How The Marquess Was Won: Pennyroyal Green Series [Mass Market Paperback]

A chance encounter. Seemingly dismissed. Fate has other plans though...

Phoebe Vale, teacher and broadsheet lover, has no clue her life is going to change when she goes into a shop to admire a bonnet and get the latest gossip. When she hears the latest scandals of Lord Ice, Julian Spenser, Marquess Dryden, she is rather amused but she is quickly startled because who just happens into this shop? None other that Julian in all his black and white glory. With just a cursory glance about the shop, Julian asks to see the fans and purchases the best one as everything is the best for Julian. Everything is neat and tidy and has its place in life and he is on the hunt for a wife and not just any wife, oh no. He is courting the perfect, beautiful heiress Lisbeth Redmond. And Lisbeth is the last piece of his future he needs to finally clear up his fathers gambling mess as Lisbeth will bring the lands that were lost in a card game. But even though Phoebe feels like she was not even noticed in the shop, Phoebe is on his mind but he has to dismiss her as she does not fit in with his plans.

When Phoebe receives an offer to be Lisbeths companion for a few days she initially hesitates but then decides to go and earn some more money for her future plans to travel to Africa. It just happens to have the added bonus of running into Julian again... who had stopped by her school to inquire about his sister attending and a tour of the school with just the two of them leads to quite a few sparks! The sparks, the attraction, the desire all continue to grow especially as Julian lets down some walls and lets Phoebe see the real him, not the Marquess that all of society loves and tries to emulate. Stolen kisses and heated embraces that are almost caught lead to some absolutely delightful situations for our pair to try to overcome! But when the ton starts to take serious notice of Phoebe, only then does the story start to take a shaky path that leads to heartbreak but Julian takes strides to right the wrongs all while possibly endangering the perfect future he had mapped out.

Overall, this was an absolutely delightful book! I really adored Julian! When Phoebe hits him in the head and it leaves a bruise on his forehead, he is forced to have a forelock to cover it and all of society copies him. The results, hilarious. But beneath the perfect facade is just a man who wants to be loved for him and seen past his fathers failures and Phoebe is just the woman who sees him. *minor spoiler* I will admit I feel in love with Julian when Phoebes cat, Charybdis (funniest cat ever I swear!), goes missing and Julian flies off to find him immediately. Sigh, yeah, I was in love with him then and I knew how deep his love was for Phoebe. *end* And Phoebe was a true delight as well. She is smart and witty and fought her way from the slums to become a teacher of girls who have the impulses and desires as she did at their younger age. Together, these two are near perfection and it is only that little shaky bit near the end I disliked. I just personally do not like that type of storyline but I have to say, I was very proud of the way Phoebe stood up for herself and Julians eventual resolution of the situation. Overall, if you enjoy an instant attraction story with some great laugh-out-loud moments this is a perfect story for you. I am sorry to say I have only read the first book in this series and I know I have to read the previous book, What I Did For a Duke, like yesterday and I know I can not wait. Julie Anne Long has made it onto my auto buy list for all future books with this delicious, sparkling, witty book . 4 1/2 stars

While the H and h of this new Long HR are appealing, the story is cute and the romance satisfying, it just was not quite what I was hoping for. In the first place neither H nor h is a Redmond or an Eversea and I've been waiting eons for Lyon Redmond (aka the pirate Le Chat) and Olivia Eversea to resolve their difficulties. I thought their story would follow Long's 2010 I Kissed an Earl (Pennyroyal Green Series), but she came out with What I Did For a Duke: Pennyroyal Green Series in 2011 instead. But that last one was such an excellent romance that it didn't matter that Lyon and Olivia were nowhere to be found.

The H and h of this new one are only very tangentially connected to Pennyroyal Green. The h, Phoebe Vale, plucked from the slums of Seven Dials as a young girl and educated at Miss Marietta Endicott's Academy in Pennyroyal Green, is now a teacher at said academy. The H, Julian Spenser, Marquess Dryden, is visiting Pennyroyal Green to attend a Redmond house party. Julian inherited his title from a dissolute father who managed to lose everything not entailed to the estate and Julian has been in the process of restoring the marquessate to its original wealth and extention of land. One last property he wishes to repossess is now owned by Isaiah Redmond, so he's courting Lisbeth Redmond with that goal in mind. It doesn't hurt that Lisbeth is gorgeous and one of the most sought after of heiresses.

Julian is pretty gorgeous and sought after himself by the women of the upper class and is much admired and emulated by the men. Everyone wants to be like him and imitates his every lifestyle choice, from clothing to hair to horses, you name it, they all want to be the same to the point of ridiculousness. This lends itself to some relatively amusing scenes in the book.

Long is an excellent writer of romance and could probably make the Yellow Pages romantic. She has a great way with dialogue and witty repartee and the way her heroes and heroines fall in love is stellar, just the way romance should be. Unfortunately, this particular romance did not touch me as much as hers usually do.

Lower-class Phoebe and upper-class Julian meet initially at Postlethwaite's Emporium in Pennyroyal Green, where Phoebe is admiring a bonnet far out of her price range and Julian is buying a pricey gift to take to Lisbeth. They meet again at the Academy where their interaction really begins and it carries over to the house party, where Phoebe is serving as companion to Lisbeth. I have to confess that I did not see the reason for the initial attraction between the two. It felt contrived, and the banter, which is usually very witty in a JAL romance, seemed to be trying too hard and came off as more "cute" than it did "witty". However, after establishing the attraction, Long makes it become quite lovely and palpable.

In addition to the banter being more cute than witty, the whole story felt too cute to me. Now, I'm not blaming the story. I think the problem lies with my age. There are HRs that appeal universally to the romance reader, whether she be 20 year old or over 60. This wasn't one of them. Instead of my enjoying the incidents with cat, hat and hair styles, I found them perhaps a bit over the top and tending at times toward the silly. But, as I say, it's me, not the book. If I had read this some 30 years ago, I would have totally loved it.

And, one more thing. Please, Ms Long, when do we get Lyon and Olivia's story?

It was THAT good. I had to put it aside about a quarter way of the way through and say out loud, "This is brilliant. I don't think I've EVER read anything like this before."

A quick story recap followed by what I did and didn't like below:
Marquess Dryden, Julian Spenser enjoys and wants only the best in everything. His choice of potential wife reflects on Lisbeth being the best of the pack, as an example. Lisbeth's dowry will also bring the last piece of land that he needs to complete his promise to his mother to restore his estate to former glory. Enroute to a house party at Lisbeth's, he runs into Phoebe Vale in a seemingly uneventful encounter in a shop. Phoebe is a school teacher who enjoys gossip sheets, is smart and educated, and about to embark on a life in Africa in a few weeks. Julian, who is used to gushing and awed tons folk, especially women, is pleasantly broad-sided by Phoebe's wit and originality when he runs into her again in her school and then at the house party. Wonderful dialogue, secret midnight dances and stolen kisses result. Their attraction is so strong that Julian offers to make her his mistress (unacceptable to Phoebe, of course).

Sensing Julian's interest in Phoebe, wagers are placed and action follows by folks that generally ape Julian to be cool to bring Ms. Nobody Phoebe Vale into the bosom of ton as an overnight sensation. Julian's perfectly planned future is at risk, and he has to find a way to resolve the differences between his head and his heart. There is also envy between former friends Lisbeth and Phoebe during this period at the ton, heartbreak, and eventually a declaration of love.

Here's what I liked:
1. BRILLIANT dialogue - I don't think I've ever read a book where I felt like a fly on the wall actually hearing two people talk and become involved. It was natural, oh so witty and funny at places that I was laughing out loud and eagerly turning pages because I couldn't get enough. I could FEEL the attraction between them beginning to grow because of this dialogue and interaction, not just because the author told me so. Wonderful!
2. Humor - I really love romances where the author and characters don't always take themselves seriously and have a sense of humor. I love Julia Quinn because of that, and Ms. Long has just joined the list of authors whose books I will automatically purchase because of that. It also shows that the author put some thought into making her characters normal and human. There was sarcasm and witty humor in the dialogue in the first half of the book. There were outright funny situations (sometimes created by a cat, sometimes by the trend-setting hero) that lightened up what might otherwise have been a tense second half.
3. Expect the unexpected - From the beginning of the book to the end, what I thought was going to happen did not happen. Whether it was how Phoebe would react to Julian in the school or when I thought Phoebe was going to disappear on a ship enroute to Africa in the end - none of the cliches I would have expected in this book ever happened. This is remarkable because I read a LOT of romances, and it is very rare to come across a book and storyline that surprises me as a reader. I loved that!
4. Great characters - Every single character in this book had a purpose and was wonderfully written - even if they were sort of negative characters. I understood why the twins - Marie and Antoinette - were airheads, why Lisbeth felt so entitled and behaved as she did, and why Phoebe was so out of line with the general way females of the Regency period are depicted.

What I didn't like:
There honestly isn't much I didn't like in this book. It is now in the favorites and recommended section. :)

I hadn't read the other books in the series, and I didn't feel like I was missing anything. But I will definitely be going back to read them all now.

I highly recommend you pick up this book and start reading right away.