Andrew: Lord of Despair by Grace Burrowes

A Note

According to her website, by the time Grace Burrowes was first published, she’d written a lot of books already. Apparently, her agent/publisher sorted through her manuscripts and picked out the Windham trilogy beginning with The Heir as a starting place. Those books are good and they show off her talent, but man, does it mess with the chronology of the series which we’ll talk about when I get to The Heir.

It also makes it difficult to get through the Lonely Lords series of which many were written prior to her Windham novels (the trilogy about the brothers followed by the quintet of sisters). These books are just not as good as the Windhams. Her writing style and everything I love about her is present, but the plotting and character work just isn’t as well done. Reading Gareth and Andrew halfway through the Lonely Lords, nearly fifteen books into her publishing career, doesn’t work.

It also doesn’t work because there are things in The Heir that are soooo much better once you’ve read this book and its follow-up, Douglas. I think we’ve finally exhausted material Grace Burrowes hadn’t published already which is a relief. Her universe is intricately connected which is lovely, but because they were written chronologically and published wildly out of order, it makes it more difficult to appreciate the way they build upon each other. If they had been written out of order, there wouldn’t be nearly as much interplay between the characters and callbacks.

Anyway, that’s just mostly to say that I liked Andrew more with the realization that this is Grace Burrowes at the beginning of career, not several years in and this is a theme we’re going to come to for most of this reread. I understand the decision not to publish them in order, but I definitely don’t agree with it in a lot of respects.

Back to the Book – Overall Impressions

Because Andrew and Gareth’s characters are both motivated by the same backstory, it’s not surprising they both follow the same basic linear plot. Tortured by a drowning incident that destroyed most of the male members of the succession, the Alexander brothers have both decided they are not worthy of love and the Worthington sisters tempt them into forgiving themselves.

That’s it. That’s the romantic throughline in both books. There are subplots that differentiate them both, but not wildly. So all that matters here is asking ourselves is Andrew a better book than Gareth, and if so, why?

So it is a better book and that’s because Andrew’s role in the backstory (he was on the boat, rescued his mother, but no one else) is a bit more understandable than Gareth’s overwrought survivor’s guilt. There are still oddities we’ll get into during the spoilers, but I found Andrew to be a more convincing martyr-hero than Gareth.

Astrid is fine. She doesn’t really do much, to be honest, and I find her a little less interesting than Felicity, but not in a bad way. Their romance is also fine as is the subplot about her first husband’s family maybe trying to kill her and/or the unborn child she’s carrying.

This book is important to the next few in the series — it plants the seeds for both David and Douglas, who both appear here. It also even sets up the Windham brothers trilogy. It’s also a decent romance with an interesting hero and mystery. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good.

Gareth: Lord of Rakes by Grace Burrowes

Overall

I started this book a week ago and found myself remembering exactly why I’ve only read this book all the way through exactly once. I was never all that fond of the premise, and the beginning of the book is excruciatingly slow. But I decided to persevere to get into the rest of the series and get this universe reread off the ground.

Felicity Worthington is the daughter of a viscount who died and didn’t make any arrangements for either Felicity or her younger sister, Astrid. A cousin leaves Felicity her brothel with specific instructions as to how she’ll inherit the business and property—allowing Gareth Alexander, the notorious Marquess of Alexander, to tutor her in the ways of the business which will include a written and possible physical examination to ensure the loss of her virginity.

Yeah, it’s kind of a weird premise and according to her official site, this book is Grace Burrowes’ first foray in romance writing. This makes sense. There’s not much of a plot for the first fifty pages which does make this book excruciating to get into, and I nearly abandoned it myself despite having already finished it once.

But then it gets going, and the romance is a bit sweet even if Gareth’s tragic backstory doesn’t quite measure up to what we think it will. There’s a nice cast of supporting characters, particularly Andrew and Astrid, whom we’ll see in the next book.

What makes this book enjoyable is the emotional vulnerability and honesty these characters possess by about 75% of the way through the book. I like a conflict where the thing that prevents the characters from being together is something internal to them—something they believe to be true about themselves or their situation that is incompatible for the Happily Ever After.

It’s a slow, and at times, painful read, but the seeds of what I love about Grace Burrowes are present by the end of the book and they show up full force in the second one. It’s worth reading and not giving up after the beginning.

The Duke and His Duchess – Grace Burrowes

Overall

One of my absolutely favorite tropes to read is a couple who is already married and working towards their happily ever after. I know there are some readers and reviewers out there who think a marriage before the end of the book somehow ruins the tension of the book, but I’ve never seen it that way. We’re in the historical romance genre, and if your characters are heterosexual, there’s like a 99.88% chance they’ll get married, so why does it matter when it happens?

I mentioned in the review for The Courtship that the biggest aspect of the Percy/Esther relationship I was eager to read more about was the manner in which Percy’s illegitimate children came to live with the household and was raised as one of the Windham children. The Duke and His Duchess purports to tell that story.

I like this novella a lot less than the first one mostly because I feel like this is the wrong space to tell the story Grace Burrowes had in mind. She not only wants to address the presence of Devon and Maggie, but also a larger problem within the Windham marriage as Percy and Esther await the inevitable death of not only his father, but his perpetually ill elder brother. There’s a dark cloud over everyone in this book, but Burrowes wasn’t interested in this part of the story or doing anything with the world she set up back at Morelands.

I found myself frustrated with Percy and Esther for a few reasons I’ll get into in the spoilers section, but there was just too much plot for so little space and none of the stories were told with the capability I expect from Grace Burrowes. But this novella does what it sets out to do and explains why Devon and Maggie have been raised as part of the legitimate household. It’s fine, but honestly, you probably don’t need to read it more than once.

The Courtship by Grace Burrowes

Overall

Novellas are rarely my cup of tea. I’m not a huge fan of the short romances because, ninety percent of the time, the author not only writes the romance but also tries to fit in a subplot with a mystery or an external villain trying to play as an antagonist. That’s a lot to ask of a shorter story, particularly if the two leads have not yet met. Something always gets short-changed.

In this case, I also remember that I didn’t read The Courtship when it was released because I simply wasn’t overly interested in the relationship between Percy and Esther, the parents of the eight Windham siblings. Then, Grace Burrowes released The Duke and His Duchess which sought to provide back story as to how Their Graces came to raise Percy’s two illegitimate children alongside their legitimate ones. I wanted to read that story, so I kind of felt obligated to read the first novella. I’m glad I did.

Percival Windham, the spare to the Moreland duchy, has been dispatched to a house party along with his younger brother, Anthony, in order to secure a bride. Their mother is worried that their ill elder brother, the heir, will die from a lingering illness without siring a son, leaving the duchy’s future in doubt. Once there, Percy meets Esther Himmelfarb, no-nonsense spinster who does not expect to marry due to her lineage and lack of dowry.

I’m glad I read it in 2014 and even happier to find on my reread that I like it as much I did the first time. Burrowes eschews a larger external narrative, preferring to make Esther and Percy’s romance the entire focus. We have some minor deviations in switching to the POV of either Percy’s father or Sir Jasper, the rake who tries to importune Esther, but overall this is a very good attempt to flesh out the supporting characters of Percy and Esther. Percy in particular benefits from this deeper look into his past as he has, at times, played the antagonist in his children’s books, so I appreciate getting to know him more outside the POV of his children.

This is a really sweet story and a good introduction to the world that Burrowes begins with the stories that not only unfold with the Windham children but the larger world of family and friends.