Dangerous Alliance by Jennieke Cohen

Summary from Goodreads:

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue meets Jane Austen in this witty, winking historical romance with a dash of mystery!

Lady Victoria Aston has everything she could want: an older sister happily wed, the future of her family estate secure, and ample opportunity to while her time away in the fields around her home.

But now Vicky must marry—or find herself and her family destitute. Armed only with the wisdom she has gained from her beloved novels by Jane Austen, she enters society’s treacherous season.

Sadly, Miss Austen has little to say about Vicky’s exact circumstances: whether the roguish Mr. Carmichael is indeed a scoundrel, if her former best friend, Tom Sherborne, is out for her dowry or for her heart, or even how to fend off the attentions of the foppish Mr. Silby, he of the unfortunate fashion sensibility.

Most unfortunately of all, Vicky’s books are silent on the topic of the mysterious accidents cropping up around her…ones that could prevent her from surviving until her wedding day.

Review:

I think I liked the concept of this book more than I actually liked the book itself. I did enjoy it. How can I not enjoy a book with the tagline: “An Austentacious Romance”? I’m a huge Jane Austen fan. And each chapter of this novel begins with an Austen quote. Oh, and the male main character is often compared to Mr. Darcy. This book was practically calling to me since I learned of it’s existence.

However, it took me almost 2 weeks to finish. For me, that’s a long time. And, it’s really not a long book. It’s slow. One can argue that not a lot happens in the book. However, not a lot happens in a Jane Austen novel either, and I tend to complete those in a sitting. Also, I would argue that a lot more happens in Dangerous Alliance than actually does happen in a Jane Austen novel. There’s a bit more action. There’s abductions, abusive husbands, divorces, scandals, attempted murder, etc. Yet, it still took me almost 2 weeks to read!

I think my problem was the predictability of it all. I knew from the very first pages how it was going to end and why. I did not feel that way when I first read Jane Austen. It felt a bit like if I were to watch an episode of Scooby-Doo. You know that the Scooby gang isn’t really being haunted by a real ghost. It’s really someone greedy who wants money, or the big house, or the land the big house is on.  This book didn’t have any ghosts in it. But, it had that same kind of “duh…” feeling. And as the reader you feel a bit like the only Velma in a world of Shaggy’s who only see the surface level ghosts and not the greedy landowners want something more.

Literally, every single character was Shaggy. No one was catching on to anything. I get that a lot of characters were scarred from things that happened in the past. And I get that this book takes place way before Scooby Doo does, or Agatha Christie novels, but still. No one was catching on to things at all. And it was driving me nuts.

The main character was brave. I loved that she put her life at risk to save her father. She’d do literally anything for her sister. She didn’t seem to care about the financial situation of the man she was in love with. She had a lot of good things going for her. But, she couldn’t figure out something I figured out from the first few pages? I feel like her literary aspiration (Elizabeth Bennet) would not have been so blind.

Any way, it was a fun historical book. The Austen references were charming. I still read the whole book. It worked as a nice escape for me during a not so great couple of weeks. But, it did take me a very long time to read –mostly due to my frustration of feeling like the only Velma in a world full of Shaggy’s. I guess I still rate it rather highly because it does still make me happy. I give it a 7/10.