To Have and To Hoax

Finished February 15

To Have and To Hoax by Martha Waters

This Regency romance is the first in a series called The Regency Vows. I've read others in the series and enjoyed them: To Marry and To Meddle (#3) and To Swoon and to Spar (#4). The series is set around a group of young upperclass adults in Regency England, many titled. 

Here, we have Lady Violet Grey, who married Lord James Audley five years earlier, and we see how they met and came to marry in the early part of this novel. Their first year together was passionate and tumultuous as they fought and made up multiple times, but when a secret about how they met is exposed, the fight became a rupture, and the two have not been intimate since. 

One of the issues was a gift that James' father made to him upon his marriage of a country estate that is also a centre for horse breeding. James was determined to make a success of it, and he claimed it was for Violet, but she worried constantly about the risks he took riding untrained horses and about the time he spent on paperwork. She sees that he is trying to prove to his father that he runs the estate better than his father did. 

Now, she is having tea with two of her good friends when she gets an urgent message from one of her husband's friends (a man who is also the brother of one of her friends) telling her that James has fallen from a horse and is unconscious and possibly badly injured. Violet immediately takes action, taking her carriage out to the estate, but she meets her husband, much recovered, and his friends on their way back to London and is infuriated that she wasn't sent an updated message. 

James hadn't realized that a message had been sent, and his friend had forgotten, but the damage is done, and Violet is determined to get revenge. She decides to fake an illness, but she must find someone willing to act as a doctor to back her up, and things start to get very messy. 

Violet and James have a mutual attraction that has not gone away, and both have remained loyal to each other despite their emotional distancing. As each realizes what the other knows about Violet's plan, they do interact more and fight more, but the also notice the attraction. Instead of talking to each other about the reasons for their estrangement, they each take further action, until talking becomes very necessary. 

A fun read. 

To Marry and To Meddle

Finished May 3

To Marry and To Meddle by Martha Waters

I enjoyed the fourth book in this series, To Swoon and To Spar, and decided to go back and read some of the earlier ones. This is the third in the series. 

Lady Emily Turner has had six seasons as a debutante. She's very pretty and would be expected to have married by now, but her father has had a quiet word with any man that showed interest and thereafter he has not come by again. She has been regularly escorted to functions by Mr. Cartham, the American owner of the gambling houses her father has been in debt to, and has managed through her cautious behaviour and good manners to have a pristine reputation despite that. 

As the story opens she has been able to escape her mother's oversight and gone to a country house with her married friends under the chaperonage of Lady Willingham. Lord Julian Belfry, second son of a marquess has gone his own way for years, and owns a theatre with a questionable reputation. It is the type of theatre that is quite popular, but not one that gentlemen take their wives to. Julian has set his sights on making his theatre more reputable and has come up with the idea of marrying Emily to use her society connections to attract better clientele. This plan will benefit Emily from removing her from her parents' control, allowing her more freedom and let her no longer have to associate with the questionable Mr. Cartham. Unlike Emily's previous potential suitors, Julian has his own contacts in that world and enough wealth to deal with Lord Turner's debts. He has the even better idea to use his contacts to get a special license and thus marry Emily during the stay at the country house, thus presenting her parents with a fait accompli. 

Emily is totally on board with this and the marriage takes place early in the book. The plot then follows how they deal with their families, society as a whole, and Julian's theatre plans. Besides the characters from the previous books in the series, and some of the ones from book four, we also see some of the theatre characters, including actresses, playwrights, and the French theatre manager and his family. 

I enjoyed this one just as much as the fourth book, and loved Emily and her female friends who encourage her in many ways. 

A great read.   

To Swoon and to Spar

Finished February 20

To Swoon and to Spar by Martha Waters

This historical romance novel is the fourth in the Regency Vows series, set around the same group of young aristocrats and upper class people living in the early 19th century. This book is the first that I've read in the series, and I was struck by the witty tone of the novel. It had me smiling often, and occasionally laughing aloud. 

The book opens with a tense scene with the two main characters looking for the source of a suspiciously ghost-like series of noises and then jumps back to a few months earlier. 

This book's male lead is Penvale, a viscount who has dreamed of regaining his family's ancestral home in Cornwall, Trethwick Abbey, ever since it was sold at his father's death. Penvale's paternal uncle bought it at the time, but the brothers were estranged and Penvale and his younger sister Diana were farmed out to family on their mother's side until they came of age. 

Penvale became a viscount as a child at the age of ten, and had grown up at Trethwick Abbey, and thus the dream of regaining the home had become a driving force for him. Since he'd moved to London to take his seat as a Lord after finishing at Oxford, Penvale has been investing the money he has won at the gaming table to rebuild his finances, hoping to convince his uncle to sell Trethwick Abbey back to him. As we discover, his uncle has approached him unexpectedly to sell the home to him, on one condition. That condition is that he marry his uncle's ward, Jane Spencer, a refined but untitled young woman of twenty-one. Penvale insists on meeting her first to ascertain that she isn't being coerced into this arrangement, but as we see from the prologue, wastes no time in going through with the marriage. 

Part of this story is told from Jane's point of view as we see how she has had a hand in bringing the opening circumstances about. Jane is not interested in a husband, but she loves the home, and enjoys the extensive library there. She sets in motion a plan to drive Penvale away through various happenings that indicate the house is haunted. But Penvale isn't that easy to scare away, and he instead tries to determine the cause of these odd events. 

As the two main characters spend time together at Trethwick Abbey as newlyweds, they begin to get to know each other slowly. Penvale spends a great deal of time getting to know the details of the estate, its finances, and his tenants and servants. Jane gradually ventures beyond the grounds of the Abbey and gets to know the wider community. I enjoyed watching them getting to know each other's secrets and quirks, and find themselves increasingly drawn to each other's company. I also appreciated Jane's enjoyment and curiosity when it came to reading. 

This is not your typical Regency romance, and I liked seeing how they defied the stereotypes and revealed some surprising pastimes. The writing is unexpected yet somehow perfect. The romance has underlying sexual tension and several surprising moments. If you like historical romance with believable characters and a bit of spice this series is for you.