This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by Mina Lobo. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Best First Book, Inspirational Romance category.
The summary:
Lady Miranda Hawthorne acts every inch the lady, but inside she longs to be bold and carefree. Approaching spinsterhood in the eyes of society, she pours her innermost feelings out not in a diary but in letters to her brother’s old school friend, the Duke of Marshington. Since she’s never actually met the man she has no intention of ever sending the letters and is mortified when her brother’s mysterious new valet, Marlow, mistakenly mails one of the letters to the unsuspecting duke.
Shockingly, this breach of etiquette results in a reply from the duke that soon leads to a lively correspondence. Insecurity about her previous lack of suitors soon becomes confusion as Miranda finds herself equally intrigued by Marlow, a man she has come to depend upon but whose behavior grows more suspicious by the day. As the secret goings-on at her family’s estate come to light, one thing is certain: Miranda’s heart is far from all that’s at risk for the Hawthornes and those they love.
Here is Mina Lobo's review:
My review takes a quasi-newspaper article type format, with each section being worth a point.
Who/Why
Lady Miranda Hawthorne, our heroine, has been repressed all her young life by her mother’s well-intentioned “lady lessons.” The reader is reminded, frequently, how Miranda can’t do this or that thing because such behavior’s deemed unfitting of a lady. Quite a bit of Miranda’s internal monologue is dedicated to this theme, which is irritating, for one, but also kept me from really understanding who she was or what she was all about. (Meanwhile, other ladies of quality around her engage in some of the habits her mother has condemned, such as allowing one’s true emotions to show on one’s face, without any negative consequences.) She’s most herself when she writes letters she never intends to mail to her brother’s BFF, the Duke of Marshington (who mysteriously buggered off from college and hasn’t been seen by anyone in, like, forever) which, as any Regency reader knows, is totally in-apropos. Oh, and also when she’s chilling with her brother’s foxy valet, Marlow, which is equally in-apropos. Anyway, the heroine’s “Why” is that she’s motivated largely by the fear of her mother’s lectures, her duty as both a younger and older sister, and a desire to tie the knot. I find her bland, but not unlikeable.
I can’t write too much about the hero of the piece without giving away major plot points, so I’ll just refer to him as the hero and note that he was engaging but a bit smug, IMO, and indulged in one of the more irritating Romancelandia tropes of locking the heroine up somewhere in order to keep her safe–which, OF COURSE, is precisely what leads her to landing herself in hot water. (Ugh.) The hero’s “Why” is that he seeks to retire from spying for England once he concludes one final mission. He didn’t count on falling in love while he was at it.
While I liked the heroine and hero, I didn’t love them. Though I’ll give the author a good deal of credit for not making Miranda’s mother a stereotypical overbearing shrew–in fact, she’s attractive, well-mannered, and happily remarried! That we see an older gal hooking up and in love well beyond her salad days I found endearing, so I’ll take away but a quarter of a point from this section.
What’s Happening and Where
Our Regency heroine and hero meet in the country as the hero is following a lead to Miranda’s household about some traitorous Mo-Fos who might giving up England’s secrets to the French and whatnot. Their knowledge of one another, however, is shrouded in secrecy, and it’s only in town (London) that certain salient points are revealed to Miranda. The hero’s got a bit of nerve in not apologizing for some unnecessary duplicity in which he engaged–until he realizes he’s hurt her. (Duh.) Also, mysterious letters arrive threatening both the hero and Miranda (or possibly her brother), and it’s in dealing with this threat that the hero locks Miranda up. The bits where Miranda tries to figure out what to do following this I find mind-numbingly tedious and drawn out–disappointingly so, when we’d had an earlier experience of Miranda taking decisive action in a dangerous situation (which I enjoyed, though it seemed far-fetched for a gal who admitted to herself she wasn’t sure she could manage to boil water for tea, as she’d never had to before). Minus another quarter of a point.
How Things Happen
I found the pacing choppy–some sections plodded boringly along, other events which could’ve provided real dramatic interest were either glossed over or summarized
The best section of the story, for me, was when Miranda took that aforementioned brave leap to attempt to save the hero from she-had-no-idea-what-but-dangit-she’s-a-heroine-and-that’s-what-we-heroines-do. Seriously, though, the parts detailing her travels in catching up with the hero and his captors, and how she and he took care of business, were well done–again, making the other, choppy bits, more pronounced in my mind. Shaving off another quarter of a point for inconsistency.
WTF-ery
I’m using the acronym in deference to the fact that this is an inspirational book. I’m a bad Catholic of Portuguese decent (“bad” because I haven’t been going to church regularly of late, but do feel I practice my religion as I aim to live the way my faith taught me to), and the Portuguese are hella religious–so to speak–so I’m accustomed to the regular references to God and His will in everyday speech from my family. I even got into the habit of tacking on “God willing” to things that I expect will likely happen, but are completely in God’s hands (Co-worker at 5pm on a Friday: “See you Monday morning!” Me: “God willing!” And I’m not even being ironic about it.) I only mention this to frame the following criticism: I found the touches of spirituality in this book inorganic. Long stretches of the narrative went by with nary a reference to God or His will, and then they’re ham-fistedly introduced out of the blue. It just didn’t come off as an authentic exploration of spirituality to me. Minus another quarter of a point.
Overall Feeling & Final Score/Grade
I found A Noble Masquerade somewhat enjoyable, but not anything I itched to read–in fact, it took me a few weeks to slog through it on my commute, when I’ve plowed through longer books in far less time than that because they had me hooked (and my feelings of “meh” aren’t because it’s an inspirational–I quite enjoyed Elizabeth Camden’s Against the Tide which is also from Bethany House Publishers). As a writer myself, I hate to be unkind but the truth is that the day after I finished A Noble Masquerade I thought to get started on my review and found my mind going blank. I honestly couldn’t remember what I’d just read. I checked it out on Goodreads and was surprised to see it rated so highly (a 4.11 average rating from over a thousand ratings). Overall, I have to say it’s got a half-a-point feel for me. Added to the other scores, I arrive at an overall score of 3.5 out of 5, or a grade of C minus.
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Interesting review — I obviously liked the book more than you did — but I see your points. I agree that the trope of “he locks up the heroine to protect her” was annoying, but I liked that it backfired spectacularly and that she called him on it.
Having read the spoilers for the earlier review, I think you mean the heroine acting herself in letters and around the valet is inappropriate (for a lady). It’s extremely apropos (to the plot). (inappropriate = improper. inapropos = not relevant or off topic)
My French isn’t good, but I believe the difference comes from the etymology. “Propos” is “purpose” so “a propos” (2 words) is literally “to the purpose.” “appropriate” I think has the root word “propre” which is literally “clean” but can also mean “proper.” Could be wrong here.
Sorry to hijack the thread, but since there was just a long discussion of typos in novels it seemed both appropriate and apropos.
I read this, too, after the list of RITA finalists came out. I haven’t get written my review of this book . . . mainly because, like you, once I finished it, I could barely recall even main/important details of the story or characters in order to write my opinion about them! I didn’t think it was poorly written overall (the prose style/voice were fine), but it also wasn’t one that capture me so that the story/characters lingered fondly in my mind after I finished.
*haven’t YET written my review 😉
@Heather: I just read your review and appreciate the things you noted as appealing–and I agree, they were. But unfortunately, I just couldn’t sink into the story for the reasons I detailed in my review–I wish I could’ve! 🙂
@Rebecca: I think a few things may have been lost in editing. In the original version of the review I submitted, I wrote that Miranda sending letters to her brother’s male friend was “inapprops” by which I meant “inappropriate.” In my circle of friends, and on the tv show “Archer,” “inappropriate” is frequently shortened that way, so it didn’t occur to me that there would be room for misunderstanding. As well, my original review referenced Miranda’s “travails” in catching up with the hero when he was kidnapped–here, it appears as “travels.” I probably could’ve avoided confusion by simply writing “troubles.” 🙂
@Kaye: I agree that it was nicely written, and did have, as Heather noted in her review, some humorous moments. Just didn’t grab me, I’m sorry to report.