Once Upon a Marquess (Worth Saga Book 1)

I was in the mood for a “sure thing” this weekend. No, not that John Cusack movie from the 80s, but a book that I knew I would like even though I’ve never read it before. I have a list of go-to-authors for just such an occasion. Courtney Milan is one of them.The characters in Once Upon a Marquess are certainly memorable. If you're familiar with Asperger’s, every one of these characters is somewhere on the spectrum – with the possible exception of the heroine who’s just trying to hold it together and her younger brother who, while not an “aspie,” just doesn’t fit in. These peculiarities also make her characters endearing, real, and occasionally more than a tad bit annoying but in a good way. (Reminds me of a certain child of mine.)The writing is tight and most of the storyline believable, or at least well within the range that “suspension of disbelief” covers. The era is Victorian, not something I’m deeply familiar with, but it felt believable. There was slightly more swearing than you’d find in a traditional romance from another era, but this may be indicative of the Victorians. They always seemed to have a bit of a dark streak, to me. The heroine’s habit of “swearing on water foul” is particularly ingenious, and I’m thinking of acquiring the habit myself!I wasn’t sure where to put the heat level, precisely. There’s a great deal of chemistry between the hero and heroine, some kissing, but only one love scene fairly late in the book. If you’re looking for smutty (I wasn’t), this isn’t it. If you’re demanding chastity (I wasn’t), this isn’t that either. But if you’re in the mood for a romantic love story that leaves you sighing at the end, this one is just right.I already have book 2, After the Wedding, queued up in my TBR pile.

Before I start my review, I want to say that Courtney Milan is an auto-buy for me. I've read every single one of her books and she is a wonderful, gifted, talented author who manages to stand out in what is a highly populated and competitive field. With that said, the current book is not going to be my favorite, but nor is it a book to be missed. Here's why.Once Upon a Marquess suffers from one main disadvantage, which is, it is a novel that introduces a long-term new series. In addition to the main couple and their story, Courtney had to introduce a gaggle of characters who will headline the future books (7 total, I believe). She also has to set up a chain of events that will develop in the future installments. This is no easy task, and it makes the book a bit cumbersome and takes the focus away from the main couple. Because of this, our hero and heroine are drawn with less complexity than most other characters in Courtney Milan's books. However, I'm using Ms. Milan's own standards here, which are very, very high. In addition to carrying the burden of the rest of the series, the book includes some comedic elements, such as prolonged jokey conversations involving imaginary swans, and excessive numbers of cats, which I thought fell a tad flat and went on for much longer than necessary. Again, these are just my personal preferences; Ms. Milan's humor is usually lovely and sparkling, but in this book some of it came across as a bit too labored.I also must confess to not loving some of the characters (SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH). The character of Theresa was such an ungrateful brat that it made it difficult to tolerate her at times. Other characters, such as the mysterious missing brother, simply infuriated me. The heroine is left to carry the burden and responsibility for her younger siblings without the benefit of full information, choices, or help. Crucial information is concealed from her in the most high-handed manner by someone who is the cause of all her problems in the first place - and the justification for it had me scream "bulls***!" at my Kindle. In essence, this person betrayed her twice, and acted most selfishly in the guise of acting for the greater good. Both heroine and hero had to carry the burden of other people's choices for a very long time, and the unfairness of that made me very angry on their behalf. Let's just say that the future books will need to make a very strong case for some of these characters to enable me personally to like them despite their behavior here.(END OF SPOILERS). Despite these quibbles, let's get real here: this is Courtney Milan. Her prose is lovely, her characterizations are great, and overall, the emotional core of the story is there (even if most of the characters act stupidly A LOT of the time). I look forward to the new installments in this series, hopefully with return to more focused form now that the introductions are out of the way. And if you're new to Ms. Milan's work, then run don't walk to the Kindle store and get all of her work post-haste. I bet that like me, you'll become a fan for life.

3.5 starsIf I had to sum this book up in one word - that word would be ODD.I find that I am having a very hard time reviewing this book. Usually, I LOVE Ms. Milan's work - but this book just left me baffled. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it - I can't even say if I liked it or disliked it. I don't know if it was the humor (most of which I found totally ridiculous) or if it was the subject matter or something else entirely. I tore through this book and stayed up way too late finishing it. I literally couldn't put it down.What I liked about the book:I liked Christian and I liked Judith. I understood that they shared a past, I understood why he did what he did and I understand why Judith would hate him for it. Theirs was a no win situation. Either he could have her or he could be true to himself. She could have either had him or her family - there was no possible way for them to be together without losing something vital in the process. Ms. Milan was able to take a seemingly impossible situation and make it possible. She did a fabulous job of portraying Judith's pain and despair. She also did a good job explaining Christian.What I didn't like:The book just felt choppy to me. Parts where very vague and other parts were overdone. Some of the humor in the book was just annoying - the banter between Judith and Christian at times bordered on stupid. Some of it was amusing - but I personally found the majority of it ridiculous.While I wouldn't reread this book, I am not sorry I read it. I will most definitely be reading the rest of the series. I will say that this book will stay with me for a long time and there was a line in the book that I will never forget - "Not everything hurts" - this for me was a WOW moment in the book and made the entire book worth the time I spent reading it.

Imagine this. You’ve had a great fall in position in life. How would you cope with that? Would you use humour to deal with the vagaries of life? How would that humour manifest itself? Well, if you are living in the 19th century it probably wouldn’t be joking about homosexual birds of the avian variety. However in the 21st century it could and is funny and endearing. So as a novel genre this is a new one for me and I liked it. Some of my besties are homosexual birds of the avian variety.Now this is not the main storyline. That is the usual one of boy meets old girlfriend etc etc. attended by difficult relatives, cats and kittens, poverty and a bit of a mystery or two. I can recommend this book to those who can have a laugh about the idiosyncrasies of life but like a historic setting with the consequent extreme poverty and extreme wealth which sadly seems to be reoccurring. Enjoy!

I loved this book. I'll admit I generally enjoy Courtney Milan's books, to the point where she's the only historical romance author I've ever followed to her contemporary stuff as well, but this one is up there with The Duchess War and The Countess Conspiracy among her best for me. I am *also* a sucker for second-chance romances, putting this one right in my wheelhouse - and ugh, the intensity of (past and present) feeling between Judith and Christian just poured off the page and into me. I really enjoyed both lead characters and didn't have a preference for which character to spend time with (well, except that Judith's home life was much more entertaining) and I truly felt they deserved their happy ending by the time they get there.I have had this book for a few months now and have already re-read it multiple times - it's a keeper.

I love Courtney Milan. Love her characterisation, descriptions and the way she draws you into the story. Love her.Given the above paragraph, it breaks my heart that I have to give her 3 stars .I could not warm to the hero or heroine, there was a sense of them just floating along as if they knew they would be together at some point. The major 'revalation' in the book was not much of a surprise.It just felt like a stepping stone to the other stories in the series.Everyone can have an off book and for any other author this would be classed as a great book, from Courtney Milan it's unfortunately a bit of a miss (although she is still leaps and bounds ahead of the majority of other authors, and way better than I would ever be at writing)This book will not put me off reading the other books in the series, as I have said I love Courtney Milan's writing and she is very much an auto buy for me.

I am a huge Courtney Milan fan but I nearly gave up on this one. I just didn't find it engaging. The story was too busy , there was too much focus on what were obviously sign posts to follow up stories that distracted from what should have been the focus of this story, I got no clear impression of what the main characters look like and I'm one of those people who like to feel I might be able to describe the H and H both in terms of their personality and looks. I read that Ms Milan found this book very difficult to write and rewrote it a few times- someone was just trying to tell her to tear it up and start on a new idea. I am going to download a sample of the next one rather than automatically pre ordering.

The premise of the story holds great promise, but this evaporates as it continues. There is too much repetition in the book, with the hero and heroine constantly repeating to themselves their positions and beliefs to the extent that the reader has to believe that these are set in stone. Most readers will work out the 'twist' fairly early on and this is handled well when it's revealed. I was disappointed, however, that the denouement required one of the lead characters to undergo a complete change of character.I have enjoyed every other book by Courtney Milan that I've read, but I'm not tempted to continue with this series.