TEST
I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading The Footman, and truthfully, I had my doubts after the first chapter. A young and handsome footman, on his first day of work, is unable to curb his tongue after the daughter of the house, Lady Elinor Yarmouth, accidentally barrels into him and then insults him. Later that evening, at her engagement ball, Lady Elinor impulsively kisses the footman because she’s frustrated with her life and upcoming arranged marriage… Friends, I struggled with this premise right out of the gate. (Honestly, it’s ridiculous). Fortunately, LaViolette (aka Minvera Spencer) somehow transforms this opening chapter into a story I couldn’t put down and didn’t want to end. Vengeance, redemption, and a second chance romance combine in this addictive and entertaining romance.
Iain Vale, the bastard son of a Scottish laird and a whore, was a young, poor, inexperienced footman in a wealthy London household. He’s in the wrong place at the wrong time when Lady Elinor Yarmouth spots him yawning at her engagement ball, and before he realizes what she’s about, she’s kissing him. When her fiancé spots them, he nearly beats Iain to death before having him arrested and charged with rape. He barely survives his time in jail (a stranger defends him from an attack by fellow inmates), before his uncle helps him escape by bribing a pair of guards. Filthy and starving, with a bounty on his head, he boards a ship bound for America. Fifteen years later, he’s returned to England as Stephen Worth, a wealthy banker from Boston, and he wants revenge on the people who casually ruined his life. His first stop is Blackfriars, home to Lady Elinor Trentham.
After that impulsive kiss, Lady Elinor watched helplessly as her fiancé, Edward Atwood, Earl of Trentham, nearly beat the innocent man to death and then coldly renegotiated his marriage contract with her father. Alternately referring to her as a whore and a slut, he informs her he’s cancelled the wedding at St. George’s Church, and instead arranged for a special license.
“We shall spend one night in Trentham House before you are removed to Blackfriars, where I will return every month until you are breeding.” His eyes flickered over her and he made no effort to hide his distaste.
The marriage, an agony marked by vicious abuse, rape, and multiple miscarriages, cured her of any romantic notions. Now a widow living in the Dower House, Elinor is mostly free to live as she chooses with little interference from Charles Atwood, the loathsome, venal Fifth Earl of Trentham. And despite her meagre jointure and reduced circumstances, she’s determined never to marry again. Instead, after treating her own injuries for so many years, she’s studying to become a physician under the tutelage of the local doctor.
When Charles introduces Elinor to Stephen Worth, explaining that the handsome stranger is interested in purchasing the estate, Elinor tries to quell her panic:
… the land was in bad enough condition, but the house itself would require a monstrous amount of money to repair and operate.
But it soon becomes clear that Mr. Worth is interested in Blackfriars – and her; he keeps showing up wherever she is. Elinor doesn’t have time for his games or his flirting or her own attraction to him (which she valiantly tries to suppress), and she avoids him whenever possible. His attentions confuse her – why would such a handsome, wealthy, eligible bachelor pursue a poor, lame widow? And despite her best intentions to ignore him, she’s flattered by his attentions. But Elinor rebuffs him, anyway. She senses there’s more to Stephen than meets the eye, and she’ll never let another man control her ever again.
Although Stephen pursues Elinor and his revenge with a vengeance, he can’t help his growing affection for her. The widow is nothing like the impulsive, reckless girl he remembers, and he craves opportunities to spend time with her. Despite her denials, he senses the attraction is mutual, and redoubles his efforts even though she pushes him away. Beloved by the locals, sharp, and lovely, Elinor is a siren he can’t resist, even as he has his employee (John Fielding – the boy who saved his life in prison) proceed with her ruination. (Ahem). When Elinor refuses Stephen’s impulsive offer of marriage, he vows to stay away and returns to London. But then she turns up in London a few days later and asks for his help, and Stephen is powerless to refuse.
LaViolette makes it extremely difficult to dislike Stephen – he’s charming and generous and gentle and besotted and bewildered by his feelings for Elinor, but we know he’s up to no good! Revenge has been his close friend for so long, Stephen can’t conceive of his future without it. He pursues Elinor to eventually ruin her, and behind the scenes he schemes – with John Fielding doing much of his dirty work – to financially destroy her father, Viscount Yarmouth, and his heir (Elinor’s brother). Friends, he’s ruthless and relentless. He’s also totally unmoored by his feelings for Elinor, and too scared by those feelings to change course. Honestly, I have to admire LaViolette’s commitment to this morally questionable character; it takes confidence to believe you can redeem a character whose moral compass is so far out of whack. Fortunately, although I won’t spoil the second half of this story, I can promise you his is a satisfying (groveling, oh so much groveling) redemption story.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Elinor hasn’t let the circumstances of her past define her future, and she’s turned adversities into opportunities. Rather than wallow in self-pity over her physical impairment (a crippled foot which causes her to limp) or regrets over the painful injuries she sustained while married, she uses them as motivation to become a physician in order to care for others. She’s unfailingly generous and kind and good – even to her husband’s bastard son whom she discovered living on the estate whilst she was still married. Elinor deserves love and kindness and respect – and instead, she gets Stephen. He threatens her home, her livelihood, and her heart, and she still struggles to resist his relentless charm offensive. Reader, she suspects he’s up to something and falls for him anyway. Even after he proves her right, she…. ha! I’m not going to tell you. But it’s lovely and swoony and everything good that Elinor so richly deserves.
Told in dual PoVs, The Footman unfolds amid flashbacks to that ill-fated kiss, and the events that shape the current story. The pacing is excellent, and I was glued to it from start to finish. LaViolette saves a major plot revelation and surprise twist for late in the second half, and both are perfectly timed for maximum impact as the story winds its way to a lovely, swoony epilogue. Two secondary characters, Beth, Elinor’s long-suffering, matchmaking maid, and the enigmatic John Fielding (who I hope features in a future story), make memorable appearances, and also add a nice bit of levity.
The Footman is a sexy, steamy ode to the redemptive power of love. I enjoyed almost every bit of it, and I can’t wait for the next Masqueraders novel. Highly recommended.
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Grade: A-
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 13/06/20
Publication Date: 04/2020
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
I love romance novels - all kinds.
I love music - some kinds.
I have strong opinions about both and I like to share them.
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I just read this and really enjoyed it. Normally I don’t like the revenge trope because usually the hero is bent on punishing the heroine just because she is related to the bad guy. In this case you understood why Stephen harbored such resentment for Elinor (even though she only did one impulsive thing) because it had such a devastating effect on his life.
I also enjoyed how Stephen’s good works at the end were foreshadowed by his situation with his mother and uncle and Jeremiah’s influence. It’s not like he was a bad person who just flipped to good overnight. He was a generally good person (as we saw when he almost died helping Jeremiah when he didn’t even know him) who was bitter over things that happened to him. And while his revenge on Elinor certainly wasn’t nice, it wasn’t completely cold blooded- he clearly had feelings for her. He didn’t end upseducing her just to seduce her and his revenge plot against her ended with him gifting her a house and an income-so also not the worst revenge I’ve seen played out. And this is before he knows the full extent of the part she played in helping him.
Elinor was an enjoyable heroine who never fell into the big maudlin pity character so many authors like to write. She clearly suffered a lot but I always got a sense of dignity and strength from her. She made her own life, carved out a place where she could help others and was incredibly self sufficient. She always had a strong sense of dignity and even though everything was stacked against her she was more than a match for Stephen.
I’m really looking forward to the next books in this series, because talk about sequel bait! There are at least 2-3 books I can see coming out of the supporting characters from this novel.
OK, I have some questions now that I’ve finished this:
Why did no one get charged in the death of her husband? (And she delivered that blow, not Michael, right?)
I hear you but neither of those things were clear to me especially who was to blame. The way the story was told clearly one way and then that confession says it’s another.
The husband is the one plot point I couldn’t get my head around.
SPOILERS
He claims to marry Elinor because he wants children but then goes on to beat her so badly she loses every child. He had one child, an illegitimate son and tried to beat him to death. Was it just that he was insane? It’s a plot point that never seemed to be addressed.
Regarding the husband’s death, Stephen knows that Marcus’s story is off when he claims Elinor dealt the final blow. When Marcus confesses it was him- it’s not really a surprise and when we flash back to the time Elinor is nursing the husband I think it’s mentioned she’s protecting Marcus (and herself for pretending it was a robbery gone bad).
“co-signs”
I just got to the part in this book where it said she weighed six stones. Actually, it said she weighed almost 6 stones. That puts her at around 80 or so pounds. That’s a little terrifying.
Heh. When I applied for migration to Canada, I weighed 75 pounds. My BMI was 12, which is considered incompatible with life, and I had to take (and pay for) a slew of additional medical tests to prove to the Canadian High Commission that I wasn’t 1. dead 2. going to be a drain on the health care system.
I wasn’t in poor health or anything, though, just naturally small-boned and I had a fast metabolism. So I personally wouldn’t find 80 pounds worrisome unless the person was taller than me or had an eating disorder or some other health condition. But I can see how people might find this concerning!
It’s 40 pounds less than the average for women at that time!
Finished it today and thoroughly enjoyed it!
Yes–I only have time to read before I go to bed and I am counting the hours!
I’m so happy you both are enjoying this. I thought it was wonderful surprise!
I had never heard of LaViolette before your review, but after finishing THE FOOTMAN, I saw she had some erotic historicals on KU, so I checked out a couple. One called THE COUNTESS has a very similar setup to THE FOOTMAN: the heroine is a good-hearted and childless widow living in financially-straightened circumstances in a dilapidated country home; the hero is a wealthy businessman who acquires the property. Of course, the book is erotica, so all kinds of things are going on (cue the bow-chicka-bow-wow music), but there is a plot—not just a bunch of sex scenes strung together.
The author is also known as Minerva Spencer, whose first books were published by Kensington.
Thanks. I hate to say it, but I’ve never heard of Minerva Spencer either—but I don’t read much HR these days, so I don’t know many of the HR writers. Also, I made a mistake in my comment above: the name of LaViolette’s erotic historical that reminded me of THE FOOTMAN is HIS COUNTESS.
I totally checked out those books too! You liked them? I haven’t read any of them yet…but I plan to!
I liked HIS COUNTESS, but I did have to keep reminding myself that it was erotica and so I should expect the plot to be interspersed with massive amounts of sex (of all varieties and permutations). Plus, I’m so accustomed to contemporaries where, regardless of sexual heat-level or classification, there’s usually at least a nominal nod to safe sex/condom use, that I got a little indignant at the hero of HIS COUNTESS who was up (pardon the pun) for anything with anyone and, therefore, passing around God knows what to all and sundry. On the other hand, the story is interesting and it does bring in the other couples whose stories are told in HIS MISTRESS and HIS VALET, so I’ll probably end up reading those too.
I started reading it last night and got sucked right in!
Sounds fantastic! Ordering it now.
This one sounds a lot less tropey/campy than I read, which is interesting in of itself.
And it’s on Kindle Unlimited! So few historical romances are. Downloading now!
But… Blackfriars?! The estate is called Blackfriars? I can’t get past this name.
Blackfriars was the common English name for members of the Dominican order and by extension Dominican priories, most of which are of course moribund. There do seem to be a few things named after them, including an area of a town and some theatres, but it seems like a bizarre name for a grand estate. I know sometimes you get X Abbey as estate names, but using the actual real name of a specific real order seems much weirder to me, maybe especially because all the Dominican priories were called Blackfriars. Also some of the priories were later reopened and now exist again (I have attended Mass at Blackfriars in Oxford, for instance), although of course that wouldn’t have been true at the time of the book.
Blackfriars is an area the City of London (as you say, the name is derived from the religious order) – and a major train/Underground station. I would venture that those are much more familiar these days than the order that gave them its name. Naming an estate Blackfriars would make me think of the station rather than anything else.
As I only skimmed the review, I just thought that she was in London, in a house on the Thames! I think that the nobs used to have their London residences along the Thames until it got too stinky for them………………
This sounds like my catnip. Thanks for the review!
Wow, what a review, Em. This sounds very interesting and includes a few tropes that I’ve not really seen before. Not exactly sure of the timeframe, though. Regency, Victorian??
Elaine – Victorian. The early scene is 1802, and then it jumps forward fifteen years to 1817.
This was a book I was convinced wouldn’t work for me, and then I just couldn’t put it down. I haven’t felt that way in quite a bit…so, the high grade!
That would be Regency. Victoria did not come to the throne until later in the 1800s.
ha! :)
thank you!
Victoria took the throne in 1837 – is 1817 a typo? George IV was king in 1817, so technically, it’s not regency – Georgian is probably the right label, but in HR, sometimes the whole of his actual reign (1811-1820) gets labelled Regency.
Can’t resist chiming in. The long regency covers 1795-1837 and includes the actual regency as well as the reigns of George IV and William IV. I guess it’s simpler than going back to saying “Georgian” in 1820 (when George III died). Poor old William IV’s reign was so short that it doesn’t even get its own name. :-)
I hope this comes out on audio soon…it sounds divine.
Unlike her first series, which was published by Kensington (audio was picked up by Tantor who didn’t give her the best narrator, IMO) the author is now self-publishing, so it might not be on the cards. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.
Thanks!