When Letitia “Letty” Alsworthy discovers that her older sister, the stunning Mary, is about to elope with her admirer, Lord Geoffrey Pinchingdale-Snipe, she is determined to stop it. Their family is in dire financial straits as it is, the scandal of an elopement would be devastating for them. Unfortunately, Letty finds herself whisked away by the crabby coachman, and in the arms of the besotted Geoffrey before she’s able to stop anything at all. Add to the fact that some of Geoff’s friends conveniently happen to interrupt them in the middle of the passionate embrace, and the Alsworthy’s suddenly have a very different scandal on their hands. Having been caught compromising his intended’s younger sister, Geoffrey has no choice but to marry her, but he’s not going to be gracious or understanding about it. Luckily, the Pink Carnation needs him to go to Ireland to help intercept a French plot, and he leaves Letty at the family estate after the ceremony, with no explanation.
Letty is mortified that she ended up married to her sister’s suitor, but also angry that she’s not been able to explain herself properly. Mary, Geoffrey and quite a large part of polite society thinks that she’s a scheming minx who plotted the whole thing to snare herself a rich and titled husband. Letty didn’t even want to get married, but she’s certainly not going to let her husband abandon her so soon after the wedding. If the gossips knew, the scandal would be all the greater. So she follows him there, pretending to her fellow travellers that she’s a widow. When she arrives in Dublin, she discovers that her husband appears to be very publicly wooing a vacuous and flighty young blonde, with no care for the new wife he left behind in England. Little does she know that the bimbo is in fact an English spy and that she and Geoff are working together to ensnare the elusive French spy, the Black Tulip. Will Letty’s appearance in the midst of their operation ruin everything? Will Geoffrey ever learn the truth about his bride, and forgive her for the terrible mix-up? Will Letty discover that perhaps she prefers Geoff’s dashing cousin or perhaps the coldly elegant Lord Vaughn?
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So it sounds like the historical story is 4-star and the modern tale a 1-star? Or is the historical part a 5-star and it looses a star due to the whiny modern protagonist?
In the case of this book, the historical story is 4 star and the modern part is 1 star. In the next one, which I also just reviewed, the historical part is probably 4.5 (although there is some shenanigans towards the end of the book that makes it more like 4.25) and the modern part is maybe 3. The modern interludes felt a lot less intrusive and I got a lot less of a Bridget Jones at her worst boy-crazy from Eloise in this book, probably because she’d now secured herself a date.
They are fun books. I really like the history sections, because I’m wild about anything to do with spies and The Scarlet Pimpernel was one of my favourite stories growing up.
The modern framing device is one of the things that sets Willig’s books apart from all the other historical romance out there, and I suspect that over the course of the series, you get a sort of zany contemporary chick lit romance out of this bit too. Eloise’s story is just spaced out over a lot more books, and when Willig insists on interrupting my dashing spies who are bantering in drawing rooms or going on daring missions every third or fourth chapter to go back to Eloise who is obsessively checking her phone for messages, it makes me cranky. When Eloise is less exasperating and annoying, the interludes work a lot better.