Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie

I enjoyed a lot of things about this book. Our female protag, Beth, is a widow who was a poor lady's companion until said lady passed and left her fortune to Beth, which puts Beth in a very different position that she's previously been in throughout her life. Beth's a highly relatable heroine. She's practical but also ready to have adventures. She loved her first husband, enjoyed having sex with him, knows how lucky she was in both, and misses having male companionship. At the same time, she's old enough to be fond of the independence she's gained. When we meet Beth, she's engaged to a man with whom she feels she'll rub along well enough with.

Ian has knowledge otherwise and lets her know. I'm going to set aside my issues about what Ian knows about her fiancé to talk about later, since it's one of my issues with this book. Overall, I also like Ian. Is it not really acceptable that he has his not-exactly-valet dude look into Beth before he decides to tell her what he knows? No, not really, but also, Ian's ASD is pretty darn well constructed, and even if his actions are still not particularly acceptable, within his history and the way his mind works, they're definitely understandable.

(His valet sits in that weird position that happened a lot in late 2000's romances where the main male character had a lower class valet with whom he was strangely close and allowed unusual behavior in to show that...it was okay that he was rich?? And honestly, for the most part I didn't blink much at that, because okay, sure, but it's evidently a theme with the brothers that gets pointed out repeatedly in this book, presumably for emphasis of their lack of airs, and at one point one of the brothers makes a comment about his valet being a Rom and therefore "hard to tame" that was hella uncomfortable for me.)

Anyhoodle. Ashley writes well, and Beth and Ian have great chemistry, and if you're into the sexy parts, there's a lot of that, and people assure me that it's hot. There's a mystery element to the book that as far as I can tell readers are split on, and I could care less about because I could always care less about mysteries.

The interactions between the Mackenzie family, particularly around Ian's early-life institutionalization and the reason for that, were what really drove this book for me, outside of the push-pull of Beth and Ian.

However. There's a lot of underlying WTF in this book for me. Returning back to what Ian knows about Beth's fiance, it's that he's a male sub. That is, he likes to be spanked by women. Oh, the horror. The worst part is, this isn't necessary? The guy is a spendthrift who wants to marry Beth purely for her money and that's more than enough of a reason for her not to marry him. But no, evidently he has to be a "pervert." This problem is made a bigger problem by the fact that it turns out that Ian's eldest brother, who, you know, will get his own book later, is a Sadistic Top. E.g., it's fine to be kinky, as long as you're the right KIND of kinky. How's that for some toxic masculinity for you?

Throw in there that this book has a surprise!lesbian villainess for no obvious reason--and this woman literally has no role other than to be a faceless sex worker and a murderer--and an obsessedmistress!villainess--again, having no role other than to be the older brother's masochistic sub and a murderer, and I'm like "there's, uh. A lot happening here."

It puts me at a quandary. Because if you take out the mystery element and Beth's fiance, neither of which are actually necessary for the book, weirdly enough, it's a well-written romance between two enjoyable characters with unusual representation of ASD in histrom. Except that you can't take all those out? I suppose it's kind of a "now you know, you can make your own decision."

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