With a couple of days off work and my willing suspension of disbelief primed, I was ready to embark on the new Tessa Dare historicalish romance. “Historicalish”? It’s because of all the autobuy/truly enjoyable authors out there, Dare is the one who most pushes the credulity envelope* (much like that phrasing). Also, it sounds a little bit like ticklish and Say Yes to the Marquess is very funny, a truly entertaining read, and another romp to add to her catalogue.
I feel like I could lift excerpts of my reviews of several Dare books and plunk them down right here. That is not a criticism as, luckily, Say Yes to the Marquess has all of her most successful elements: Wit, fun, great smolder, a hero convinced of his unworthiness, an immensely capable heroine taking control of her own life, and whimsy. The main characters are well-rounded and the supporting characters interesting, including the heroine’s socially awkward sister who seems to be on what we would call “the spectrum” and they would call eccentric.
Clio has been waiting eight years for her fiance, Piers, to return from diplomatic service on the continent. Still a teenager when she was betrothed, she put up with her mother’s carefully grooming her to become a lovely automaton of a spouse. With her mother gone and left a castle in a will – the Castles Ever After series MacGuffin – Clio is done with waiting. In order to extricate herself from her engagement and get one with an independent life, she must first get Piers’ brother/representative Rafe to sign the papers ending her affianced state.
Shagging and punching his way to notoriety, Rafe Brandon is an aristocratic rake living outside society as a pugilist. He has known and wanted Clio his entire life. Despite this, he feels he owes it to his brother to keep Clio on her way down the aisle. To do so, he decides what she really needs is to get excited about the wedding. Moving in with her and the assorted other colourful supporting characters, Rafe goes out his way to offer flowers, dresses, and cakes to convince Clio marriage to Piers has been worth the wait. One can imagine how that turns out because Say Yes to the Marquess is exactly the delightful kind of escapism Dare excels at.
You can find a complete summary of Tessa Dare’s catalogue, including recommendations, here.
*Tirade Irrelevant to My Review:
I honestly don’t know what the hell is wrong with me and my stunted, chattering, so-called willing suspension of disbelief. I read a delightful, deftly written book and the whole time my brain is voicing quibbles about realism and historical detail even though:
a. I am a pretentious twit to think I am so well-informed as to be the arbiter of such things.
b. It’s a freaking historical romance. Escapism is the point of the genre.
c. A white wedding dress? This is the Regency. Wasn’t that a Victorian convention?
d. Could Clio even own property outright as an unmarried woman?
e. Against the bedpost in the middle of the day? They are less uptight than hippies in a commune!
f. Would it be possible to get ready made items, be they cake or clothing, without lots of advance notice?
g. SEE?! I am insufferable. Who do I think I am? I’m not a history professor. I’m not an expert, I have a smidgen of period knowledge based on one semester of Jane Austen and whatever social history I have gleaned from episodes of Masterpiece Theatre. It’s ridiculous and my brain will not shut up!
Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful which includes the aforementioned observations.
I love your tirade, and totally agree with you about the “against the bedpost” bit. Also the white wedding dress. Although I suspect that if you just threw enough money at it, you could get a lot of things made for you very quickly. There were, after all, a lot more people around willing, eager and able to do all those menial jobs, if you just paid them enough. Besides, it’s an actual story point that it will take quite a bit longer to get her clothes that actually fit after her sister pulls that incredibly bitchy “you’ll have to diet your way into them” move with the first set of dresses.
I forget if I mentioned it in my review, but Clio’s mother – the worst.
Also, squee! Tessa Dare answered several of your niggles by tweet. That’s so awesome. I love her even more now!
One of the things I like about you, Malin and several other reviewers of romance on the CBR, is that you are critical readers. I too walk that line between enjoyment and critical thinking, so I know if it’s something you enjoyed regardless, I have a greater chance of enjoying it too.
Hey guys,
Normally I wouldn’t comment on a review, especially since Tessa and I are friends, but Tessa Dare tagged me on Twitter and this was posed as a “we’re wondering” question, andI happen to know the answer to the unmarried women & property thing, so I thought I’d toss it on.
LONG COMMENT ABOUT WOMEN AND PROPERTY / IGNORE IF YOU AREN’T FEELING DORKY
Unmarried women absolutely could own property throughout essentially most of modern-ish (1700+; I just have never researched much before that, so don’t know the answer) history in England. Unmarried women and men are treated essentially the same for reasons of property ownership (not inheritance, though): They can own property at any age, although it will be managed for them until they are of age, after which it belongs to them, free and clear.
Now, as a practical matter, unmarried women were more likely to have property put in trust for them in anticipation of their marriage (and because those leaving women property were less likely to trust their intellectual ability to handle that property on their own), and they were less likely to have real property (real estate as opposed to cash or horses) given to them outright, because that was usually something passed over to men. So the idea that unmarried women were less likely to own property is grounded in a historical reality that did exist, and did absolutely cut against women.
But unmarried women could own property outright, even though they were far less likely to do so, and once they owned it, they could do exactly the same things that men could do with it.
This all changes once women marry. When women marry, their husband takes on their legal personhood. Essentially, it’s one of the few surviving elements of feudalism in Regency times: the husband is essentially the lord, the wife his vassal, and any harms committed by the wife are attributed to the husband, who has the responsibility to mete out justice to his vassal. This gradually starts coming apart, but as regards property, because the wife no longer has separate legal personhood, the husband is considered the owner of the property.
By the way, there were ways around this even in the darkest ages of marital property: You could transfer all the unmarried woman’s property into a trust, technically held by others, for her “sole and separate use,” she then marries, and the property technically is owned by others in trust but is commanded by her.
IN ANY EVENT, even with the possibility of putting something in trust prior to marriage, this was rife for abuse. Victorian times had story after story of abusive drunkard husbands who would force their wives to work (sometimes as prostitutes) and then take all their earnings, because the earnings belonged to the husband. It made it impossible for women to take care of their families (which mattered to law makers) and also to leave their abusive husbands (which they were a little more conflicted about). So in the late 1800s, there were a series of reforms passed that allowed women to own separate property when married, and gradually most of the lord/vassal stuff has disappeared. (Even today, some of it is still in force to varying degrees–e.g. marital rape exemptions which have not completely disappeared.)
But unmarried women have always been able to own property, where “always” means “at the point where I started looking into it.”
SORRY FOR ALL THE DORK and if you feel this is inappropriate please feel free to delete it.
That was actually a magnificent amount of dork because I have tried to research the topic. Admittedly, it was a cursory effort mostly involving hefting grains of salt to the Wikipedia pages on the property rights of women.
I read exclusively romance and vastly prefer the historical genre because of the extra layer of distance it provides from my everyday world; however, even then, even when I want to escape, my mind insists on asking questions and disrupting the reading experience. It’s frankly annoying. Amazingly, I am even worse on the issue of their clothing. That you and Ms. Dare would take the time to answer questions I posed to poke at my own obnoxiousness is very helpful to me and quite a thrill.
Mrs Julien, I happened across a book a couple of years back ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wedlock-Georgian-BritainS-Worst-Husband-ebook/dp/B002UP1SWW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423153848&sr=1-1&keywords=wedlock ) which has a lot of technical and historical information in it about the legal status of women and marriage and stuff in it, and is a good read. I like my research packaged up in well-written story format, because I am very, very lazy.
Oooh, thank you! I just snapped up a used copy on the US Amazon page. Huzzah for gift cards! I hope it quells rather than emboldens that little voice in my head when I am reading.
Courtney,
We would no sooner delete a comment from you than eat sushi purchased at a gas station. It is LOVELY of you to come visit and share your depth of knowledge with us, who are all pretty much self-avowed dorks. Thank you so much for dropping in to visit our little online book review site. You should know that a great many of are huge fans of yours as evidenced by the wealth of loving reviews of your books to be found here :)
http://cbr.bgwdesigns.com/tag/courtney-milan/
Cheers!
Alexis
That was fascinating! I can’t speak for everyone, but I think most of us here are working towards our dork doctorates.
I actually just squealed aloud to see a Courtney Milan comment here. To the fainting couch!
I confess I had to loosen my stays.
This has made me realize that I somehow don’t follow Mrs. Julien on Twitter yet. Amending this immediately!
I’ve never read any Tessa Dare books, but Malin got me one for the gift exchange last year, so I’m totally diving in sometime in the coming months. I don’t usually have problems with suspending disbelief or dealing with anachronisms, so she sounds like an author will probably very much enjoy.
She is SUCH FUN and she has Lisa Kleypas quality [insert funky bassline here].
I gave you what is probably my favourite Tessa Dare novel of all time. All the books I gave you for the book exchange are books I love so hard. Which means that it would be very nice if you lied, if you end up not liking them. That way we can still be internet friends. If not, we may have a problem.
I don’t THINK we’ll have a problem :) Our tastes are pretty similar. If only you would start liking hard sci-fi!!
I have been telling her that FOR YEARS and she still doesn’t listen. I think she doesn’t believe me or something. This is a shame, because she misses out on all of the Vorkosigan books, and Neal Stephenson, and Walter Jon Williams, and in fact, she’s lying anyway, because she loved Diana Peterfreund and that’s SF. Light, fluffy, fuzzy SF, but it still follows the tropes.
That means you know the tropes, Malin. Suck up the science. Learn to love it.
Yeah, LISTEN TO YOUR FRIENDS, MALIN!!!! Vorkosigan! She would totaly love that!