... a runaway heiress, an abandoned child, and a Marquess!

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How to Catch a Sinful Marquess (The Disreputable Debutantes #3) 
by Amy Rose Bennett      


So I hung around thinking to myself haven't I read this already? Trying to work out how, until lightning struck⚡️ and I remembered I'd read an excerpt in Bennett's previous book, "How to Catch an Errant Earl". Mystery solved! And that excerpt had been enough for me to want to read about the 'Sinful Marquess' featuring another of our Disreputable Debutantes.
The story seems to be a cross between Cinderella, and Beauty and the Beast. An heiress with a stammer, and a guardian uncle and aunt with two quite vicious daughters and a horrendous brother. Naturally the ugly family want to keep our heiress, Olivia de Vere's funds within their control. Hence the determination to marry their ghastly (degenerate it seems) son Felix to Olivia.
Then there's the mysterious Lord who lives next door to Olivia, Hamish, the Marquess of Sleat. I love the opening scenes between them. This is quickly followed by Hamish discovering an unnamed child, who might be his, left on his doorstep.
If that's not enough we have the Maquess and Olivia hieing off to his castle on Skye, naturally via Gretna Green. Hamish is under the impression Olivia is a hard put upon companion. When Olivia, using the name of Lavina Moreland, decides to seize the moment and volunteers to be the nursemaid for the child Tilda, Hamish accepts.
As one trope follows on another, as one event is succeeded by an even more challenging one I became quite exhausted--even though I'm quite enjoying the furor that keeps emerging. A fun read if you have a taste for looming injured Scotsmen and delicate intrepid sassenachs. Those powerful legs in kilts and heaving bosoms and all the altered situations that keep emerging (maybe a few too many?) have my head spinning.
I rather enjoyed the instructive and fitting excerpts from Gothic novels of the time used as chapter introductions.
Another fun read from Bennett!

 A Berkley Group ARC via NetGalley

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