Author: Martha Waters

Item: To Love and to Loathe
Rating: 5
Author: Arielle

BOOK REVIEW: To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters

October 19, 2020 / Arielle / 2 Comments

To Love and to Loathe by Martha Waters
Purchase on: Amazon
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
The author of the “hilarious...joyful, elegant” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) To Have and to Hoax returns with an effervescent, charming, and swoon-worthy novel about a man and woman who never agree on anything—until they agree to a no-strings-attached affair in this Regency-era romp.

The widowed Diana, Lady Templeton and Jeremy, Marquess of Willingham are infamous among English high society as much for their sharp-tongued bickering as their flirtation. One evening, an argument at a ball turns into a serious wager: Jeremy will marry within the year or Diana will forfeit one hundred pounds. So shortly after, just before a fortnight-long house party at Elderwild, Jeremy’s country estate, Diana is shocked when Jeremy appears at her home with a very different kind of proposition.

After his latest mistress unfavorably criticized his skills in the bedroom, Jeremy is looking for reassurance, so he has gone to the only woman he trusts to be totally truthful. He suggests that they embark on a brief affair while at the house party—Jeremy can receive an honest critique of his bedroom skills and widowed Diana can use the gossip to signal to other gentlemen that she is interested in taking a lover.

Diana thinks taking him up on his counter-proposal can only help her win her wager. With her in the bedroom and Jeremy’s marriage-minded grandmother, the formidable Dowager Marchioness of Willingham, helping to find suitable matches among the eligible ladies at Elderwild, Diana is confident her victory is assured. But while they’re focused on winning wagers, they stand to lose their own hearts.

With Martha Waters’s signature “cheeky charm and wonderfully wry wit” (Booklist, starred review), To Love and to Loathe is another clever and delightful historical rom-com that is perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Evie Dunmore.

Review

THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD I’M OBSESSEDDDDDD.

Okay….As you may remember, I had been sent a link to an e-galley for To Have and To Hoax late last year and almost passed it up because I had never read a historical romance before. Long story short I picked it up on a whim, devoured it in a day and have since went back to read different passages over and over again.

When I found out that this book was being written, I prowled the author’s social media pages and NetGalley/Edelweiss for the day that I would be able to request this baby. BY SOME MAGIC I was approved right away and got down to business.

What I found was that I now completely swear by Martha Waters. I will read literally anything she puts out and you can quote me on that. I mean come on. Not only do I love her writing and characters and stories but she is ALSO a librarian. At this point we’re basically kindred spirits, lol.

But in all honesty, this book was just…..so, so good. I really thought that not much could top her first book but this one truly did. While that one featured a second chance romance where the couple basically played a game with one another to get the other to notice again, and that sort of thing can be really appealing….it can also be kind of frustrating. We as the reader are getting both sides of their stories so we KNOW that they love each other still and we KNOW that what they’re doing is so silly and pointless but until they both come to terms with that, we’re just at the mercy of them getting their heads out of their asses.

THIS ONE THOUGH…..ahhhhh….”enemies” to lovers. This trope will forever hold a special place in my heart. As we saw in To Have and to Hoax, Diana, the young widow who is close friends with Violet, has bet Jeremy, Marquess of Willingham, and James’s good friend 100 pounds that he will get married within a year. The two have forever been “at odds,” always at each others throats with a quick witticism or jab to be thrown into what could easily have been a civil conversation.

One day, Jeremy comes to call on Diana with a most embarrassing issue. After sleeping with a married man’s wife, he had been accused of certain shortcomings within the bedroom and proposes that Diana with her no-bullshit attitude (and the fact that she’s a widow) might help him figure out if there was any truth to the woman’s angry words. She reluctantly agrees seeing as that might open the door for her to future lovers (and maybe partly because she MAY have always thought him to be extremely attractive). It all goes down during a country house party that Jeremy has every year.

Between their STEAMY AS HELL encounters, Diana trying to set him up with one Lady Helen (who seems deplorable but also….maybe not?), us learning more about the “true” Jeremy…there was no lacking in ANYTHING. It was funny, it was emotional, it was hot, it gave me butterflies. I loved every single page, paragraph, and sentence of this book and am now pining for more, more, more. Martha, please tell me that we get an EmilyxBelfry book, a SophiexWest book, and maybe even one for Penvale??? I’ll all eyes and ears, lol. 🙂 100% would recommend.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for a change to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

BOOK REVIEW: To Have and to Hoax by Martha Waters

December 18, 2019 / Arielle / 6 Comments

To Have and to Hoax by Martha Waters
Purchase on: Amazon
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
In this fresh and hilarious historical rom-com, an estranged husband and wife in Regency England feign accidents and illness in an attempt to gain attention—and maybe just win each other back in the process.

Five years ago, Lady Violet Grey and Lord James Audley met, fell in love, and got married. Four years ago, they had a fight to end all fights, and have barely spoken since.

Their once-passionate love match has been reduced to one of cold, detached politeness. But when Violet receives a letter that James has been thrown from his horse and rendered unconscious at their country estate, she races to be by his side—only to discover him alive and well at a tavern, and completely unaware of her concern. She’s outraged. He’s confused. And the distance between them has never been more apparent.

Wanting to teach her estranged husband a lesson, Violet decides to feign an illness of her own. James quickly sees through it, but he decides to play along in an ever-escalating game of manipulation, featuring actors masquerading as doctors, threats of Swiss sanitariums, faux mistresses—and a lot of flirtation between a husband and wife who might not hate each other as much as they thought. Will the two be able to overcome four years of hurt or will they continue to deny the spark between them?

With charm, wit, and heart in spades, To Have and To Hoax is a fresh and eminently entertaining romantic comedy—perfect for fans of Jasmine Guillory and Julia Quinn.

Review

And to think I almost didn’t read this book. I have rarely ever had a publisher reach out to me via e-mail with a widget for an ebook galley that I didn’t already request or show interest in. As I was going through my g-mail last night I stumbled across an e-mail from a person in marketing from Atria and saw they were giving me the chance to read this book. I kind of grumbled to myself at first because well, I’m always in way over my head with ARCs to read and don’t particularly need more currently but THANK GOD I decided to read the blurb. This cover is….not my favorite…and I tend to judge books by my cover even though by now I should know better. THE BLURB THO YOU GUYS. I am not a person who reads historical romances. I don’t know why, obviously, since I loved this book but it’s just not been a thing that has interested me in the past. Again, thank God for the blurb. It piqued my interest IMMEDIATELY. I mean like, have you taken a look? How can you not be intrigued???!?! A second chance romance with kind of a love-to-hate-to-love element thrown in??!? Something about it sounded very appealing last night.

We get a prologue of how these two meet…and of course it starts out with possible ~Ruination~, a balcony scene, and quite an unexpected proposal. Immediately sold. If there’s one thing I will NEVER, EVER get enough of, it’s a quality fucking balcony scene with illicit behavior and witty banter. Fast forward five years. Violet and James, after a whirlwind proposal, marriage, and first year madly in love, have become estranged. They barely see each other, speak to each other, or touch for that matter. After receiving a letter than James has been in a riding accident and is possibly in a coma, Violet rushes to go see him. The two pass each other on the road and Violet finds out that James is fine.

What ensues is a pretty messed up, hilarious, and also frustrating war between the two. Violet pretends to have consumption, James pretends to want to take on a mistress (in front of Violet), and the two go round and round. Throughout the book we get snippets of *The Argument* that happened between them to set them on this path of silence and misery. Ugh. There were certainly times that these two pissed me off. They were two of the most STUBBORN characters I’ve ever had the pleasure reading about. All of their friends were constantly telling them to JUST TALK but noooooooooooooooooo. One of them has a breakthrough and the other immediately shut that shit down. It was torment. But. For some reason it didn’t get to me in the slightest. I ate that crap up and hungered for more. Like it just built up and built up and FINALLY…that first kiss. I melted. The tension between the two was so palpable by the end I loved it. And even though it did take them the entire length of the book to work their problems out, I loved how it all finally went down. It took time and effort and they sorted EVERYTHING out before completely reconciling. Honestly I haven’t devoured a book so fast in AGES and I pray there are more coming. If I could voice once complaint it would have to be that the writing took some times getting used to. There’s quite a few (in my English major opinion) run on sentences at the beginning that I felt like I had to re-read a few times to truly understand the gist of but that seemed to get better as time went on!

P.S. I need Diana and Emily stories now, plz thanks.

Huge thanks to Atria books and NetGalley for allowing me to review a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion! ♥