As has become my tradition in reviewing Courtney Milan’s Brother Sinister books I was on the lookout for the trope that Ms. Milan had turned on its head. In The Duchess War the male protagonist shows the insecurities which would typically be portrayed by the female protagonist. In The Heiress Effect the ‘damsels in distress’ save themselves. And in The Countess Conspiracy the gentleman at the center of the story works to move forward the career aspirations of his lady love. All of these are reversals of the expected tropes of the world of Romance. Milan is at it again with The Suffragette Scandal and her target is the rescue fantasy and the bad boy making good.
The story should be rather straight forward, and it would be in the hands of almost any other Romance writer. Edward Clark arrives back in England with the goal of revenge. In order to achieve his revenge, he needs to prevent James Delacey from framing an innocent man and destroying the life and work of Frederica Marshall. In other hands the action would have been at Edwards’s command and Free would have been along for the ride. That is most certainly NOT what happens in The Suffragette Scandal.
Free Marshall, youngest sister of Oliver Marshall featured in The Heiress Effect, has used her inheritance from her aunt to pay for her Cambridge education and set up her newspaper, The Women’s Free Press. Free is perhaps the strongest, smartest female protagonist I’ve come across in a long time, and she is always two steps ahead of everyone, including Edward. When he attempts to blackmail her into compliance with his plan (his go to move after 7 years on the continent) she goes around him and blackmails him in return to have exactly the outcome she’s looking for. But this is only the first incident in a book chock full of them. As the stakes increase in the plot against Free Edward attempts to rescue her again and again, only to find that she’s perfectly able to rescue herself.
The other related trope is the bad boy going good for the love of a good woman. It is probably one of the oldest tropes in romance. Normally the heroine is looking for that. Not Free. She loves Edward for the scoundrel he is, and has no desire to see that changed. Free is much more interested in knowing and loving him as he is. She is so confident in the success of her plan that she doesn’t fight him when he returns to France and instead begins to write him letters. Because Edward is besotted, he cannot help but write back and the legendary puppy cannons are born.
There are other charming things about this book. Because Milan is working on a delightful feminist bent Free’s newspaper is not about male bashing, but about empowering women. It isn’t often that you get this overt feminism in romance novels, and certainly not ones set in 1877 England. It is a delight. The other benefit of the timing of this book, ten years after the events of The Countess Conspiracy is that we are able to visit most of the characters we’ve come to adore in the previous books – Oliver and Free’s parents from The Governess Affair, Minnie and Robert from The Duchess War another ten years into the future, which is something that I always enjoy.
There are so many other wonderful things about this book. I suggest wholeheartedly that you visit emmalita’s review for her musings on punctuation and how the characters use it to flirt. Or scootsa1000’s review of the series as a whole. Or you can have a read of Mrs. Julien’s lovely and insightful review. Or, you can take a look at Malin’s in-depth six star review that convinced me to start reading this series in the first place.
What I’m saying is, read these books.
This book was read and reviewed as part of the charitable Cannonball Read.
faintingviolet 