Review: The Wicked Marquis

The Wicked Marquis by Mary Lancaster
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Wicked Marquis is the fifth book in Mary Lancaster’s Blackhaven Brides series, but it works perfectly fine as a standalone novel. I read it without having read any of the prior books, and although it was clear where nods were being made to the prior books, my lack of knowledge of the other stories did not influence my reading of this book in any way.

As a fan of historical romance, I’m always willing to give new authors a try considering how small my reading pool for the genre is. For reasons unknown, I tend to stick to the same authors in this genre and do not branch out in the same way I do in other genres. Thus, when the chance came about to try a new-to-me author in the genre, I was happy to dive in. With how much the synopsis of The Wicked Marquis intrigued me, I was more than willing to dive into this one.

As a whole, I did enjoy this book. It was something different compared to the norm in the genre, and I enjoyed the experience of something unexpected. However, despite enjoying the different feel of this book, I was not as invested in it as I would have liked to be. I was able to put this book aside, disappearing to do other things, when usually historical romance reads are guilty pleasure books that have me completing them in a single sitting (or, if I’m busy, two sittings).

I believe the reason I was not as invested in this one as I would have liked to be was because of the characters. The storyline was interesting and I enjoyed the way the characters played into the storyline, but I never really came to care about them all that much. I was waiting for that deep connect, for the obsession to kick in, but they were merely players to tell the story. If I had enjoyed the characters more, I’m sure this would have been a four-star read for me.

Overall, I enjoyed the different atmosphere of this novel but I wasn’t quite won over by the characters.

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