The Gentleman and His Vowsmith by Rebecca Ide

TL;DR: A fantastic start with drag of a middle and end.
Source: NetGalley – thank you so much to the publisher!

Plot: Two families are locked in with a murderer on the loose – it’s less tense than you’d think.
Characters: I liked most the characters here. They were quite well done!
Setting: The crumbled estate had a great feel to it. Rebecca Ide did a fantastic job with the setting.
Fantasy/Romance: The Fantasy is very light and the romance quite heavy.

Summary:

Lord Nicholas Monterris, the last remaining heir of a crumbling ducal house, must marry to save his family from complete decline. His father chooses Lady Leaf Serral, eldest daughter of his greatest rival, at which point Nic is sure it can’t get any worse. Until he learns the head negotiator is to be Dashiell sa Vare, an old flame he has neither forgiven nor forgotten, a man their rigid class structure forbids him to love.

Locked in the mouldering grandeur of Monterris Court (a house more haunting manifestation of dynastic ambition and ancestral guilt than home), the first dead body is troubling. The second, a warning that someone doesn’t want the contract to go ahead. But while Nic and his wife-to-be team up to banter their way through a secret murder investigation, it’s Dashiell he can’t stop thinking about. What would be worse? To love and have to let go, or to wholly deny the yearning of one’s heart forever?

Thoughts:

The Gentleman and His Vowsmith is a book I was so hyped for! It had some buzzwords I enjoy, romance and a locked room style mystery, and it’s queer to top it off. I expected something a bit more tense, or even comedic to make it a fun romp. This one however tried to go right down the middle with a touch of scares, which left it feeling a bit of a muddled mess for me.

Our main character is Nick and while I liked him I don’t actually think his voice was very strong. He spent most of the book being pulled by the plot and little else. He is frequently angry at his father and swooning over the Vowsmith but spends the rest of it following the path he’s meant to. You ever read something and think ‘This character would be an NPC in a video game I’d follow around for a quest’? That’s Nick. Even when the man who was his pseudo-father figure is murdered we see little in the way of grief.

The murders themselves were somewhat shocking, but quickly forgotten in the density of the text and the (again) swooning of Nicholas. Truth be told I would have preferred this to be told from Lady Leaf’s perspective. She was much more dynamic and interesting to me. The touches of horror we get as well were nice but they were so few and far it ended up feeling confused. Were we meant to be scared? Because the characters weren’t. Were we meant to be sad? The characters don’t seem sad for any long amount of time? We are meant to watch Nicholas swoon, but I don’t think Dash groveled nearly enough for that.

Overall I felt very mid on this one. I wanted it to commit to one thing, or to make me want the romance more. Instead everything felt a little lacking and I found the romance annoying by the end. Not to mention the very anti-climatic ending. Sadly not my favorite but it could work for some, so maybe go for it if you want a relatively safe regency style queer romance.