The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister, #3) in What's the Name of That Book???

Mar 15, 2014 Punk rated it liked it

Shelves: ebook, romance

Romance. Sebastian and Violet have been best friends forever, and have been secretly in love with each other for almost as long. Sebastian's a rake who spends his free time upsetting England with scandalous lectures about inherited traits in flowers, and Violet's a widowed countess—with a secret, natch—who puts everyone's needs ahead of her own. They get along like a house on fire, which is to say merrily, and with the potential for catastrophic disaster.

The moment Sebastian and Violet appeared Romance. Sebastian and Violet have been best friends forever, and have been secretly in love with each other for almost as long. Sebastian's a rake who spends his free time upsetting England with scandalous lectures about inherited traits in flowers, and Violet's a widowed countess—with a secret, natch—who puts everyone's needs ahead of her own. They get along like a house on fire, which is to say merrily, and with the potential for catastrophic disaster.

The moment Sebastian and Violet appeared at the train station in The Duchess War, they became my OTP. I loved their bickering, their socially inappropriate way of dealing with each other, and the fact they were obviously great friends. In The Heiress Effect, they show up briefly, and it seems all is not well. Sebastian's cousin is worried because he isn't his usual cheery self, and at the end Sebastian absolutely loses his shit with Violet.

The Countess Conspiracy promised me all the Sebastian and Violet I could handle, and I had high hopes, but my hopes were—not dashed, exactly, but buckled somewhat. I will explain why, and my explanation will be in three parts, with the first part second, the third part first, and the second part last.

What I wanted to happen: I know I can't review a book based on what I wanted to happen, so I'll just say it to get it out of the way: I wanted a story about Violet and Sebastian being sassy BFFs. Like a buddy cop movie, but with science and romance instead of criminals. Fandom knows what I'm talking about. Basically I wanted Milan to capitalize on the easy friendship she gave us in the first book and translate it into an even more intimate relationship. Instead...

What actually happened: Shit got dark. Milan breaks that easy friendship into several pieces within the first few pages. The book starts out with the crisis from the end of The Heiress Effect, and Violet and Sebastian's partnership dissolves from there. The rest of the book is taken up with their reconciliation. They learn to meet on new terms, rebuild their relationship, and—because this is Courtney Milan—deal with problems that have nothing to do with each other because they're their own people and have shit going on that has nothing to do with their love life. Then a happy ending, of course.

I think the biggest problem here is that this book leans too much on the other books in the series. Book two stood on its own, but this one depends upon scenes from the first two books in order to tell the whole story. If you haven't read those two books, then you're picking up this book where Violet and Sebastian are immediately at odds with each other, and I can't say for sure, but I feel like that might weaken the romance. I do know that new readers miss the chance to see how great these two are together and what a terrible and devastating thing this is that they're no longer comfortable with each other. I think it asks new readers to take a leap that the book refuses to bridge. As for the old readers...

What should have happened: Thanks to the previous two books, I was already thoroughly charmed by Violet and Sebastian. I know this book is a sequel, but it should have been able to stand on its own as well, and I don't feel that it does. Milan should have made more of an effort to show the progression of Violet and Sebastian's relationship in this book: Show them happy and at ease, reveal the strain Sebastian is under because of the secret he's keeping, move the scene where they break up to a quarter of the way in, then do the rest of the book with the pining and the reconciliation and rebuilding their epic partnership to be even stronger than before. But breaking a thing before your reader is invested in it robs it of its emotional power. I was invested before I even picked up the book, but I still felt something was missing here.

Man, I'm bummed. This also got a tad melodramatic in a way the earlier books weren't. Violet turns into a sad, soggy mess for a while—mostly due to past emotional abuse, sexual coercion, and forced pregnancy, so trigger warnings for that. But it has its good stuff too: There's ladies doing science, and friendship, and there are characters who are aware that marriage and children shouldn't be a woman's highest (or only) aspiration. That's something I really appreciate about Milan's writing. In the first book we get two old women who live together and are dedicated to each other; in the second book there's a woman who doesn't want to marry at all, and a girl who wants to vote and go to Cambridge; in the third, there's a girl who rejects a marriage offer at the cost of her relationship with her mother. These characters are aware of the rules of their society, are stifled by them, and sometimes choose to break them, but they're always aware of the consequences of their actions. It makes these stories—these women—feel more real to me. It's not a fairytale Regency romance where everything is perfect and no one notices what a raw deal women get. It's a world where women are trying to get the rights and recognition they deserve, and they choose partners and friends who support them in that struggle.

Three stars. The romance was a disappointment to me, but the book itself is still loads better than most of the historical romances I've read. To get the full impact, you should probably read the first two books in the series.

eBook: Purchased a DRM-free epub from Smashwords, it has a cover, and a few errors, mostly dropped or doubled words (and in one instance, missing text with a Greek letter in its place), but I noticed the same thing of the previous two books, and I read them in paperback, so it's probably not a problem specific to the ebooks. Smashwords is really getting to be my favorite place to buy ebooks. Everything there is DRM-free, comes in a slew of formats, has prices based on word count, and the epubs always look great on my Sony reader without any fiddling. And if I do need to fiddle with them, there's no junk code in the epubs to get in my way. Kobo's epubs are absolutely swollen with useless code—so, so ugly inside—but Smashwords's styling makes it so easy to tweak the css in Sigil. Go Smashwords. ...more

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Aug 11, 2021 emily rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction-historical, 2011-to-2015, romance, delightful-popcorn, 2022

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Sep 16, 2017 Christina rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical-romance

Another satisfying girly book from Courtney Milan. I didn't love this one QUITE as much as "The Heiress Effect" BUT it was still really enjoyable, romantic, fun, and didn't leave me feeling like I had to donate to Planned Parenthood to offset the amount of internalized misogyny I'd ingested and the American Library Association to make up for the crimes against the English language I'd supported in reading it. I know that sounds like setting the bar low, but I kind of want to hold this series up ...more

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Apr 05, 2020 Andrea rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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Nov 16, 2019 Sarani Rangarajan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An excellent book

It’s a romance, but it’s a period piece with modern ideas of female capability, of consent, of love front and center.

I love it to bits. Would strongly recommend to anyone looking for a romance with sting female MC, but also a very strong male MC.

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