Something Fabulous

I gave up on this novel after realising that I found every character annoying and irritating and the plot twists repetitive and therefore failed to drive the narrative. But most of all, I neither liked nor cared about any of the characters, - the twins had no redeeming features whatsoever and I just wanted it to be over. I tried my hardest, honestly, but it was utterly charmless and the whole thing deeply, deeply frustrating and ultimately dismally disappointing. Every now and then it was so obviously over the top and knowingly absurd - which worked very well but in that case I think Alexis Hall should have made it clearer that absurdity was the intention and so decided whether it was to be either a sly regency-pastiche or a rollicking romp - one or the other, but together they didn't mix well and so missed the mark. Perhaps if there had been one, likeable, character who pointed this out and brought the reader with them it might have worked?

***3.75 Stars*** Overall, This book was ok, I didn’t absolutely love the characters and the overall story is an interesting regency take on a gay man and a demi sexual duke. I think what made me not love this book was the language used. The writing is fine, but so flowery and while I generally love some good regency error banter I found the excessiveness of this hard to follow sometimes. Between flowery euphemisms and characters that were not exactly likeable I did struggle to get through certain parts of this book. The whole story is medium paced and starts with duke proposing to Miss Tarlington. She then flees that night not wanting to marry and her twin brother enlists the duke on an adventure to find her. All in all, the story had its funny moments but for the most part it was mostly meh to me. Cover Definitely eye catching. I love the Mix of the current cartoonish trend with your usual historical romance vibes. Recommendation There are not a ton of LGBTQIA historical romance books out there to my knowledge and this book was not bad. It just didn’t suit me. With that said if you enjoy overly flowery regency era language, and want a little something different then your normal duke meets women and falls in love then I would recommend this book to you.

Lovely, beautifully-written, hysterically funny, and occasionally incredibly unrealistic in the manner of the genre: things happen as best suits the plot, and it doesn't matter how likely they are, because it makes a good story. The supporting characters were a delight. Also contains some stunningly good descriptions of what it can be like to be demisexual (grey-ace? other aspec?), which alone almost tempts me to bump it back up to five stars. However, the main conflict unfortunately did not work at all for me. Arabella both relentlessly causes problems and has a very good reason for doing so. She is an untitled, orphaned, impoverished woman trying to avoid marriage to a duke, and Valentine is so completely unaware of his own privileges and so regularly misuses them in his ignorance that her desperation makes sense. Neither angle of this is ignored in the book itself, but it still made it difficult for me to fully sympathize with either of them. (Valentine's poor behavior isn't limited to Arabella; I love a good repressed nobleman but although this one is clearly unhappy and in a lot of emotional distress he deals a fair bit of collateral damage, including to Bonny. It's not as if I've never lashed out in hurt/confusion myself, but I'm not proud of that tendency in myself and I don't blame Arabella or a potential reader for objecting to it in Valentine.) SPOILER for the style the HEA takes: The possibility of a lavender marriage for Valentine (who is after all the Duke of Malvern) is raised and rejected, though the avoidance is justified well. This is here less to review and more to let other readers who have strong opinions on the matter know.

I preordered this, that's how big an Alexis Hall fan I am. And then I read the first chapter and was totally disengaged and put it away for months. Finally, after thanksgiving, I needed a break and pulled it out again. If it wasn't be Alexis Hall I would never have finished it. While Bonny was all that was sweet and frantic and brightly gay, Bella was just awful and actually wanted to create mayhem and maybe even murder. Her behavior was so out of bounds, I started questioning Bonny and his perceptions of the world, he was so on his twin's side (and frankly, Peggy made no sense either, being far too pragmatic to fall for Bella's machinations) So the main driver of the plot was a fail for me. Then I had problems with Valentine who was way too unaware for a man of his age, but I gave him a pass because it had a fairy tale quality that kind of worked. I liked Val and Bonny together and actually liked the last few scenes where Bonny refused not to be the hero of his own life story, but I didn't especially like the journey to get there and was more repulsed by Bella as time went on. She was not a worthy heroine, or even a worthy tragic victim. She came across as bi polar and hysterical and just plain mean. That entire duel scene did not work for me at all! So mixed results for me. If you haven't read Alexis Hall previously, don't start here. Go to Husband Material. That was excellent!