Reviews

'Lady Victoria Aston has everything she could want: an older sister happily wed, the future of her family estate secure, and ample opportunity to while her time away in the fields around her home.

But now Vicky must marry—or find herself and her family destitute. Armed only with the wisdom she has gained from her beloved novels by Jane Austen, she enters society’s treacherous season.

Sadly, Miss Austen has little to say about Vicky’s exactcircumstances: whether the roguish Mr. Carmichael is indeed a scoundrel, if her former best friend, Tom Sherborne, is out for her dowry or for her heart, or even how to fend off the attentions of the foppish Mr. Silby, he of the unfortunate fashion sensibility.

Most unfortunately of all, Vicky’s books are silent on the topic of the mysterious accidents cropping up around her…ones that could prevent her from surviving until her wedding day.'
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3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 stars.

Dangerous Alliance is Jennieke Cohen's debut book and is termed an 'Austentacious Romance.'

I liked the two main characters and enjoyed the cast of more minor characters. Vicky is a little naive most of the time, but she is also compassionate and loyal and stubborn, traits which made me really love her character. I found Tom to be an interesting character and was intruiged to discover what had driven Tom to the continent and to sever communication. As for VIcky's parents, I didn't quite care for them so much, they didn't seem terribly concered by the danger their two daughters were in. Or at least they were less concerned by the danger VIcky was in.

I normally strongly dislike a love triangle, a vice this book was guilty of. But I found that the love triangle didn't really bother me in this book. It seemed to me that the back and forth was driven more by the developments happening in the mystery than an inconstant heroine. So therefore, I was able to make my peace with one being part of this book, even if the back and forth did frustrate me at times.

I was intruiged by the mystery that was introduced within the first few pages of this book. My curiosity to see how everything would turn out was the driving force behind my reading. I had my suspiscions as to who are villain(s) were, but I wasn't convinced that I wasn't being fooled by any potential red herrings and so I just had to keep reading to find how things would turn out. But when I did get to the end, I was a bit disappointed by how certain things turned out in regards to the villain(s), but I won't expound on that be cause I don't to risk giving anything away, but when your read it, I think you'll know what I'm referring to.

There was a lot of action in both the beginning and end of this book, but the middle lagged a bit for me. I didn't personally find this book to be terribly Austen-esque. Yes, the main character is in love with Jane Austen's books and references them all the time and attempts to use the heroines in her books as a model for how to live her life. Plus characters throughout the book follow some of the character tropes that can be found in Austen's novels. But overall I wasn't getting the kind of Austen vibes that I was expecting going into this book, but maybe that's just me. I could be in the minority here. At the same time though, I think the book was stronger because it relied mainly on similarities to her works rather than being a mash-up and retelling of those novels. Had it been simply a retelling, we wouldn't have nearly so much danger, mystery, and action.

If you like historical mysteries and Jane Austen, then I recommend this book to you. Just don't go into it ecpecting it to be quite so Austen heavy and then I think you'll really enjoy it.

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