{"id":5681,"date":"2024-10-14T11:30:43","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T11:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/?p=5681"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:30:43","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T11:30:43","slug":"review-promised-to-a-marquess-by-patricia-lyn-bradt-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/2024\/10\/14\/review-promised-to-a-marquess-by-patricia-lyn-bradt-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Promised to a Marquess by Patricia Lyn Bradt (2021)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\"\"This is the first of a series of novellas, but they\u2019re so interconnected, with the same set of characters running throughout, that I\u2019m going to review the series as a whole. Suffice to say that I practically inhaled these over a long weekend of travelling – they are near-perfect bite-sized Regencies. Here are the five books:<\/p>\n

Book 1: Promised to a Marquess: He may have found his perfect match. If only she weren’t promised to his best friend.<\/p>\n

Book 2: A Widow for the Marquess: She has no desire for another husband. He is hiding from his responsibility to find a wife. What will it take to change each other\u2019s minds?<\/p>\n

Book 3: The Pretended Debutante: He believes her shallow. She finds him staid. What if they are both wrong?<\/p>\n

Book 4: A Betrothal of Convenience: The betrothal is pretend. But what of their feelings?<\/p>\n

Book 5: The Rules of a Gentleman: She\u2019s known him her entire life. But how well does she really know him?<\/p>\n

A novella is an interesting length for a book. It\u2019s long enough for some proper character development, but also short enough that the reader doesn\u2019t get bogged down in vast arrays of characters and subplots. It\u2019s all quite straightforward – a falling-in-love (or realising-in-love) build-up, a major obstacle of some kind, and then the resolution and romantic denouement. The romances were all lovely, and although the obstacles were not all totally convincing, I could go with the flow to get to those wonderful, emotional endings. The side characters were (mostly) delightful people, and very helpful to our struggling couples. There was a villain or two, suitably villainous, and although I prefer a bit more nuance in both good and bad characters, in a story of this length, there\u2019s not a lot of room for subtlety. And for those who like epilogues, you\u2019re in luck here.<\/p>\n

I thoroughly enjoyed all five stories, so why only four stars, not five? I\u2019m sorry to say the sheer weight of Americanisms wore me down in the end. Sidewalk, go do something, write someone, fall, visit with, passed\u2026 there were so many of them. And silly typos, too, like manor instead of manner, rain instead of rein, and so on. The Americanisms might be intentional, perhaps, because some authors do prefer to aim for an American audience, but a final proofread should have caught the typos. Such a shame, because it\u2019s clear that the author has done a lot of research on the Regency, and the books are well-written otherwise, and sex-free. I recommend them to anyone who doesn\u2019t mind these things as much as I do. Four stars.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first of a series of novellas, but they\u2019re so interconnected, with the same set of characters running throughout, that I\u2019m going to review the series as a whole. Suffice to say that I practically inhaled these over a long weekend of travelling – they are near-perfect bite-sized Regencies. Here are the five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[269],"class_list":["post-5681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-bradt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5685,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5681\/revisions\/5685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}