Review: Saving the Marquise's Granddaughter

Saving the Marquise's Granddaughter by Carrie Fancett Pagels
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The story is well written for the most part. However, there are so many places where Pagels lost me, or switched things around. At first Suzanne could understand German, then she had lots of trouble piecing together what Johan and family were saying. Other places, the story had a breakneck flow, and then suddenly bogged down. I sort of like that (in limited quantities) because it gives me time to think about everything. But even so, this was more bogging as in a soap opera rather than a deeply moving romance. While most was well written, this is not actually a historical romance. That would mean there should be some actual, history.

[Insert a wailing whine here.] Why doesn't someone teach writers how to do research before writing novels? Why don't publishing house editors insist on real research from the authors, and why don't publishing houses require editors to have education before they hire these editors? And WHY don't publishing houses have fact checkers???

I was so excited to see this book on my Netgalley shelf. Finally, a great 16th or 17th century historical romance. Nope... it's supposedly taking place in 1742. That's about 75 years after the religious wars and Catholic terrorism against Huguenots happened which began in the early 1500s through the middle of the 1600s, then it became more of a political war. My 8th great grandfather was a Huguenot and immigrated to Virginia from France in 1625. I do not know his story, so I was hoping to glean a bit of history at the same time enjoy a good romance.

Well, the romance was fairly good... the history, not so much. Besides the timing of the novel, there wasn't a whole lot of costume discussion, although there was a lot of powdered wigs in the royal court (which was true in the 1700s (18th century), not the 1600s.

Here's another question. Johan's family were supposed to own a lot of land, but their farm couldn't sustain two families, which is a plot ploy that requires Johan to take Suzanne to America. In places the plot seems forced, not a natural flow where the characters are not well developed. Sometimes Johan's brother is portrayed as an okay fellow, other times he's a dirty, rotten scoundrel. Which is it? Suzanne has a terrible habit of agonizing over some things, and just letting other things flow around her without notice. That was annoying for me.

I have this 2 stars. It has such tremenous potential, but it fell flat for me. I'm not a fan of soap operas, and I think that is probably it. On the other hand, I read this off Netgalley, and publishers have a really bad habit of submitting undedited (I mean really RAW stuff) on there. So take this honest review with a grain of salf.



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