Review: Piqued And Repiqued by Judith Hale Everett (2023)

There’s never any knowing what will drop from the creative pen of this author, but I know for sure it will always be interesting, and beautifully written. After a run of slightly oddball and frankly curious books, this is a stellar return to the form of the very first of this series.

Here’s the premise: Jonathan Blysdale is barely a gentleman, since his father was a wealthy man but in trade. Jonathan, however, has been raised to something different, with the education and manners of a gentleman, and no need to sully his hands with anything remotely resembling work. He has determinedly risen in society, and although the highest sticklers don’t accept him, he is received pretty much everywhere. When he sees the lovely Lady Athena Dibbington, he decides that making her his wife will be his ultimate triumph. But Athena is the coolest of cool customers, born to marry a marquess to compensate for her Mama’s failure in that direction, and there is no way she is going to look at a man like Jonathan Blysdale. She knows how to depress the pretensions of a man like that!

Jonathan, however, is not deterred in the least. Athena’s mother is even more set against him than Athena is, but Jonathan sets out to win the friendship of first her father and then her friends, and uses whatever means he can dream up to discover where Athena goes to and which parties she will attend, so that he can accidentally bump into her several times a week. And he’s such a charming, well-mannered man that she begins to be won round. Not that she intends to marry him, because her marquess is already circling around her, but she sees enough to be able to compare the two men and not to the marquess’s advantage.

From here on, it’s no great spoiler to say that Athena slowly crumbles into love, but there’s no plain sailing to the happy ending, with plenty of twists and turns to keep the reader turning the pages. I loved the gradual transformation of Athena, I loved Jonathan facing up to the consequences of his actions and above all I loved the unusual character of Iris, Athena’s friend who sets out to ensure her happiness. A wonderful, intelligent book that I highly recommend. Five stars.