B-
Genre: Historical: European, Regency, Romance
Theme: Marriage of Convenience, Plot Moppet
Archetype: Rockstar/Musician
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by Kay Taylor Rea. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Short Historical category.
The summary:
Sir Richard Kenworthy has less than a month to find a bride. He knows he can’t be too picky, but when he sees Iris Smythe-Smith hiding behind her cello at her family’s infamous musicale, he thinks he might have struck gold. She’s the type of girl you don’t notice until the second—or third—look, but there’s something about her, something simmering under the surface, and he knows she’s the one.
Iris Smythe–Smith is used to being underestimated. With her pale hair and quiet, sly wit she tends to blend into the background, and she likes it that way. So when Richard Kenworthy demands an introduction, she is suspicious. He flirts, he charms, he gives every impression of a man falling in love, but she can’t quite believe it’s all true. When his proposal of marriage turns into a compromising position that forces the issue, she can’t help thinking that he’s hiding something . . . even as her heart tells her to say yes.
Here is Kay Taylor Rea's review:
While I’ve always enjoyed romantic storylines (hey fellow fanfic readers: we read a lot of romance), I rarely read actual romance novels before 2014. Julia Quinn was one of the first authors people suggested I’d like and every last one of you wonderful recommenders were right. I devoured her entire back catalog over the past year and a half. I also jumped at the chance to read and review her RITA-nominated novel from 2015.
The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy is the final book in The Smythe-Smith Quartet, which follow the shenanigans surrounding the yearly (terrible) musicales performed by the eligible ladies of the Smythe-Smith family. Quinn first introduced the musicales in a handful of her earlier novels, including several from my forever favorite Bridgerton series, and the potential comedy gold involved in the ton suffering through annual musical performances is used to great effect in all four novels.
Secrets is, unfortunately, the last and weakest of the quartet. I want to be clear: saying a book is a mediocre offering from Julia Quinn is still saying it’s quite a good book. If you like Quinn or are generally a fan of historicals or comedic romances, I still recommend you give it a chance. The dialogue is quippy, the world building is a treat, and the heroine is a gem. It’s just not my favorite.
And now we’re heading into spoiler territory. It’s hard for me to talk about my issues with the book without spoiling a major plot point, so go ahead and use that back button if you want to read this unspoiled.
Our heroine is cellist Iris Smythe-Smith. She’s a wonderful, nuanced character and is, without a doubt, my favorite part of the book. Iris isn’t quite on the shelf, but she’s been out for a few seasons, is easy to overlook (she explicitly says she likes staying on the sidelines and people watching – yay introverts as protagonists!), and hasn’t had many potential suitors. Canny creature that she is, she’s hopeful but suspicious when our titular hero, Sir Richard Kenworthy, takes an immediate interest in her at the annual musicale. And boy howdy, she should be.
Richard has come to London, after spending several seasons away, for the purposes of quickly finding a bride. The quick part is key. He’s even drawn a mental list of his wifely requirements. She can’t be spoiled or stupid. It would be nice if she’s pretty, but that would just be a bonus. She should be a stranger to his neighborhood. It’s best if she’s not rich, so it looks like an advantageous match to her people. Most importantly, Richard thinks:
She must understand what it meant to value one’s family. That was the only way this was going to work. She had to understand why he was doing this.
When Richard meets Iris, he decides she fits his requirements quite nicely. He’s not in love with her, but in his words:
He liked her. And he knew enough of marriage to know that this was more than most men had when they went to the altar.
Not exactly the fodder of epics, but honest. And, for the time and place, at least, not a terrible rationale for a marriage. Iris isn’t sure of him, but she’s a very rational, practical person (seriously, have I mentioned how much I adore Iris?) and she’s willing to get to know him better even though she has reservations.
If she were the sort of female who inspired men to fall in love at first sight, surely someone else would have done so by now.
But there could be no harm in seeing him again. He had asked her mother for permission to call upon her, and he had treated her with every courtesy. It was all very proper, and very flattering.
Iris had every right to be worried about Richard’s attentions. After a week and a handful of appropriate outings, Richard proposes to Iris. She tells him she needs time and Richard stalls until Iris’s aunt enters the room so he can be witnessed kissing Iris. Iris’s parents are sent for, Iris covers for Richard saying he was in the midst of a proposal she would’ve said yes to, and Richard is instructed to procure a special license so they might marry post haste. Richard neglects to say he’s already in possession of said license, because, well, that doesn’t look good.
Richard whisks Iris out to the old family pile in Yorkshire, where he has the guardianship of his younger sisters, Fleur and Marie-Claire, who are both holy terrors and attempt to make life miserable for Iris. Fleur and Marie-Claire’s characterizations are perhaps the weakest part of the book. They come off flat and stereotypically ‘obnoxious younger sibling’ which is baffling coming from a writer who deftly managed the myriad sibling relationships and personalities of the Bridgerton family.
The middle portion of the book is a lot of Iris figuring out how to be the lady of the house and her attempts to learn her responsibilities. She spends her time getting to know the people who will be part of her day-to-day life for, well, the rest of her life, and these interactions with staff and tenants are sweet and interesting. Iris and Richard’s relationship develops apace, and Iris’s inner dialogue as she’s falling in love with her husband is lovely. Unfortunately, Richard’s secret reason for marrying has to ruin everything.
It’s not until the final quarter of the book that Richard’s true reason for marrying Iris comes to light. It’s very odd, as far as plotting and pacing goes, and it made me so furious with the hero that I only kept reading because I adore Iris. (I mentioned that, right? Right.)
Yeah. So that’s a thing that happened.
I think that Richard is doing the best he can (well, no, this is seriously not the best he can, but at least it’s the best he thinks he can) in an unfortunate situation, but he’s manipulative, calculating, and a liar. His maneuvering and his expectations of Iris’s behavior are unacceptable and, in my opinion, inexcusable. I was so disappointed to discover his plan after spending the better part of the book thinking he was sort of a berk, but a well-meaning berk who was going to attempt to behave in a gentlemanly fashion.
Richard and Iris’s arguments and subsequent reconciliation are movingly written (at one point, Iris tells Richard that he’s taken her freedom and her dignity, but he will not take her self-respect and I freely admit I fist-pumped), but I could never imagine forgiving someone for doing the things Richard’s done, even if I loved them.
Because this is romance and we enjoy our HEAs, everything works out all right in the end, thanks to a fortuitous Plot Moppet reveal and a case of Mistaken Identity.
It’s a bit too tidy for my taste.
The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy is a pleasant enough read, but it doesn’t have the depth I’m used to in Julia Quinn’s work and the hero behaves quite terribly for a large portion of the book. Although it’s well written (and, one last time, I adored the heroine), it’s definitely not my favorite of her novels.
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Thanks!
I, too, love Julia Quinn but I am wondering if this would piss me off too much. It would need a lot of groveling, for one thing. I will have to think about it. Thanks for an excellent review.
Excellent review! I will try the earlier books in the series since I haven’t read Julia Quinn before.
True story: I thought I was supposed to review this one, and by the time I got to the reveal I was frothing with rage. Then I checked the spreadsheet and discovered that, no, this wasn’t the one I was supposed to review. I’m not sure I’m more relieved I could put it down or disappointed I couldn’t write the rage-filled review of my dreams.
I remember looking forward to Iris’s book, but being SO disappointed in it. I guess what the plot twist was early on, so I was irritated for the majority of the book.
I hated Richard so much that it ruined the whole book. The reconciliation just pissed me off.
Yes!!! At last someone who agrees with me. I love Julia Quinn, she’s an auto-buy writer for me, and the Smythe-Smith books are some of my favorites, but I was so angry about the nature and depth of Richard’s deception (even though you saw it coming long before the “big reveal”) that it killed the book for me. Mostly because while he gave some appearances of being semi-tortured by guilt I never got the sense that Richard truly realized just how wrong his actions were and was really sorry. He was sorry the wife he’d come to love was mad at him and even that he’d hurt her, but he wasn’t actually sorry for what he’d done because he didn’t see it as wrong. Tricking someone into marrying you so you can bully/emotionally blackmail them into raising your sister’s child as their own is not okay. I don’t care that he was doing it to protect his sister, IT WAS NOT OKAY. I also thought it took too long for Iris to finally be brought in on things, and then she forgave him way too quickly/easily because they were running out of pages. Her initial reaction to the news was believable, but then the nearly immediate turnaround in how she handled it and the way the rest of the book was wrapped up really didn’t ring true for me. I could buy eventually getting to a point of forgiveness, but not in days (or was it hours, even, it’s been a while since I read it). I don’t know, maybe I wouldn’t have been so angry/disappointed with it if it hadn’t been Julia Quinn and therefore, I didn’t have such high expectations. I was also annoyed that my favorite series of hers ended on such a sour note, but I, for one, cannot claim to have enjoyed a book where I ended it hating the “hero”. I will step down off my soapbox now.
This was a DNF for me. I couldn’t read about Richard anymore without getting angry. I love Julia Quinn but this one wasn’t my favorite.
I guess this book is a hit or miss. I simply loved it. It deals with conflicted loyalties and basically good and decent people having to resort to controversial desperate measures with heartwrenching moral dilemma and conscience pricking. The hero is right from the start thinking a family lover like Iris would be his ideal partner, and the happy resolution is no accident, it is built on the H/h’s common values despite the hero’s initial deception. They would have fallen in love with each other in all circumstances, the mutual agony they have to go through only makes their love deeper and the resolution more deserved and heartfelt. It ranks amongst my favourite Quinn’s books along with Romancing Mr Bridgerton, The Viscount Who Loved Me and To Sir Philipp With Love.
I loved Julia Quinn’s books so much when I first found them that I read everything she’d written in less than a month and it broke me, which is my fault for having no self control and not in anyway to blame the author for being a purveyor of superior crack.
For the first time I’m slightly relieved I can’t read her books anymore.
I’m with Michelle and Katherine C. Richard pissed me off so much that I wanted to reach into the book to choke him. I’ve sort of lost faith in Julia Quinn with this book.
JTReader, don’t give up on her just yet — I’m hoping it’s an aberration. Because of Miss Bridgerton was back to everything I love about Julia Quinn, so keep the faith!
Kay – I really enjoyed your review. You brought up some of the exact points I was thinking while reading “Secrets.” I also adored Iris!
Definitely not my favorite Julia Quinn book, but I think I hold her to a higher standard.
My defense of Richard is that he was thinking of the end game without thought of consequences to his heart or to someone outside of his family. For me, the story would have worked better if the big reveal had happened earlier to allow sufficient grovelling time for Richard.
Agree, agree, agree with this review! This one was DNF for me. Of course, I’m one of those people that will skip ahead or go straight to the ending to see if a bad book gets any better. This one did not. Loved iris, loathed Richard. He wasn’t just manipulative and deceitful, he was also an idiot, and there were so many holes in his plan there was no way he would ever have been able to pull it off. I did not enjoy some of Quinn’s other heroes (I’m looking at you, Nigel Bevelstoke and Robert Kemble), but none were quite as dumb as Richard Kenworthy and his secret.
I didn’t like the Smythe-Smith series at all but this book gave me the particular rage for the reasons others have mentioned. I haven’t bought Quinn’s latest as a result.
This book pissed me off so much that I actually DNFed it, a first with Julia Quinn’s books, which I generally adore (it even made me very wary of Because of Miss Bridgerton, which I still haven’t started). I rarely find super-dishonest heroes or heroines attractive or compelling, and I really didn’t see how she could rescue this one, the wonderful Iris notwithstanding – and from all the commentary here, it seems that she really didn’t. Very unfortunate.
Thank you for the great review!
I sometimes quite like duplicitous heroes (or heroines) but if they trick someone into something, I need some really compelling groveling and evidence of genuine change before the story as a whole can work for me. It sounds like that doesn’t happen here. Unfortunate. But thanks for the review!
I HATE RICHARD KENWORTHY. WERE HE A REAL PERSON I WOULD PUNCH HIM IN THE NADS.
Now that that’s out of the way, I love Julia Quinn, I loved Iris and this book won’t stop me from buying her books in the future.
But UUUGGGGGHHHHH. Richard is the wooooooooorst. He is completely and utterly unworthy of Iris. For me, there was no redemption for him to be had. What he put Iris through was so awful that no amount of groveling could have made it better.
Iris deserved so much better.
I am SO glad to hear y’all also had issues with this book. Normally, my suspension of disbelief is strong enough that even alpholes seem ok until I’ve finished the book and think about it some. However, I ‘read’ most of it in audiobook form, and I did not like the narrator. Not even a little bit. I wanted to hurt her. Her voice kept pulling me out of the story and causing reality to intrude (“God, Richard, why are you such a FUCK****?!?!”) It was my first- and probably last- audio book.
Totally disappointed 🙁 I HATED Richard :((
Iris deserved soooo much better (esp. because she plays cello so welll!!!) Somehow the whole S-S series is not a great hit for me 🙁
I was pretty frustrated with this book. I ADORE Just Like Heaven – it might be my favorite Quinn and I re-read it often. It comforts me because Marcus is totally the type of guy I would go for in real life, and yeah, I know I’m in the minority but I JUST LOVE THAT BOOK – but the books, for me, grew weaker after that.
and with Richard we hit rock bottom. He was very manipulative and I’m not sure how someone brings herself to forgive that. I liked Iris because she was willing to deal with her lot, but if I had been in her place I would have left the guy, really.
Hated Richard more than life itself.