Book Review

When a Marquess Loves a Woman by Vivienne Lorret

If you like enemies-to-lovers romance, then you probably want to read When a Marquess Loves a Woman. It’s got all my prerequisites for a good Regency romance–loads of sexual tension, a heroine who owns her shit, and epic sass-battles. Also canoodling in libraries. Also a stock market crash. There’s a lot going on in this book.

Maxwell Hardwick and Juliet White, Lady Granworth, didn’t start out as nemeses, and they have a complicated personal history. Max was in love with Juliet during her debut season, but he fully expected his older brother Bram, future Marquess of Engle, to propose to Juliet. Because Bram is a giant douche canoe, instead he proposes to another woman at Juliet’s party, blindsiding her. Seriously, fuck you, dude. Max feels bad and that leads to him kissing Juliet in the library where they get caught.

Max fully intends to do the right thing and the next day he shows up at Juliet’s house with an engagement ring, only to find she’s left town. Instead of him, Juliet marries an old, rich dude, and Max is crushed.

Fast forward five years. Juliet is back in London as said old, rich dude has died. Max has never forgiven Juliet for hurting his tiny, butterfly-wing-fragile man-feelings. In fact, he buys her late parents’ townhome out from under her in a super dick move.

The thing is, Juliet and Max are supposedly bitter enemies, except they spend more time together than most friends, are on a first name basis, and engage in battles of wit that are poorly disguised foreplay. Basically everyone knows that these two dorks are in love except them.

When Max knew Juliet as a younger man, he was besotted with her, in part because of how beautiful she is. Now five years later, his regard for Juliet has deepened. Max avidly follows politics and loves a good debate–Juliet shares similar interests and she’s a worthy sparring partner for him. Juliet challenges Max, and he secretly loves it.

So for Reasons, they decide to wager on who will be the Season’s Original–basically the young dude or dudette named the most desirable by the ton. If Juliet wins, Max has to give her the townhome. If Max wins, Juliet has to move out of London and away from his gossamer-thin baby feelings forever.  The wager means they spend a lot of time out and about during the Season’s festivities promoting their choice–and flirting shamelessly.

The only real way that enemies-to-lovers works is when the hero and heroine are equally matched and are the only people who challenge each other, and When a Marquess Loves a Woman nails that.

Juliet is a remarkably beautiful woman – so much so that her parents basically bet on the match she’d make and got into a shit ton of debt, and thus she married the old, rich dude. He was a real asshole, too. He considered Juliet a piece of living art and valued her for her ability to make other men jealous. He’d make her strip naked so he could admire her, but he never slept with her

Show Spoiler
Virgin Widow Alert! This is not a drill!

and he was open about the fact that once her beauty faded he’d pack her off to the country as she’d no longer have value. Yeah. Fuck that guy, too. Let’s all be happy he died.

Juliet’s sense of self-worth is so tied into her appearance, and is so damaged by the neglect of her parents and the abuse of her late husband, that she struggles to find value in herself. Despite the fact that Max’s “hatred” of Juliet is based on his inability to handle rejection like a goddamned adult, he clearly respects and admires her. Their conversations are an ongoing fencing match, and he values her intelligence and sass. Now a wealthy, beautiful widow, Juliet is used to flowers showing up at her house, but Max sends her gifts that appeal to her sense of humor and interests.

To be honest, the “enemies” thing is pretty thin, especially when Max and Juliet clearly use it to spend time together and especially when everyone around them realizes they are in love. It’s a trope that works well for me, and combined with Juliet finding her agency after a shittastic marriage, it sold the book for me. Sometimes I eye-rolled real hard at Max, but he’s not a lost cause.

When a Marquess Loves a Woman is actually the third book in a series, and since I really enjoyed it, I’m going to go back and read the first two. If you like banter and flirting disguised as fighting, I highly recommend it.

This book is available from:
  • Available at Amazon
  • Order this book from apple books

  • Order this book from Barnes & Noble
  • Order this book from Kobo
  • Order this book from Google Play

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!

When a Marquess Loves a Woman by Vivienne Lorret

View Book Info Page

Add Your Comment →

  1. Mara says:

    At this point, I’ve seen really positive reviews for all three books in this series… methinks it’s time to bite the bullet & dive in. Thanks for the review!!

  2. Gigi says:

    This sounds like it has all the catnip and it’s only 2.99. One click!

  3. Wench says:

    OH MY GOD THE TAGS ON THIS POST

  4. harthad says:

    OK, seriously, we need some more books under the tag “hand jobs in the library.” There can’t be just the one. Come on, Bitchery, I’m counting on the hive mind here!

  5. KLM says:

    Why did I even read this review? I am sworn to reading my backlog and fixing the steady drip of charges from Amazon so we can afford the overseas flight home for christmas!

  6. SeventhWave says:

    Basically everyone knows that these two dorks are in love except them.

    This is totally my catnip!! Thanks – HRs are absolutely my comfort food and recs are so welcomed right now.

  7. Usha says:

    Oh all right. I will get it. I am in a big romance reading slump but it’s never matched with the “not buying” slump. I will add it to the pile.

  8. Meg says:

    You reminded me I needed to buy the second book in the series as well and oops, I think my mouse just slipped and purchased the rest of the series. Bad mouse. I suppose I have no choice but to spend my weekend reading now.

  9. Francesca says:

    I dislike the current trend of what I call the sassy Regency, but I know it’s simply a matter of my personal taste. I have read several by authors universally loved here – two were meh for me, one was a DNF and one I actively disliked.

    The reason why I’m commenting here is because I was thinking how grateful I am to be part of a community where we respect one another’s tastes and likes and I will not be flamed or abused for my opinions. I don’t live in the U.S., but as one of your nearest neighbours, I have to be affected by what goes on and recent events have made respect and kindness even more precious and rare.

  10. Sandra says:

    So if the hero is the titular Marquess, what happened to the douche canoe older brother?

  11. Monique says:

    Gosh, I love your reviews! Thanks for another great one!

  12. SusanE says:

    @Sandra, the hero and his half brother had different fathers and they both happened to inherit titles of the same rank.

  13. mel burns says:

    I’m with Francesca on the subject of the “Sassy Regency”, but my library has them so I’ll check them out (pun not intended). 🙂

  14. Betsydub says:

    This IS the third book in Vivienne Lorret’s
    series; however “The Season’s Original” series kicks off with the novella “The Duke’s Christmas Wish” in last year’s “All I Want For Christmas Is A Duke” collection**.
    I’d recommend reading the four parts of Lorret’s series in order, so you know who the other players are (and because all of the stories are very entertaining; plus Max and Juliet’s UST just keeps ratcheting up with each story).
    So: 1) The Duke’s Christmas Wish novella
    2) The Debutante Is Mine book
    3) This Earl Is On Fire book
    4) When A Marquess… book
    Currently all four come out to $11 on BN.com.
    ** The other three stories are by Ashlyn Macnamara, Tiffany Clare and Valerie Bowman. If that doesn’t make you clickety-click…

  15. Best. Review. Ever. Thank you, Elyse, for making me laugh so hard that I cried! You’ve inspired me to make the title of my next book “handjobs in the library.” 😉

  16. Sharon says:

    Great review, added it to my Goodreads want to read list, sounds like a spunky Regency, my kind!!

  17. LauraL says:

    Library canoodling, oh my. My wish list just grew by one. I’ve been reading my way through the Wallflower Wedding series and enjoying the dialogue in those books.

  18. Julie says:

    I’m late to this party, but just have to share that I gigglesnorted loudly at work when I saw the title, This Earl is on Fire. Excellent! I’ll take one of those with a side of Alicia Keys, please.

  19. bunbury says:

    Wanted to love this one but was a DNF for me- I thought the writing kept trying too hard to be sassy and it would pull me out of the moment

Add Your Comment

Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

↑ Back to Top