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A review by sbelasco40
Unveiled by Courtney Milan
4.0
I will be the first person to tell you that I have a prejudice against romance novels - an unfair prejudice, really, because until the last month or so, I'd never actually ready any. I guess I internalized the misogynist way people (the literary community in particular) tend to view the genre, as if they are all books about women wilting into the arms of their well-muscled and strong men. And I could really deal without the number of people who have told me I should write a romance novel to make money, as if this is something I'm inherently able to do because a) I'm a woman, and b) it's obviously a super-easy thing to do.
What Courtney Milan does with UNVEILED, though, is not easy. She takes the genre conventions of the Regency romance - a dying duke! a battle for titles! the marriage market! a woman's virtue! a mysterious and wealthy interloper! - and both inverts and subverts them to tell a story about a woman who learns to value herself even when society has cast her out. Does this newfound agency derive from her relationship with a powerful man? Well, yes. And there were moments when I rolled my eyes a little at the way this relationship develops, but then again, I am viewing all this from the POV of a 21st century woman who doesn't live in a time period where women of noble birth are basically not allowed to do anything of their own volition or because of their own desires. Also: it's not uncommon for people to evolve and change because of their romantic relationships, and in this novel, both Margaret and the handsome Ash grow because of each other.
Are there many terrible romance novels? Certainly. But in the future I won't tar them all with the same brush, because it's unfair. Milan proves, quite convincingly, that romance novels can be compelling, smart, and even feminist.
What Courtney Milan does with UNVEILED, though, is not easy. She takes the genre conventions of the Regency romance - a dying duke! a battle for titles! the marriage market! a woman's virtue! a mysterious and wealthy interloper! - and both inverts and subverts them to tell a story about a woman who learns to value herself even when society has cast her out. Does this newfound agency derive from her relationship with a powerful man? Well, yes. And there were moments when I rolled my eyes a little at the way this relationship develops, but then again, I am viewing all this from the POV of a 21st century woman who doesn't live in a time period where women of noble birth are basically not allowed to do anything of their own volition or because of their own desires. Also: it's not uncommon for people to evolve and change because of their romantic relationships, and in this novel, both Margaret and the handsome Ash grow because of each other.
Are there many terrible romance novels? Certainly. But in the future I won't tar them all with the same brush, because it's unfair. Milan proves, quite convincingly, that romance novels can be compelling, smart, and even feminist.