Unveiled Mass Market Paperback – January 25, 2011

Let me begin by saying that this is the first romance novel I've ever found inspiring. I seriously think it raised my own self esteem a few points. The mantra of the book, said first by the hero and repeated over and over again in the heroine's mind is, "You are important. You matter." I know some might find it a little anti-feminist that the heroine needs a man to tell her that she matters, but it was the 19th century, and I can't imagine most women were used to hearing such words from anyone. In any case, I've been using the mantra for myself lately, and it seriously gives me a boost! Thanks, Courtney Milan!So, back to this beautiful, wonderful, inspiring book. I'm not one to write rave reviews about romance novels unless I feel the book really deserves it. This one does, undeniably. The writing is incredible, better than any romance novel I've read in a long time. The descriptions are wonderful, and Ms. Milan does an awesome job of staying away from cliches, both in love scenes and just in general. It was a pleasure to read, literally...very smooth and effortless. I was never jolted out of the flow of the story by an odd word or historical inaccuracy, which made it very hard to put down! Publishers Weekly notes above the whole historical blunder about the unlikelihood of Parliament legitimizing Margaret and her brothers, but it honestly doesn't affect the story at all.Not only is this book beautifully written, but it has a lot of heart. The emotions feel real and believable, and the characters, both primary and secondary, are masterfully constructed. They feel like real people, with real vulnerabilities and real problems. I truly cared about the hero and heroine, and I have a feeling that they will stick with me, unlike the majority of romance novel H/h pairs which seem to fade into obscurity pretty soon after I've finished the book. Out of all the romance novels I've ever read, there have only been two couples whose names I always remember: Jessica Trent/Dain (from Loretta Chase's Lord of Scoundrels) and Georgina Maitland/Harry Pye (from Elizabeth Hoyt's The Leopard Prince). I know for sure that Ash and Margaret will be added to that list.Here is why this book is my new favorite romance novel:1. The hero, Ash Turner, is a genuinely good guy. I don't often feel this way about romance novel heroes. Although Ash begins the book a lot like any other hero, flirting outrageously with the heroine, as the novel progresses you realize that he actually does have a deep respect for women. He never pushes himself on Margaret, and instead of aggressively seducing her, he gives her the chance to come to him. While he's got the whole tortured thing going on, he still manages to be a pretty decent guy. Still, he has plenty of believable flaws.2. The heroine, Anna Margaret Dalrymple, is one of the few heroines I've read lately that didn't annoy me to tears. In fact, she never once annoyed me. The decisions she makes are realistic and justifiable, and she actually has a very good reason to dislike the hero in the beginning. She also has a very good reason not to marry him at first, unlike the typical "I can't marry him because he hasn't told me he loves me yet!" excuse that seems to be so popular in historical romance. She's strong and smart, never silly or whiny. And while she does let men have a lot of control over her decisions at the beginning, she takes total control of her future at the end.3. The secondary characters are great, even Margaret's hateful father, who managed to make me laugh even when he was being evil. Ash's brothers are more interesting than Margaret's, but this is presumably because they (Ash's brothers) will eventually feature in their own novels. I do wish that there had been more women besides Margaret, who doesn't seem to have any strong female relationships (except for with her mother, who's dead). But all of the peripheral characters, even the ones who only appeared in one scene, were fun to read about, yet also seemed like real people rather than caricatures.4. As others have said, the relationship between Ash and Margaret is sweet and tender, and I totally believed in their love for each other. They actually have conversations and spend time together beyond just sex. Milan builds their relationship in a believable way, and I felt that Ash and Margaret connected on a emotional level as well as on a sexual one.Speaking of sexual, my one complaint about this book is that the sexual tension wasn't as good as it could have been. Not that it was bad, but many times when the characters started going at it I felt like it was sort of abrupt. There wasn't that usual rising tension that you normally find in romance novels. I never really got that "Would you guys just do it already?!" feeling. This didn't make the book any less awesome, but I think it could have been that much better had Milan worked harder at creating sexual tension between the H/h. That's not to say there wasn't any, because there definitely was! But there could have been more.Also, a lot of the love scenes would start out really great, but would end way sooner than I wanted them to. It was as if (in some scenes, not all) Milan started off feeling sexy, then got shy and brought things to a conclusion as fast as possible. Maybe it's because the love scenes in most romance novels I've read lately are so similar and generic that I often skip or skim them. Since Milan's were so wonderful and ungeneric, I was ready for them to go on longer! But really, those are the only complaints I can make about this book, and they're only very tiny ones.Next time someone I know bad-mouths romance, I cannot wait to hand them this book. The writing and story are on an equal level with mainstream fiction, and I truly enjoyed every minute. If you are a fan of historical romance, definitely, definitely, definitely buy this book!

Courtney Milan is easily, far and away, my favorite author of historical romance. She has a graduate degree in theoretical physical chemistry from UC Berkeley and graduated summa cum laude from law school at the University of Michigan, and after clerking for important judges and teaching law for awhile, she now spends her time writing the smartest, beautifully-plotted, emotionally-rich, gorgeously-written historical romance I've ever read. I live in wait for her books, and in between new releases, I re-read what she's written before. This week, I re-read Unveiled for the third time, and if you've never read it, get it and put it right at the top of your TBR pile right now.Unveiled is the first book of the Turner trilogy, which tell the stories of the Turner brothers, three brilliant men who have risen from modest beginnings to the top of Victorian English society despite a tortured childhood. After the death of their father, their pious-to-the-point-of-insanity mother gave everything the family had to the Church, leaving herself and her four children with nothing. When the only daughter, Hope, became sickened after a rat bite, the oldest child, Ash, walked twenty miles in order to beg the Duke of Parford (a distant relation) for enough money to hire a doctor to treat her. Parford only gave him a coin with which to buy himself a bath, the sister died, and Ash grew up determined to avenge this injustice.When Unveiled begins, Ash is on the cusp of accomplishing that revenge. He has discovered that Parford secretly married his mistress before he married the mother of his children. By unveiling (note this word: it's the book title for a reason) the duke's bigamy, Ash has had that second marriage nullified, Parford's children declared bastards and stripped of their inheritance, and himself installed as heir-apparent to the ailing duke. Parford's grown children, the Dalrymples, will lose everything unless they can convince Parliament to pass a rare act re-legitimizing them and restoring their inheritance.Ash and his youngest brother, Mark, go to Parford Manor to examine the estate. Ash believes that the Dalrymples are not in residence, but in fact the duke's daughter, Margaret, is posing as a lowly servant in order to keep an eye on the Turners and report back to her absent brothers.At its core, this is a book about the layers of loyalty (and disloyalty), trust (and mistrust), and love (and enmity) that make up relationships and the way these layers obscure the characters' ability to see one another and, sometimes, themselves. Over and over again, characters mistake one another. Ash mistakes Margaret for a servant because she masquerades as a servant, but many of the mistakes are not as straight-forward. For example, Ash's brothers don't understand him because they are men of learning while Ash is a man of instinct and charisma; they don't realize that Ash doesn't mean to be dismissive of their intellectual pursuits, but being dyslexic, he can't read Mark's book or share Smite's study of the law. In another instance, Ash is stung (and Margaret is offended on his behalf), when Smite comes to Parford Manor and seems to snub Ash, but it turns out that, though he and Ash can't show each other their true feelings, Smite is motivated by love and concern for Ash rather than malice.Although Ash and Margaret are set up as antagonists (in that Ash's success is literally Margaret's ruin), they bond because they are the same: both fiercely loyal to and devoted to their families, even though that devotion isn't requited (or in Ash's case, doesn't appear to be requited). Margaret's father is cruelly dismissive of her; her brothers are, at best, benignly inattentive to her situation, and at worst, cravenly unconcerned. Similarly, everything Ash does is motivated by love for his brothers, but Mark and Smite lived through childhood tragedies while Ash was in India (making a fortune in order to save them from poverty) and share a love of learning, and the two younger brothers share a bond that, intentionally or not, sets Ash forever apart.Ultimately, it is this sense of being outsiders to all others that allows Ash and Margaret to come together when all rational thought should keep them apart: they each crave acceptance and find it, not with their families, but with each other.

This is my first book by Courtney Milan and I found the relationship between Margaret and Ash achingly sweet. It is that the hero is different from the usual. Ash has a disability that we learn about fairly early. It's a vulnerability that he deals with in his own way but isn't aggressive in the usual way of romantic heroes. Ash loves his brothers and that affection and loyalty is clear and it is natural that his feelings for Margaret are expressed as easily.I also came to love Margaret who is similar to Ash and you cannot help but to cheer them on, even though you do wonder how she could support her rather vapid brothers. Others have outlined plot in more detail but I was charmed by this book. The humour was subtle, I believed the sweet romance but it did not set the world on fire for me. It lacked something preventing it from becoming a truly great romantic story. Still I am looking forward to trying another by Ms. Milan

I really cannot fault Courtney Milan. In all her novels I have read so far she has consistently delivered an engaging read with believable characters, and stories with just that little extra twist to them that turns them into a breath of fresh air in the romance genre.This novel had Mills & Boon plastered all over it. To me that normally means that you get an entertaining few hours which won't blow you away, and which will give you a few moments of mild annoyance because the characters don't talk to each other when they would clearly resolve all their differences by doing so. Once you finish reading it you stick it in the pile of books to give to your friends to read, or to a charity shop, because they're not books to read more than once. When you consider that standard, this book stood head and shoulders above that.The book has some of the standard romance tropes. Our hero, Ash Turner, takes one look at our heroine, Margaret Dalrymple, and decides that she will be his. Except then you find out that this is how Ash works. He has an instinct for things, a way of knowing that this is what he needs to do right now, because it will bring him profit. It has taken him from his impoverished origins to his current status as successful businessman. He is also a distant relative of the Duke of Parford, a man who once refused the help Ash required to save his sick sister, and ever since then Ash has sworn revenge on the callous man who condemned his sister to die.This revenge is made easy by the fact that the Duke has married twice, and never bothered to have the first marriage annulled. Ash exposes this fact, thereby instantly demoting Parford's three children to bastards. As the only remaining relative the Dukedom will revert to him, provided that Parliament does not decide to pass a bill to legitimise Parford's children. One of those children, Parford's daughter Margaret, has remained behind on the estate in the disguise of a servant so she can spy on Ash and discover incriminating evidence that will harm his case before the Lords.It is an intriguing premise, and sets an intricate backdrop for the developing attraction between Ash and Margaret. Ash is a complicated man, driven by his instincts and a burning desire to give his two brothers the best possible life, even if his brothers don't appear to be too bothered about it. He also loathes Parford and his sons, and never stops to think what bastardy will mean to young men who are used to the luxuries of nobility.Margaret, in turn, is determined to hate the usurper, but finds herself unable to resist his relentless ability to be liked. She is also torn between loyalty to her brothers and her growing realisation that Ash would probably be a better Duke than her eldest brother will be. Not just that; Ash treats her like she matters, when from her father she gets nothing but contempt, and from her brothers little more than absentminded affection.The motivations of these characters are utterly believable, and the resolution is nothing short of perfect. An absolute gem of a romance which will not disappoint.

Enjoyed this very much. Ash is a great hero and I *adored* the way his difficulty dealing with print was shown as something that shamed him but was simultaneously only part of the incredible person he was.

I loved the story, the characters were well drawn and the storyline was interesting. Will definitely put it in my favourites and enjoy reading it again.

Great book