Cover Image: How to Impress a Marquess

How to Impress a Marquess

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Member Reviews

Guardianship is no easy thing, especially if the chit is young and flighty, and overly influenced by her bohemian cousins. Or so thought George, Lord Marylewick of his unexpected and free spirited ward and step cousin, Lilyth Dahlgren.
Of course after a slow build up he finds he actually can’t live without her
A pleasing Victorian romance

A Sourcebooks ARC via NetGalley

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Great book that I'd read again. Wonderful hero, but I expected the heroine to have a bit more of a spark. I recommend to all historical romance lovers, it's a great book.

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This exercises the trope of guardian falling for ward: a popular one in the genre and one I always enjoy reading as both relinquish their roles and slowly find them shifting as they gravitate toward each other.

I have to admit it took me awhile to truly fall for this book. It may just have been the case of the right book meeting the wrong reader at the time; but I know I will be reading more from Susanna Ives.

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It was my first Susanna Ives novel and probably it will stay the one and only ... didnt really like her style to characterize the female lead.

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I really enjoyed reading this story! You have Lilith living the free spirited artist lifestyle and George living the 'proper' aristocratic life. George is tired of dealing with Lilith's antics and is ready to marry her off and make her someone else's' problem. He didn't count on falling for her himself.

I loved watching Lilith and George really get to know each other. They both had a certain perception of the other that didn't make them really like them. As the two spend more time together, they realize that there is so much more to the other than they knew.

I've really loved Ives Wicked Little Secrets series and I hope that she has more planned.

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As the third book I've read by Ives (and in the same series, no less), I had a good sense of her writing style. Which I quite enjoyed. Both Wicked Little Secrets and Wicked, My Love were highly entertaining with characters that I found relatable despite the genre (often I don't really connect with heroines in romances past the reader-book relationship). So I was a bit disappointed with How to Impress a Marquess as it just didn't quite match the first two in the series with the story, the writing, or the characters.

I think it really began with the characters. Lilith is the "free spirit" who's being stifled by her guardian Lord Marylewick (George). I already saw where the story was headed from that set-up alone which, while I don't mind romances being predictable (I've come to accept that aspect of the genre), I wished there had been more to it, a spin on the idea.

Throughout the book they're constantly at odds but also manage to find they're attracted to each other but don't want to be. But it all began with a moment during one of Lilith's "parties" that George claims to dislike where the two end up in a heated discussion that leads to lusty physical contact. Cue insta-love. No real lead-in to it all, just throwing it at you from the very beginning.

I like the writing style. I did in the first two books and it didn't disappoint on that front with How to Impress a Marquess. But it didn't make up for the fact that I just never felt these two worked well together.

Oh her own, Lilith is an interesting character. A secret author (of a story that George happens to really enjoy), she lives a dual life. Her conversations with her Muse sprinkled throughout were cute but didn't really serve any purpose of plot advancement other than to emphasize that she has this secret life that will likely come back to haunt her in some plot twist down the road. George was all pomp, and all about the rules, but always came off as unnaturally stiff as a character. It felt like he was forced onto the page to be this extreme character (much as Lilith is the polar opposite) so that the two could come together and have this big realization that they balance each other out.

I think this book had a lot going on ultimately but it really didn't go anywhere, if that makes sense. I wanted more of the humor and natural chemistry I felt in the previous books. Instead, I felt that these characters were living through stereotypes and not offering anything new to the world or plot, leaving the romance flat and the story stagnant. I don't think this will turn be off of Ives' books entirely but it was disappointing to follow up the previous installments in this series with this one, which just didn't fit in.

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Stevie‘s review of How to Impress a Marquess (Wicked Little Secrets, Book 3) by Susanna Ives
Historical Romance published by Sourcebooks Casablanca 01 Nov 16

I’m very taken with the humour in Susanna Ives’ historical romances. No one – not least her heroes and heroines – is allowed to take themselves completely seriously for too long. In this story, it’s the hero who initially takes himself Very Seriously Indeed, while the heroine seems to take no one and nothing seriously at all. Appearances can, of course, be deceptive…

Lilith Dahlgren lives with Bohemian artists, who greatly offend the sensibilities of her step-cousin George, Marquess of Marylewick; he also happens to be the trustee to her inheritance and thus the person she has to deal with in order to support herself and the artists: cousins via her mother’s first marriage. When said artists do a flit, leaving Lilith to face their creditors, she is forced to ask George for help yet again. George is a stickler for duty and responsibilities, allotting each task and each dependent family member a set amount of time for his attention, and allowing himself only one indulgence – the popular serial, Colette and the Sultan – little realising that Lilith is the story’s author, or that she has based her villain on her impressions of him.

Having had Lilith foisted upon him, George’s first thought is to marry her off quickly and quietly: preferably to one of the guests at his mother’s upcoming house party. Lilith, however, has other ideas – particularly when she discovers that George’s domineering mother is forcing Lilith’s half-sister to act as her secretary, and is suppressing all the girl’s wilder interests (such as science) in favour of what she considers to be more ladylike pursuits. Meanwhile, George’s sister has fled her awful, abusive husband, and is hoping he won’t turn up at the party.

Arriving at George’s family home, Lilith quickly uncovers a number of family secrets, including George’s long-suppressed artistic talents, and sets out to free each of her relatives – by blood and by marriage – from the strictures imposed on them by the expectations of George’s mother. This obviously leads to conflict and a series of awkward situations, further complicated when George learns the truth about Colette and the Sultan.

I liked Lilith, who for all her wild exterior longs for a normal – though not too regulated – family life, and wants to ensure the happiness of all those around her. This was a fun romp, and I managed to mostly ignore the various anachronisms and inaccuracies for the sake of the humour. I’ll definitely be following this series if it continues, especially if we get to see more from the supporting female characters that we meet in this book.

Grade: B

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