My Favorite Marquess

This was the first novel I've read by this author and I'll try to read her other books as well. The book made me laugh out loud so many times. The writing was very humorous and the characters very interesting. Actually the hero's character was more bland than that of the secondary characters, but I don't read a book just for the sake of interesting heroes & heroines. The butler was very funny and so were Violet's family & friends. Overall, I found it a very lighthearted and funny regency romance, with the emphasis on lighthearted. The end was formulaic. But overall a satisfying read.

I have to remark on something that the review has completely missed-the humour of the story is really well written and clever.Sometimes it made me laugh out loud! Anyway, onto the story, Violet Treacher is a young recent widow on her way to wild Cornwall. She goes to claim the house that her deceased husband"s family has left her. Her Neighbor, the Marquess St Just has offered to purchase the house in order to cover for his clandestine spy activities for the English crown. His idea is to kidnap her in the guise of a smuggler, which starts a whole tangle of identities and humourous incidents. Violet finally sees the run-down house she's been given and almost high tails it straight back to London. A battle of wits and funny incidents ensues. The secondary characters add another touch of humour and mayhem! There is the Butler, Peabody, who is more snobby than the nobility, constantly worried about position and appearances. Henny, a spinster cousin of Violet, who gets involved in a secondary love story. All in all the characters give an amusing take on the class society while entertaining as you go along. Honestly, yes its formulaic but so is just about every romance I've read, that's a good thing! A bit of very amusing escapism at its best! To be fair, I wanted anyone who might look at this book to get another opinion and a bit more info than the reviews provide. Because I think its an excellent light, humourous romance and those are hard to find!

I was slightly dissapointed in this book, it was certainly readable and enjoyable, but too formulaic with very few surprises or even interesting details. We all know this genre is predictable, which I guess is why we read it, but I prefer to really care about the characters involved in the story or at least learn a tidbit about the times written about.