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I am far from the first person to discover that stressful finals period is a great time for reading fluffy romance novels. At the recommendation of everyone and their sister over on my last post about romance novels I got some Courtney Milan out of the library recently and have been reading her trilogy, Unclaimed, Unlocked and Unraveled.
And obviously I enjoyed them all because I read all three, even though I started with the one I liked least!
This is one of those series that is about a set of brothers and every one of them ends up hooked up with someone by the end. Ash is the oldest and the protagonist of Unclaimed; the backstory is that Ash & brothers had a neglected childhood and abusive mother and Ash went off to seek his fortune and came back and found his brothers on the streets and is super guilty about that. According to the book, he went off and made his fortune in India, but since where he went has no actual impact, I have decided that where he actually went is to THE FUTURE, where he absorbed ideas like "class systems are silly and outdated!" and "explicitly enthusiastic consent is great!" Please don't think I'm complaining about this. Ash's Trip To The Future was GREAT.
Ash thinks that his love interest is a servant -- she's not, she actually the sister of his WORST ENEMY in disguise -- so he spends a lot of the book trying to convince her to NOT BE BOUND BY CLASS RULES and LIVE FOR HERSELF and DO WHATEVER THE HELL SHE WANTS. "Damn their bonnets," he says to her, encouragingly, "damn their rules!" (Best line in the book by far. DAMN THEIR BONNETS.)
Sadly, Ash did not learn about dyslexia during his trip to the future, which means he spends a lot of the book having as much angst as possible over the fact that HE SECRETLY CAN'T READ and so he can NEVER WRITE AND TELL HIS EDUCATED BABY BROTHERS HOW MUCH HE LOVES THEM.
Anyway I enjoyed this reasonably well, especially since most of the development at the end is about heroine Margaret finding herself and claiming her value and worth while still figuring out how to maintain relationships with her imperfect family! But I was extra super curious about Unclaimed, which features baby brother Mark, THE MOST FAMOUS VIRGIN IN LONDON. Mark has written a book about the importance of chastity! Now he has a knighthood and a huge horde of fanboys, much to his embarrassment and chagrin, especially since his fanboys are all "GET YE GONE, TEMPTRESS WOMAN" and Mark is like "uh, actually, I wrote the book because of the huge societal double standard around sex and because I thought that dudes should be better to ladies and take responsibility for their actions? . . . anybody?" Again: I appreciated this.
Heroine Jessica is a courtesan who has been hired to seduce Mark and ruin his reputation and most of the book is about her dealing with her Dark Secret and Tragic Backstory. (Mark is like, "I'm not intending to put out before marriage, but talking and flirting and maybe making out is awesome! :D") I wish there had been even more role reversal and exploration of the usual dynamic of experienced-man-inexperienced-woman than there was, but it made up for it at the end when Jessica got to call out the villain to PISTOLS AT DAWN and FIGHT FOR HER OWN HONOR and it rocked.
But the third book, Unraveled, was definitely my favorite. For one thing, it had the most plot. The protagonist, middle brother Smite, is a magistrate with no social skills and no interest in anything but JUSTICE. Heroine Miranda, on the other hand, works for the Patron, mysterious city crime boss!
The Patron stuff is actually really interesting, the examination of justice and responsibility is great; especially great is the fact that Miranda (who is twenty or so) has a sort of adopted twelve-year-old younger brother, and she's like "yeah, when I took him in, I thought, it'll be great! Found family! Warm fuzzies! No one told me that RAISING AN ADOLESCENT BOY IS TERRIFYING. He speaks entirely in monosyllables and I spend all my time freaking out that he's going to kill himself or get himself arrested! AHHHHH!" I LOVED THIS.
Also, loads of sympathetic gay characters; also, Smite's PTSD is interesting and well-handled and not magically cured, nor does he want it to be; also, I like that it is the least sentimental of the books; also, I both like and find hilarious the fact that Miranda is like "I am unfortunately attracted to danger! . . . so I went and found the guy who is intimidating and dangerous TO CRIMINALS! Well played, self. :D" I agree, Miranda; well played.
And obviously I enjoyed them all because I read all three, even though I started with the one I liked least!
This is one of those series that is about a set of brothers and every one of them ends up hooked up with someone by the end. Ash is the oldest and the protagonist of Unclaimed; the backstory is that Ash & brothers had a neglected childhood and abusive mother and Ash went off to seek his fortune and came back and found his brothers on the streets and is super guilty about that. According to the book, he went off and made his fortune in India, but since where he went has no actual impact, I have decided that where he actually went is to THE FUTURE, where he absorbed ideas like "class systems are silly and outdated!" and "explicitly enthusiastic consent is great!" Please don't think I'm complaining about this. Ash's Trip To The Future was GREAT.
Ash thinks that his love interest is a servant -- she's not, she actually the sister of his WORST ENEMY in disguise -- so he spends a lot of the book trying to convince her to NOT BE BOUND BY CLASS RULES and LIVE FOR HERSELF and DO WHATEVER THE HELL SHE WANTS. "Damn their bonnets," he says to her, encouragingly, "damn their rules!" (Best line in the book by far. DAMN THEIR BONNETS.)
Sadly, Ash did not learn about dyslexia during his trip to the future, which means he spends a lot of the book having as much angst as possible over the fact that HE SECRETLY CAN'T READ and so he can NEVER WRITE AND TELL HIS EDUCATED BABY BROTHERS HOW MUCH HE LOVES THEM.
Anyway I enjoyed this reasonably well, especially since most of the development at the end is about heroine Margaret finding herself and claiming her value and worth while still figuring out how to maintain relationships with her imperfect family! But I was extra super curious about Unclaimed, which features baby brother Mark, THE MOST FAMOUS VIRGIN IN LONDON. Mark has written a book about the importance of chastity! Now he has a knighthood and a huge horde of fanboys, much to his embarrassment and chagrin, especially since his fanboys are all "GET YE GONE, TEMPTRESS WOMAN" and Mark is like "uh, actually, I wrote the book because of the huge societal double standard around sex and because I thought that dudes should be better to ladies and take responsibility for their actions? . . . anybody?" Again: I appreciated this.
Heroine Jessica is a courtesan who has been hired to seduce Mark and ruin his reputation and most of the book is about her dealing with her Dark Secret and Tragic Backstory. (Mark is like, "I'm not intending to put out before marriage, but talking and flirting and maybe making out is awesome! :D") I wish there had been even more role reversal and exploration of the usual dynamic of experienced-man-inexperienced-woman than there was, but it made up for it at the end when Jessica got to call out the villain to PISTOLS AT DAWN and FIGHT FOR HER OWN HONOR and it rocked.
But the third book, Unraveled, was definitely my favorite. For one thing, it had the most plot. The protagonist, middle brother Smite, is a magistrate with no social skills and no interest in anything but JUSTICE. Heroine Miranda, on the other hand, works for the Patron, mysterious city crime boss!
The Patron stuff is actually really interesting, the examination of justice and responsibility is great; especially great is the fact that Miranda (who is twenty or so) has a sort of adopted twelve-year-old younger brother, and she's like "yeah, when I took him in, I thought, it'll be great! Found family! Warm fuzzies! No one told me that RAISING AN ADOLESCENT BOY IS TERRIFYING. He speaks entirely in monosyllables and I spend all my time freaking out that he's going to kill himself or get himself arrested! AHHHHH!" I LOVED THIS.
Also, loads of sympathetic gay characters; also, Smite's PTSD is interesting and well-handled and not magically cured, nor does he want it to be; also, I like that it is the least sentimental of the books; also, I both like and find hilarious the fact that Miranda is like "I am unfortunately attracted to danger! . . . so I went and found the guy who is intimidating and dangerous TO CRIMINALS! Well played, self. :D" I agree, Miranda; well played.
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I recommend her short fiction too and most of it is cheap as an ebook. I've yet to read her back catalog but its on my list. One thing I like about Milan's work is they're fast reads but they have depth to them. The night I read a lot of her stuff was when I lost power and went through two of her novellas in a night.
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I haven't read her short fiction... I liked the novella for the current trilogy she's working on (even fewer dukes, yay, but short on plot and character development due to page length). But the Christmas one is a guy who tries to purchase his crush object for a night, which I couldn't finish due to the premise.
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-- yeah, the Christmas one sounds best avoided for me. I gotta say, I love how careful she is about consent in the books I've read. THANK YOU COURTNEY MILAN.
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But yes. I really want to see what the book would have been without publisher's rules. Even though the ending gets away with more than most of the "fallen women heroine" romances, it's still very focused on restoring the current social order. I liked finding out in book 3 that Mark and Jessica weren't suddenly the toast of society or something.
Oh, I like the novella for the Turner series as well, though the characterization doesn't quite mesh with book one (it stars one of Margaret's friends).
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I also liked that in the later books Margaret, who was raised the most traditionally and has the most to lose socially, gets to make some skeptical faces about everything that's going down, as, you know, she would.
Is that the one about - oh, what's her name, the one that Margaret campaigns at her door?
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Me too! IIRC, I liked almost the entire book, but thought the HEA was a little too tacked-on feeling.
Milan's characters' ideas about class and consent are anachronisms I'd gladly read about.
I haven't read that Christmas story and I didn't really like Proof By Seduction, but I did very much like the sequel, Trial By Desire (despite some of the horse stuff clearly written by someone who's not a horse person).
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Haha, fortunately, I am not a super horse person either! So it looks like I will not know the difference. :D
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Also the problem with devouring all of these in two days is now they are GONE.
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BUT I AM ALSO GLAD you have read and liked these books because if you hadn't I would have made you read them. :P
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But you are probably a more alert watch-lister than I am so you should give me a heads-up if you read anything else excellent by her.
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I also thought that particular ramification of all the possible angst over dyslexia was hilarious.
Smite was my favorite, unsurprisingly.
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Smite was totally my favorite too. I wish more romance heroes had a sentimentality quota! (I would also totally read the book about Richard if she ever writes it.)
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Seriously!
[edit] Apparently she tried and it did not happen.
I agree that Jeremy would have been a terrible person to pair off with Richard, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't still read a novel which paired Richard off with someone else.
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Now I am kind of wishing to read a book that is actually about a romance novel dude traveling to the future and/or some version of the real world and getting his horizons broadened. I feel like this has probably been done, and I may in fact have read one or two stories like it, but most of the ones that come to mind were more about how the modern lady he meets is swept off her feet by his undimmed manliness, so unlike the prissy and caddish men of today!...which is kind of the opposite of why I'd want to read such a story. :/
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. . . okay, I don't have a book rec for you, but if you ever watch korean dramas, there's one called Queen In Hyun's Man that is actually about a noble historical dude gaining the ability to travel to the future, and having his horizons broadened, and learning to appreciate the different cultural mores, and getting super nerdily excited by all the learning and research possibilities available! IT'S GREAT.
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Also, I'm glad that the Ash Turner one was the one you liked the least because it didn't live up to expectations! But I'm looking forward to the Mark Turner one for reasons that should be obvious.
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Yeah, I thought the Ash one was inoffensive but not particularly revolutionary or anything. I look forward to your thoughts on the second one!