How to Marry a Marquis (Agents for the Crown, #2)

by Julia Quinn

When Elizabeth Hotchkiss stumbles upon a copy of HOW TO MARRY A MARQUIS in her employer's library, she's convinced someone is playing a cruel joke. With three younger siblings to support, she knows she has to marry for money, but who might have guessed how desperate she's become? A guidebook to seduction might be just the thing she needs - and what harm could there be in taking a little peek?

James Sidwell, the Marquis of Riverdale, has been summoned to rescue his aunt from a blackmailer, a task that requires him to pose as the new estate manager, and his primary suspect is his aunt's companion, Elizabeth. Intrigued by the alluring young woman with the curious little rulebook, he gallantly offers to help her find a husband ... by practicing her wiles on him. But when practise becomes all too perfect, James decides that there is only one rule worth following - that Elizabeth marry her marquis.

• ISBN10: 0060766425
• ISBN13: 9780060766429
• Publish Date: 29 June 2004
• Publish Status: Unknown
• Out of Print: 11 April 2013
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amanda]

LADY DANBURY. I LOVE YOU SO.

My review of How to Marry a Marquis could easily be an ode to Lady Danbury, who is one of my favorite side characters EVER. --- No exaggeration. Lady Danbury, though she makes her introduction here, is in many of the Bridgerton and Smythe-Smith books. She is outspoken. She is crafty. She is everything I want to be when I grow up.

(Especially the lady in regency England part. Because that can happen!)

But what about James and Elizabeth? I suppose I should talk about them, since it's their book and all. Soooo. Lady Danbury is James's aunt, and thus, when he comes to investigate the *dun dun dun* BLACKMAILER, he meets Elizabeth, who's in desperate need of a husband so she can support her three siblings.

How to Marry a Marquis has even more glimmers of what I've come to love about JQ's books: family antics. Not only do you have James and Lady Danbury (LADY DANBURY!!!!), but you've also got Elizabeth and her three siblings. One scene features all of them (plus two characters from the previous book) and I won't lie, I was laughing. Out loud. Because FAMILY ANTICS.

Back to James and Elizabeth. Theirs was, for the most part, a sweet romance. Elizabeth is clumsy to an extreme, so you get lots of tension in the form of exquisite embarrassment. James takes more than a few bumps and bruises. The not sweet part of the romance had to do with James's deception. I'll just leave it at that -- once you get a few pages in, you'll figure it out.

No lie, I'm ready to reread ALL THE JQ now.