The Valet and the Stable Groom

At several points, Clement, the ever-busy valet, imagines sitting with a cup of tea in front of a cozy fire, and that's very much the feeling that reading this book instilled in me.

Clement works for an eccentric nobleman, who moves to the countryside against his will. The nobleman tries out a series of strange hobbies, and his ill-conceived and sometimes dangerous ideas create a lot of funny moments. Clement has quite a task keeping him in line and trying to make the nobleman's new life happy and prosperous.

The book also focuses on Clement's friendship with his employer's wife, the maid, and the other staff at the house, which gave the book a nice family-of-choice feel. I don't know why everyone who knew about Clement's romance with the groom was okay with it, but I like historicals in which there is no homophobia, even though I know it isn't realistic.

The romance is very sweet and low-key. Clement is totally innocent and doesn't really know what he's feeling for the groom. I thought he was absolutely adorable.

There isn't much plot here, but that isn't a complaint, because I enjoyed spending time in the book's peaceful atmosphere. There's a conflict between Clement and the man who has been named butler to the new household, even though Clement is better suited to the job. A conflict also develops between the MCs because Clement thinks he's too busy to have time for love. But everything is resolved with a solid HEA.

I would recommend this book to fans of Charlie Cochrane's historical novels. The writing has a similar witty style, but with more straightforward language. This author was new to me, and I'll definitely be reading more of her work.

Marlowe's writing seems to be hit or miss for me, and this one was a miss. It really drags through these little interactions and drama of the side characters that have little to do with the story other than aggravate the MC. As many other reviewers said, it also seems pretty historically inaccurate about the interactions between servants and servants with their employers. There's also little romance here, just a teenage-style infatuation that didn't appeal to me and wasn't even the main plot point in the book. If you want to read about the hijinks of an rich, na??ve Georgian eccentric and the trouble he puts literally everyone he knows through, then you might enjoy this but otherwise I'd give it a miss.