and overwrought for the time elapsed. So even with a promising beginning, the balance did not live up to my hopes.

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine for providing the free early arc of The Proposition for review. The opinions are strictly my own.

England - 1819

Miss Clemency Fry has, for most of her young life, abhorred the thought of marriage. After reading Miss Bethany Taylor's anti-marriage essay, Clemency is determined to be free of the shackles of wedding a man who, because of current laws, controls a woman's life forever. But then she meets the handsome baron, Taylor Boyle, who woos her, promises to aid her family's financial woes, and Clemency realizes that she's in love. Shortly after agreeing to marry him, however, Boyle cools towards her, although the wedding is still on. What is wrong? Has Clemency made a mistake in agreeing to wed Boyle?

Audric Ferrand is in England with his sister, Delphine. But this is a visit of revenge for Audric, revenge for his sister's hurts, and revenge for other women who have suffered at the hands of cruel men. The man who destroyed his sister's reputation is Taylor Boyle, and Audric hopes to enlist the help of the man's latest conquest, Clemency Fry, to bring down the villain. But Clemency isn't as easy to convince as Audric hoped, so he must find a way to open her eyes to the man she is to marry.

Although Clemency has her doubts about the gloomy Mr. Ferrand, she is beginning to doubt her betrothed even more. There is something not quite right about Boyle, his friends, and his demeanor towards her. Audric has to work hard to convince Clemency of Boyle's evil background. But will their mutual proposition to discover what the cad is up to work?

THE PROPOSITION is a story of not only revenge, but enlightenment, especially for Clemency, but also for Audric. The intense desire of Audric to wreak havoc on Taylor Boyle disturbs his sister, who just wants to be happy, and move on. For Clemency, family secrets are exposed, and being engaged to an obvious scoundrel seems like the end of the world for her. Can Boyle's evil be revealed to London Society on time? And how will that affect Clemency and Audric?

A very different premise, and lead characters that are bolstered by secondary ones. THE PROPOSITION is an excellent read.

Clemency is due to wed an imposter and all around villain despite her determination never to wed when a new man offers her a proposition to bring the fraud down. It is a tangled web on all sides and progress results in set backs for their mutual plan. All is never as it seems. Despite failures along the way, all goes right in the end. This is an engrossing story, well plotted, with amusing ghostly comments footnoting along the path to the HEA. The characters are well drawn, the plot elements sing with realistic detail, and you will root for the heroes while hoping for the villain’s ultimate comeuppance. Recommend.

I was not prepared for the twist and turns in this book. It felt like all spy thriller with a tiny dash of historic romance thrown in. I couldn't read this book book fast enough. I read more about Clemency, Audric and their families quite happily.

The Proposition gives off Bridgerton vibes. Talking about society functions and the main character Clemency doesn't really believe in marriage. She found some old newspapers she read growing up that had very specific thoughts on marriage. Yet she is engaged to be married to Lord Boyle. A new person comes to town and attempts to tell Clemency her betrothed is no who he says he is and asks for her help. The books has plenty of adventure and twists and turns I did not expect. I thought it was well written and worth the read.

"The Proposition" by Madeleine Roux
Regency Intrigue
This was a good story that for some reason I just did not truly connect with any of the characters. I liked the characters, well the ones one is supposed to like, and the story kept me turning the pages. But my emotions did not get engaged. There were a couple of very surprising twists. Happy Reading ! !
NOTE: I received an ARC of this story from the publisher via NetGalley
This review expresses my honest opinion

The Proposition was an interesting story. I liked the plot and character development. I had a hard time with the writing and language. It was very dense and wordy and seemed to drag on in multiple places. Clemency and Audric were likable characters but I just didn’t really feel a spark. It’s very clear that a lot of effort went into this story! I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving a free copy.

I mostly liked this novel, only faulting the author for the way in which the denouement occurred. While I was glad the "Baron" got his just desserts, I would have liked more accountability on his part. Also, the subplot between Philomene and Ralston was very underdeveloped. I did like the two main characters, Clemency and Ferrante and the way each impacted the other, but felt a richer novel with more development, especially toward the end, would have been a better read.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for this ARC in exchange for my fair and honest review.

Rating: 3 Stars
Publication Date: August 2, 2022
Number of Pages: 336

"The Proposition” is a first time read by Madeleine Roux, new author to this reader. The story started out very well where we meet Clemency Fry who has been deemed unattainable where marriage is concerned but it is not until she lets down her guard and have true emotions for Lord Boyle and a betrothal is made. Lord Boyle believes he has gained an avenue of wealth from the Fry family until tragic happens and their finances are depleted. Knowing this, he starts to treat Clemency with difference and is now standoffish where she is concerned.

Audric Ferrand is determined to revenge his sister’s pain and heartache that was caused by Lord Boyle when he had an affair that left her with child as a very young woman. Upon arriving to London, he makes it his purpose to run paths with Clemency to disclose partial truths about her betrothed and gain her assistance with taking her own revenge against him and the way he is treating her and her family circumstances.

I loved this story up until a little over half the book. It started to drag a bit and the author tried to rush putting a lot of lose ends together for the plot twists and turns uncovered in the story. Unfortunately, I started to skip quite a few pages just to get close to the ending to know the outcome. Enjoyable but slow in parts. Clemency and Audric are likeable characters.

Clemency Fry has always been of the opinion that marriage for women was a bad arrangement. Intending to be a spinster, she suddenly meets Lord Boyle. Through his efforts to court her, she falls in love and plans to marry. However complications arise and suddenly she is on a path to change the planned course of her engagement. The plot twists and turns after she meets Audric Ferrand. Together they develop a risky proposal which could ruin both of their reputations.

I had read Roux's Asylum series back when it came out and this is a significant departure. This had an interesting premise as well as a couple of twists I didn't see coming. Though I did predict much of it. I do have to say that I loved the footnotes through out Clemency's scenes. They gave me a chuckle...this kind of second narrator. The author is a little long on her descriptions for me. For example, there is a scene where characters are talking, Clemency might go into a long description of the setting or the other character's clothing and by the time we return to the conversation I have completely forgotten what they were discussing. Overall the story was good and I liked the characters (though I was not a fan of many of the character's names).