Scandal Takes the Stage is the second book in the Regency Wicked Quills of London series and while it didn’t have the same personal allure for me as the first book, Forever Your Earl, it was every bit as well-crafted and sexy.
Maggie Delamere is a playwright who hates the aristocracy. In all of her plays, aristocratic men are rakish villains. So, of course, she has no interest at all in the extremely rakish and very aristocratic Viscount Cameron Marwood. He, however, is completely drawn to Maggie, the only woman of his acquaintance who refuses to flirt with him.
Meanwhile, Maggie is suffering from terrible writer’s block – but sometimes, when Cameron has been around, she finds herself inspired, even if only for a few minutes. Cameron is used to relating to women through seduction, but he quickly realizes that if he wants to get close to Maggie, he will have to try respect and partnership instead. Luckily, he’s a huge theater geek who has the utmost respect for her as a writer.
This book is beautifully written with a good mix of angst and lightness. Maggie’s pain from her past is obvious, and her predicament is terrifying: she has to finish a play in a very short amount of time, or lose her job, and she can’t think of a word to write. Cameron seems one-dimensional at first, but his interactions with his family and his sincere love of the theater transform him into a complex person who changes in a plausible way. Even though they appear to be opposites, they fit together in a delightfully natural way – they work well was business partners, as lovers, and as friends. Even though Maggie has a lot of secrets, they communicate well most of the time. It’s also a lot of fun to see the man being the muse instead of the other way around. It’s simply impossible not to root for this couple, although so much effort went into explaining why they couldn’t be together that I’m a little worried about their post-HEA future.
Above all, I love the writing in this book. Here’s an example, from a passage in which Cameron has provided Maggie with a place to write and all the tools she might require, including space and quiet. It’s a lot of telling and not showing – but it’s really gorgeous telling.
Her quill was just a nub. More sharpened pens lay at the ready – so Cam must have directed his staff to prepare them for her.
With each small gesture, pieces of her carefully forged armor had fallen aside. He seemed determined to prove he was more than a title, more than a privilege. It was a physical sensation, this bending towards him. She felt it like a caress, urging her to softness. Part of her wanted to cling to what she’d known, foreseeing danger ad pain ahead if she let herself be unguarded. But another part of her wanted to relent. She’d been on her own so long, and here he was, gentling her like a wild mare. Yet he didn’t tame her. It was more like he accepted her wildness.
In most genres, if you like one book in a series than all the other books will register about the same level, unless something went way off the rails. But romance connects with each reader’s most intimate desires and quirks and dreams and aversions. One of the things I find interesting about authors with a long backlist is that different books resonate completely differently with different readers, even if the author keeps the writing quality consistent.
Forever Your Earl hit me on a personal level. It wasn’t so much a catnip issue – I wouldn’t say that it contained my favorite tropes. It just touched some kind of deep chord within me. I loved the banter, I loved the peeks into different aspects of Regency life, I loved the personalities, and I loved the sense of mutual respect that the two leads had for each other.
Scandal Takes the Stage did not hit me on quite the same emotional level, but my guess is that by the end of the Wicked Quills of London series everyone will have their own favorite book that hits them right in the feels, which is part of what makes romance so fun and so unique as a genre. The characters are engaging, the dialogue (while not as funny as the dialogue in Forever Your Earl), is just as smart, and the love story is compelling. I can’t wait for the next book.
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I loooove books that feature women who are writers! I’ll have to read this the next time I’m on a historical kick.
Somewhat unrelated: does anyone else think that’s the same dress from the cover of Tessa Dare’s Romancing the Duke? Izzy Goodnight wears a red dress in that book, I wonder if she and Maggie Delamere share a seamstress…
I loved this one so much! There was something about the respect Cam had for Maggie that really got to me. I also loved the friendship aspect of their romance. I find myself wanting to reread this already…and I RARELY ever reread anything.
I loved both of the Wicked Quills books so far, but the real reason I started reading the series is because I heard about the third one, Temptations of a Wallflower (coming out in May) which pairs the Lady of Dubious Quality, who writes erotic fiction, with the local vicar. AND it’s a marriage of convenience plot. I am rooting for the vicar to also be a virgin, because I love virgin heroes and marriage of convenience plots.
But … I am glad I decided to read all of the books in this series because “Forever Your Earl” and “Scandal Takes the Stage” are both fantastic books.
Great series. Looking forward to the next book. The duke is going be an interesting character.
Please disregard my statement about the duke. I got my series mixed up.
I liked this book more than the first. Both are beautifully written but while reading the first book, I had a really hard time with Eleanor, the heroine, in the historical context. More than a few times, Eleanor struck me as a thoroughly 21st century woman wearing regency dresses. This book had some of the same issues for me, but overall it was easier to swallow. Maggie was less prone to proselytizing. I really loved their relationship and mutual respect. But I was also not convinced about the HEA given the seemingly insurmountable differences that were raised so consistently.
I hope this doesn’t sound too negative – I did like both books and will certainly read the third. I just found it impossible to suspend disbelief and that is important to me when reading historicals. A personal quirk. I’d probably give it a B+ and the first book a B.
@Liz: I agree with you, though you were more generous, I would of given the first book a C+ and and the second a B-.
“Her quill was just a nub. More sharpened pens lay at the ready – so Cam must have directed his staff to prepare them for her.
With each small gesture, pieces of her carefully forged armor had fallen aside. He seemed determined to prove he was more than a title, more than a privilege.”
Sorry but that raises my hackles in terms of both style and substance. I think what the author means is that Cam is more than just someone who HAS privilege, but what she says is that he IS (more than) one. If he’s more than a privilege does that mean he’s a pleasure? A legally guaranteed right? HAVING and BEING are not the same thing.
That sloppy writing aside, how is that scene showing that he is NOT a privileged (note d) jerk? He’s “directed his staff” to prepare pens? He hasn’t made them himself (something every literate person over the age of 12 could probably do, and something Darcy insists on doing for himself in Pride and Prejudice precisely because making someone else’s pen is a flirtatious gesture). He hasn’t left a supply of quills and a pen knife, assuming that a professional writer might have a specific preference for a hard or soft nib that she could best get right on her own. He’s “directed his staff.” Think of the equivalent in modern terms; “honey, I noticed your computer was running slowly so I defragmented your hard drive and cleaned up the background processes.” (Heart melts.) vs. “Honey, I noticed your computer was running slowly so I bought you a new one at the Apple store and paid the Geek Squad to set it up.” (Ummm, ok, thanks, but I’m a lifelong PC user, and you’re just throwing money around.)
That could well be an unfair sample, but I’d say if a man is going to use wealth and power to make someone happy, he should do it in ways that are meaningful. (Subsidizing a theater company producing her work, perhaps? Helping to negotiate a contract that pays a fairer sum for a printed version? Those are things that a man in his position could help with.) Ordering servants to do tasks either he or the heroine could easily do themselves just strikes me as being a jerk.
@Liz, I agree about the first book. It was a DNF for me despite the strong writing.
@Rebecca: Is it also “being a jerk” to have servants do laundry, cook, clean, and empty chamber pots, which are tasks that could easily be performed by their employer? A modern equivalent: If he orders flowers to be delivered to her workplace instead of delivering them himself, is that “being a jerk”?
Hell, the global economy would collapse if everyone performed easily done tasks themselves instead of paying others to do them. In the immortal words of SpongeBob, “When I want a JOB done, I get someone with a JOB to do that JOB.”
Subsidizing a theater company producing her work, perhaps? Helping to negotiate a contract that pays a fairer sum for a printed version?
To me, those examples sound like throwing larger amounts of money around because the little lady is too weak and ineffectual to solve problems on her own. “Here, honey. I saw you were having a hard time with your little hobby, so I fixed it for you.” I find that condescending and disrespectful, not supportive and romantic.
We all have our different definitions of what it means to be cared for, and some don’t involve wielding wealth and power “meaningfully” or at all. I keep my own hard drive defragmented and my own bills paid and even stockpile my own writing implements and paper products, and I swoon when gifted with the pens and notebooks I like because I prefer being noticed and remembered in little, everyday ways to being patronized by having my life managed for me.
I really like Meljean Brooke’s “The Kraken King”. It’s a serial about a serial author (all of them are out now, so you can buy it as a single book.) Your quote reminded me of it: “If ever you need it, I will level mountains to give you a desk. Even if an army is at our door, I’ll hold them off until your ink runs dry.”