Wickedly Ever After : All About Romance

Wickedly Ever After

Grade : B-

Sometimes, it helps not to take books (romance or otherwise) too seriously. Despite a host of problems I closed Wickedly Ever After with a smile on my face, and that counts for a lot. But that is not to say that the book doesn’t have its problems.

If 80% of historicals have mediocre set-ups and 10% have credible or original ones, this book falls into the 10% that have mega-idiot plots. (Well, that’s how I divide them.) After catching her fiance doing the dirty with a courtesan five minutes after proposing to her, Athena McAlister decides the reason older, unmarried ladies (like her) can’t get married is that they don’t have the sexual know-how (like her) to retain their fiances and husbands. So she opens a ladies’ finishing school that will include the usual lessons about deportment et cetera, as well as chaperoned lectures about love and sex. Then one day a really hot gentleman blows in the front door, and Athena assumes he’s there to fill the position of naked male model for her art/anatomy classes.

Really Hot Gentleman is actually Captain Marshall Hawkesworth, newly minted Marquess of Warridge (which rhymes with porridge, and cracks me up every single time). He’s at the school to see what his sister has been learning in this den of iniquity that caused her fiance to run away, and decides to volunteer as both art model and substitute teacher for the kissing lectures. (The usual guy had a cold.) But the headmistress is just too, too attractive, and Marshall finds himself defending Athena against a scurrilous reporter while she sorts out her feelings for him.

Part of the problem is there is just too bloody much. There are two secondary love stories as well as many plot threads that, admittedly, weave together quite well. But you know those super-ugly woven rugs at roadside craft stalls? Even though there is a pattern to them, and even though the colors work, you get cross-eyed just looking at them, and really wish the artisan had just done checkers. That’s Wickedly Ever After. It also happens to be a Pleasure Emporium novel, which refers to the ex-brothel that gets a new reincarnation each book, sexing up the story along the way. Frankly, if that’s not contrived, I’m a broiled banana.

The good news is Ms. Marcos does keep track of everything, and even the secondary couples are suitable, if underwritten, foils to the primary couple. Athena takes some getting used to, being pricklier than a sea urchin, and there were moments when I wanted to drop her in a pond. But she has been believably hurt and never holds on to her prejudices for long, and she is largely sympathetic – it’s a close shave, though. Marshall is a nice hero, a naval officer who’s happier at sea than on land but whose recent inheritance forces him to readjust his priorities and perspectives. Together they’re a fun couple, and Ms. Marcos’ prose is light and snappy, albeit hugely anachronistic (see above), with the occasional eye-roller (see above). But it’s funny! I was smirking (in a good way), and laughing, and smiling by the end. That’s always a good sign.

I think this author has a lot of potential, and I deliberated long and hard about the grade before settling on a qualified – very qualified – recommendation of Wickedly Ever After. If Ms. Marcos eliminated the ridiculous contrivances she’d be on her way to writing far, far better historical romance.

Reviewed by Enya Young

Grade : B-

Book type : European Historical Romance | Historical Romance

Sensuality : Hot

Review Date : July 10, 2009

Published On : 2009

Enya Young

I'm a teacher who's been fortunate to live in a few places; currently I'm in England. And if you give me a choice between savoury and sweet, I'll go for savoury every time.

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