LynneC’s review of In the Arms of a Marquess (Rogues of the Sea, Book 3) by Katharine Ashe
Historical Romance published by Avon 30 Aug 11

If you buy the book on the basis of the title, the blurb (such as it is) or the cover, you’ll be sadly disappointed. The story is darker, more ambitious and, in my opinion, an honorable failure, but there is nothing lighthearted about it. The story is crammed with plot, sometimes difficult to follow, with some nonsequitors that left me scratching my head, but a likeable central couple who deserve more page space to explore their relationship. Too much plot, too little romance.

Octavia Pierce arrives in India to stay with her uncle and meets a half-Indian boy who rescues her from a man threatening to kidnap her. So from the start I was expecting things to be a bit off-kilter. This is an obviously respectable girl, and her captors thought they’d get away with it? Hardly. I have to confess, I wasn’t engaged by Octavia and I couldn’t understand why Ben fell so hard, so fast for her. She changes with the plot, sometimes silly, sometimes very wise, and since I’m not fond of monkeys, her pet capuchin made me shiver a bit. Ick. Nasty monkey hands tangling in your hair. But others adore them, so I pretended the monkey is a different kind of creature. My own problem, nobody else’s.

Ben is similarly a bit of this and a bit of that. He’s described as powerful and hugely, hugely rich, and yet he’s deceived by someone the average reader will spot in half a minute. He’s supposed to be ruthless, and yet he has a heart as soft as a sponge, and demonstrates it most of the time. He’s handsome, “dusky,” “exotic,” yet he has no trace of foreignness about him, although he doesn’t try to hide his origins. The promise of him being much more powerful than anyone can ever understand is never borne out by his actions or his behavior.

If Ashe had left out some of the plot and taken more time to let the relationship between Ben and Octavia develop, it would have been a better book and a far better romance. If derring-do is what you’re looking for, then you’ll find it here, though don’t expect logic to work all the way through. But then, as a lover of Russell Thorndyke’s Doctor Syn books, I don’t always expect that. But it makes the romance a bit frustrating. “Darling! Come to bed and roger me senseless!” (knock on the door). “Oh wait, I have to go and do some plot!” – repeat a bit, and then let them stay together. Perhaps my recent reads of Harlequins, where the plot is far less important than the romance, has spoiled me. Octavia and Ben fell in love in the years the story leaves out, and you only get to read it in a flashback, so I do feel cheated on the romance side.

I wasn’t sure about the beginning, because the story immediately jumps into England seven years later, when Octavia is now twenty-five. There are lots of mysterious allusions to the past, and when she meets Ben again, he is a marquess and seems fully integrated into society, although in some parts it says he is not accepted in certain circles. If there’s one thing sure about British society and its nature, it’s that money talks, and the point is reiterated that Ben is a very rich man. Since his father was married to his Indian mother, there would be little reason for him to be rejected by his peers. And he doesn’t seem debauched enough to be rejected, either. Odd. But meh, it could happen, so I just accepted it.

The research is odd. Patchy. At times, descriptions and details, like the details of the Indian market or the descriptions of ships in the docks is accurate and well described, but at others it seems strangely lacking, such as the title errors (I’m a bit Lady Bracknell on that one. One might seem accidental, but two or more looks like carelessness – my humble apologies to Oscar Wilde). Language is a bit careless, too. Americanisms like “block” for street, or “we’re through” instead of “it’s over” or “we’re finished” or “sidewalk” for pavement are scattered through the book. A British reader would have cleared those up in no time. And the thought of a glass of cold tea makes any self-respecting Brit, or Indian for that matter, shudder in horror.

And a mansion in London with its own ballroom? By this period there were only two or three left, and one of those was derelict and another donated to an art institute. Nobody wanted the massive houses in town anymore, and hadn’t since the seventeenth century. References to “orangeat” which should have been “orgeat,” a particularly alcoholic cordial ladies were fond of, and other slips keep cropping up to tug me out of the story. There are other subtler indications that the writer is nearly there but not quite, such as giving her titled characters the same surname and title. There are very few of those, and that’s for a reason intimately wound up with the British psyche and social origins. That’s why I sometimes pick on what some call trivia. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding that then doesn’t deliver a realistic story of British life and mores. (Surnames were personal, derived from occupation, nickname and the like. Titles were a place, either the place of origin or the name of the estate that went with the title. So the title and the aristocrat weren’t the same as the person holding them – with the exception of the Spencers, but that’s where it gets more complicated).

Outside the romance, the plot has holes miles wide and fails to understand the nature of the burgeoning British Empire. Not surprising, since it was complex and fluid, but there is a basic misunderstanding of the nature of the British presence in India (read Flashman for a better picture!), when the British and the grandees, be they emirs or sultans, colluded to wrest all the value they could out of the ordinary citizen, using any weapons they thought expedient. However, the central mystery, when you finally discover it, is preposterous and unbelievable – about as believable as mail-order brides in the Old West looking at their fate as being sold into white slavery. It just didn’t make sense.

This is a story where the writer seems to detest the British aristocracy and all that it stands for, although the hero is a marquess. I think the story would have been stronger had the hero not been an aristocrat. It would have delineated the character better, if he’d been a wealthy nabob. I could see a great story depicting the struggle between the old world and the new, industrialized, middle class one that was just coming in, but making Ben a marquess put paid to that. I wonder if her editors imposed the marquisate on her?

The end, the final showdown, is badly done. Without spoilers, our hero confronts the villain, who is holding a pistol, then the villain explains everything in the style of the Evil Overlord, then he drops the pistol and they have a fight. Very cliché, and I want more. The whole conclusion is full of the melodrama. And, this being a Regency, there are no mustaches to twirl, which is a bit of a shame. And a cop-out or a loophole for more books in the series, I’m not sure. I wasn’t engaged enough by it either to chase her backlist or want more.

Ashe’s style is lovely, her prose smooth and the love scenes are gorgeous. At those times I could believe in the romance between the couple, but it seem incidental to a lot of the story. I wish Ashe had concentrated more on the characters and less on the plot.

Grade: C-

Summary:

She had never forgotten him…

Miss Octavia Pierce is witty, well off, and shockingly unwed. Still, she is far too successful in society to remain on the shelf forever, and her family has hopes that Octavia will finally make the perfect match. What they do not know is that years earlier Octavia was scandalously tempted by the one man capable of sweeping her off her feet—the man now known as the Marquess of Doreé.

A third son, never meant to inherit, Lord Ben Doreé has abandoned his past and grown accustomed to his illustrious new position of wealth and power. But he has never forgotten Octavia, and now she desperately needs his help in a most dangerous, clandestine matter. Although she claims she has put the memories of the passion they shared behind her, Ben is determined to once again have her in his arms—and in his bed.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series: