Thank you to Random House-Ballantine for my advance electronic copy via NetGalley. My opinions are my own.

Margaret--Maggie--is trapped between her love of writing and her need, as the oldest of a family of sisters in Regency England, to marry well to save her family from genteel poverty. Clueless about society's workings--sometimes willfully so--Maggie tries to pursue both while desperately trying to win the love of her unhappy aunts (on whom her family depends financially). It isn't until her cousin's country wedding event of the season that it all comes to a head: the brooding, mercurial editor who rejected her novel seems to be changing his tune about her work (and about her), a scandal erupts around her beloved cousin and his new bride, and violence ensues, making her finally choose between her duty and her dream.

In the true spirit of a Shakespearean comedy, there is joy and there is light and there is also darkness. I wouldn't call this a "retelling" so much as I would say it took inspiration for some key plot points from Much Ado about Nothing. It considers important themes of that era as well as some of today. It was hard to be a woman writer in Regency England (really, it's been hard to be a woman writer for most of history, I think). I like that a love of reading permeated the book and the characters, and that we see several ways in which strained familial relationships can be damaging to all those involved. Plus, there is the open-door romance! In the end, I appreciated that it's about being who you are and being loved for it, even within the realities of the day. I see the possibility of sequels in the works for the sisters and cousins, maybe?

Content warning: dementia, PTSD and mental health, physical and emotional abuse, death of a loved one, violence

Notes to publisher:
Some plot elements didn’t show up in the eARC that I assume will appear in the final version (e.g. a conversation between Lane and Ann about the passionate embrace, but no such conversation or even an opportunity for one took place, as he was refused admittance to her room. There was no way Ann could have known it even happened, as Lane, Maggie, and Bridger were the first ones there).
Also, Bridger Fanny seems to fess up to the mystery woman being her, but then that isn't actually true--maybe I read it wrong, but I was very confused for a while.

Happy pub Day to Much ado about Margaret by Madeleine Roux. This was a fun historical romp loosely based on (surprise!) Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. It wasn’t a straight retelling which kept me on my toes and left room for new characters and different plot lines.
I love a good enemies to lovers storyline! Margaret (Maggie), an aspiring writer, submits her novel for publishing to Dockarty & Co and it is swiftly rejected. (Did they even read it?!) Fast forward to a house party where Maggie realizes one Mr. Bridger Darrow of Dockarty & Co is in attendance. She boldly introduces herself with the hope of giving him her book again but he resoundingly shuts her down. Oof!
From there we dove into lots of shenanigans a la Shakespeare – a good-for-nothing brother, mistaken identity, feigned illness – all while Maggie and Bridger overcame their hatred for eachother and played Sherlock Holmes.
I really liked these main characters – Maggie was plucky, independent, and talented. She was between a rock and hard place – wanting to pursue a career as a novelist but also being expected to make a successful match as the oldest daughter from a poor, fatherless family. It took me a little longer to warm up to Bridger but by the end, I was all in. Lots of great side characters too which is super important to me – they added depth to the novel. Maggie’s sisters Violet and Winny were great comic relief. (I would gladly read ‘their’ books if this ends up being a series.)
Pacing-wise, it was a lovely slow burn. Things kicked into high gear though at two thirds and got steamy which in all honesty, given the pace up until that point, felt a little fast and forced? They went from misunderstanding each other at dinner to the vicar’s spare bedroom within 2 hours. But with that said, they had experienced a traumatic experience together which is often the catalyst for ‘reckless’ behavior <wink wink>. (I say ‘reckless’ because does no one think about how babies are made?!)
Evil Aunt Burton was really terrible. I felt for Maggie – I can only imagine how impossible it was to be a woman living in 1817 with the dream of independence (and little to no agency!) when you were living under the thumb of your horrid Aunt and feeling the responsibility of your sisters and mother.
I was frustrated in the third act but understand why it went that way. The reunion was perfect though – romantic and heartfelt, some groveling and a lovely grand gesture. (You know I love a grand gesture!). The actions Bridger took to prove his love and devotion to Maggie were swoony.
I especially loved the ending. Just two people making their way...
Four stars!

All great romcoms owe a debt to Much Ado About Nothing. Aside from the obvious, Much Ado About Margaret borrows, references, and pays homage to this source in a myriad of ways. Bridger and Margaret (almost actually named Beatrice) make effective avatars for Benedict and Beatrice. He is suitably haughty, and she, suitably opinionated. And the clash of two such characters is suitably entertaining. But no knowledge of Much Ado About Nothing is necessary to enjoy this regency rom com. The story is fun: a marriage, a mystery, and many missteps by multiple characters. It does have me wanting to research a few historical topics though. The one detractor I think for this book, is that I don’t think it needed sex scenes. And the removal of them would not have had an impact on the plot. I’m someone who prefers every episode of a novel advance the plot. But very much enjoyed the read, and would recommend to anyone looking for a fun regency romp.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

I enjoyed reading Much Ado About Margaret by Madeleine Roux. You will fall in love with all the characters. I received an ARC of this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and given freely. Happy Reading!

3.5⭐️ “Much Ado About Margaret” by Madeleine Roux, out today!

It was a pleasure getting the chance to read the ARC of Madeleine’s novel through NetGalley. This was a fun, decently quick read! It gave “Pride & Prejudice” meets “Little Women”, with the FMC Margaret Arden reminding me of a blend of Elizabeth Bennet and Jo March! 💕

This book has you covered with drama, mystery, adventure, romance, and even a few open door scenes! 😉

⛪️ Regency Era Romance
❤️‍🔥 Enemies-to-Lovers
📚 Novelist x Publisher
🌶️ Lil’ spice
🔎 Mystery
🎭 Scandal
🪶 Shakespearean References
📘 Standalone

Much Ado About Margaret by Madeleine Roux was a fun and sweet Regency romance story.
This was such a cute read. I absolutely loved it!
This book was so delightfully charming.

Thank You NetGalley and Random House, Ballantine & Dell for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I haven’t read a book by this author but and was so pleased when I found the characters to be interesting, the dialogue fun, and the story easy to read. Despite Margaret and Bridger’s disastrous first meeting the chemistry was undeniable and their passion for books something that most romance readers share. I loved these characters and rooted for their happiness, especially in light of all the chaos surrounding them.

A pretty typical story about a young woman reliant upon her relatives for survival, Margaret knows her only chance at not marrying an old geezer to pave the way for her younger sisters in society is to sell her novel and make enough money to launch them into society. Despite this story of a woman’s plight being told again and again the love for writing and stories was a refreshing take on this historical novel. What really added originality was the fact that a male publisher saw enough in a woman’s story to stand by her and publish the novel. That might have been a bit of a historical stretch for the time but it made for a great way for this couple to have a bit of conflict and fall in love.

If you’re like me and you like to dip into the historical romance genre as a palate cleanser I think this one will hit the right note for you. Not too serious and not too silly, for me this one was just the right fit.

Dreams and challenges!

Margaret Arden had been encouraged by her father all her life to write.
Now he’s dead, Margaret, her mother, and her sisters are living off the charity of her mother’s sister, Aunt Eliza. There seems to be a strained atmosphere between her aunts and her mother. Margaret plans to save the family through her writing endeavours. She needs to have her novel published
Only when she takes it to a friend of a friend's publisher, Bridger Darrow he scorns her, belittles her, and tosses her out.
Mind you Darrow had been having a bad day. He’s just discovered his brother Pimm has been taking money from the business.
Of course Margaret and Bridger meet again at her friend Lane Richmond’s wedding house party to Ann Graddock. Not happy!
The dour aunts are there too. Margaret is being pressured to marry for wealth like they did. Her mother had married for love. Now look at her! They are threatening to cut off the funds they give to her mother and send them all to a very small cottage in a very far away place! That novel being published has just tripled in importance!
That’s why Margaret’s brought her writings with her. Somehow that precious manuscript is swept out of the window by a malignant wind, assisted somewhat by Aunt Eliza we all suspect. Pages are snatched up by guests including Bridger who now decides he likes what he reads. He wants it! It might just save his business! Good luck!
The wedding celebration becomes a hot pot of family jealousies, spurned ex-loves, misunderstandings, affronts to the aunts and their petty retributions. Indeed the whole scene seethes underneath. True love is trampled upon, fought for, denied and pretty much killed.
A mass of emotions and situations that bloodies all the heroes, both primary and secondary.
A tale of deceit and love, of happiness almost lost.

A Penguin Random House ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

Margaret Arden would love to live as the heroines in her novels. Her idyllic life is fine, but rejections might mean being forced into marriage to improve the family finances. Captain Bridger Darrow is back in England, but struggling to save his family from destitution. His publishing venture isn't successful, but he finds pages of a novel he would love to publish. Unfortunately, he already told off the author. Bridger now must regain Margaret's trust, and sparks begin to fly.

If the title reminds you of Shakespeare, it's deliberate; she shares a birthday with him and there are quotes in front of every chapter. The novel is also written with language more in keeping with the time period than our modern language. Even the opening makes me think of Jane Austen. We see how few options women had in that time period if they're of the genteel class, and how quickly people turn on each other in Society.

Margaret's father had encouraged stories and writing but hadn't been very wealthy. She and her sisters along with her mother had to move in with her Aunt Eliza, who insists she must make an advantageous marriage to support her mother and sisters the way her mother didn't; Eliza and Margaret's other aunt resent Margaret's mother for not doing her duty and leaving them to make the rich but loveless marriage. She's sure of her novel, and that publishing it will support herself and her family, but Eliza won't hear of her going into a trade, and Regency women were generally not allowed to be authors.

Enter Bridger, who is the second son and not that wealthy, especially with an older brother acting badly and squandering the family fortune. They had a bad upbringing and their father essentially has dementia. His older brother comes to a wedding to ask for money; the groom is Bridger's best friend and Margaret's cousin, putting the two back in each other's orbit after the disastrous first meeting, and keeping them there. They work well together and appreciate many of the same things about books, which makes the reader and some of the other characters know its meant to be. They have struggles along the way due to family expectations and the financial considerations, but we get a happily ever after for them in the end.

Margaret is a writer, determined to make an amiable match. One that not only allows her to keep a respectable social standing (so her younger sisters may both find good matches), but provides her and her family with the comfort they are accustomed to. And of course, a quiet country home where she can write would be lovely. Sounds reasonable, right?! So we follow stubborn, naive, Margaret as she forces herself into the path of prospective publisher, Captain Bridger Dryden at a social gathering, with which she has brought her manuscript to. What can go wrong? In true Bridgerton fashion- because this book is CLEARLY capitalizing off the popularity and hype of the show’s most recent season- the arrogant and brooding man is appalled at first, yet somehow becomes enamored. Just the fact that his name is Bridger. *sighs deeply* The two repeatedly meet each other at social gatherings and end up having to solve a mystery, and deal with a lot of other unnecessary drama and side characters that did nothing to enhance the plot, or romance of the book. This one needs less gimmicks and more slow burn. 2.75 ⭐️

Side note- I don’t really understand all the comments comparing this to Pride & Prejudice. Maybe Lizzie coded, at first glance, due to her stubborn nature and agency, but her sheer naivety and the drama she kicked up- way more Marianne Dashwood vibes for me. Plus her mother, and sisters living in modesty but still being gentile. Just sayin’….

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC, in exchange for my unbiased review!

After watching Pride and Prejudice I was in the mood to read a regency era romance. This book did not disappoint. The historical accuracy and the romance were both great and such a fun storyline. I can't wait to read more from this author!

This was a beautifully done historical fiction with a classic enemies to lovers trope. Maggie and Bridger are perfect for each other, and as they get to know each other, the sparks fly, and the drama begins. So many crazy side stories, drama, crazy aunts and a brother you’ll love to hate.

Thank you to the publisher for the invite to read and review Much Ado About Margaret through NetGalley.

I haven’t really read much in the historical romance or regency genre, so I was looking forward to dipping my toes in with this one. And while it was enjoyable enough, it didn’t really pull me in as much as I had hoped. I wanted to love it, but found myself stopping to read something else several times. While I’m sure readers of the genre will love it, it’s just not the right book for me.

Maggie needs to marry for money - or find a way to make enough money to live on. She has her heart set on publishing her book, so she's excited to meet the publisher she recently sent it to. (Also he's really sexy.) But it turns out he DNF'd after the first chapter, and tells her so in front of everyone. A few weeks later they meet again at her cousin's wedding, but this time he's read some more of the book, and apparently it gets way better after that first chapter. He really wants to make some money, too, so now he's got to woo her as a prospective author...

If the book had focused only on this setup, I think it would have worked better. Instead, it got muddled with way more characters and plot elements than required: he's got a mean brother, a jilted former fiancee, and an abusive dad; she's got two mean aunts, two sweet younger sisters, and a ind cousin getting married to her best friend. All of these characters get mixed and matched into compromising situations, and the original plot is all but forgotten.

In addition, all of those characters and the wedding setting make this feel like I was reading the second in a series and had somehow missed the character connections. But I read Madeleine Roux's first Regency, and it was not the setup for this one! (It was also a tighter book in all aspects, meaning that this was even more of a letdown since I expected more.) On the plus side, this was a quick read. I think this might be a good fit for fans of Amalie Howard or Lindsay Lovise.

This objective review is based on a complimentary copy of the novel.

This was disappointing for me. I wanted to love a book with a fun premise like this and a titular Margaret, but the story lacked cohesion and plot propulsion. Characters made decisions that didn't make sense to me and led to more overall plot-action than needed.

Much Ado About Margaret is probably better for a reader who reads less historical romance than me, as it lacked the structure of a histrom novel and in its quest to be different crossed over whimsical and into a lack of chemistry and a book that didn't hold my attention.

This was a well written and entertaining love story. Full of high emotions, improper matches, drama, intrigue, mystery, a shooting, and plot twists that kept me engaged with what would happen next. The characters were delightful, and I enjoyed the witty and humorous banter between them. I highly recommend reading!

"enemies to lovers" and it's a man who thinks women are subhuman and a woman who has the audacity to exist. we, as a society, have evolved past the need for minority x guy who hates minority enemies to lovers relationships. i know hating a man for being misogynist in 1817 is like hating a dog for barking, but come on. seriously, he's so horrible, it makes the fmc look equally misogynist for liking him. i just genuinely despise the reforming rabid misogynists through love romance trope.

and that's not to mention how the two female "antagonists" are portrayed. ruby is a full indian who is portrayed as ugly and jealous of her half white cousins and white ass margaret. like do not write poc if this is how you're going to write us. "she didn't share ann and emilia's forthright beauty. [...]when she spoke, her lips protuded forward, giving the appearance of a bunny nibbling clover." okay?? but if EYE called margaret a lipless rabid orangutan...

meanwhile, regina's only fault that she was previously hurt by the mmc and she tries to warn margaret that he's a shitty person. unfortunately for everyone, margaret is one of those women who are like "i don't care if he abused you, he's nice to me!! 💘💘" margaret, in fact, spends the last fifty pages hating regina for... trying to protect her??? a weird bitch all around.

and finally, the writing itself was headache inducing. the plot was nothing like the blurb—half the book is about ruby's jealousy arc and the other half is about margaret is arguing with herself about whether darrow is an asshole or very secretly a gentleman and whether she should kiss him. very little has to do with margaret's writing career or darrow being a publisher.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced copy.

An enjoyable, muli-genre read, I'd recommend this book for fans of period romances with a mystery to solve.

*I received an advanced reader copy of this book from NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Much Ado About Margaret by Madeleine Roux

Rating: 4.5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Spice: 1/5 🌶️

A huge thank you to Ballantine Books, Dell, Penguin Random House, Netgalley, and Madeleine Roux for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was a fun, lighthearted regency era romance that features a rebellious female writer trying to make a name for herself in the literary world. I loved the progression of the romance between Margaret and Bridger from enemies to friends to lovers as it felt organic. The family issues added a deeper perspective to the story. Overall, this is a great historical romance that readers of regency romance will enjoy.

Roux has done a wonderful job of capturing the vibe of the regency time period. The character development is great and Roux crafts every scene with excellent, descriptive details. The Shakespeare quotes at the start of each chapter were one of my favorite aspects and I loved how they suggested what is to follow in the chapter. All in all, this was an interesting, thoroughly enjoyable read.

Tropes:
- Writer FMC/Publisher MMC
- Enemies to friends to lovers
- Historical romance
- Shakespearean theme
- Scandal/mystery elements

Jane Austen and Shakespeare mash up...

Margaret needs to provide for her family and hoped to do that by selling her manuscript.
She was unceremoniously rejected by Bridger, who only read a few pages.
Now, he is desperate to publish her work, after he finds some pages and finds out she wrote them.
Margaret, you should be wary.
3.5