Review: Say Yes to the Marquess by Tessa Dare

Posted January 5, 2015 by Rowena in Reviews | 4 Comments

Publisher: Avon, Harper Collins

say yes to the marquess
Rowena’s review of Say Yes to the Marquess (Castles Ever After #2) by Tessa Dare.

Your presence is requested at romantic Twill Castle for the wedding of Miss Clio Whitmore and . . . and . . . ?

After eight years of waiting for Piers Brandon, the wandering Marquess of Granville, to set a wedding date, Clio Whitmore has had enough. She’s inherited a castle, scraped together some pride, and made plans to break her engagement.

Not if Rafe Brandon can help it. A ruthless prizefighter and notorious rake, Rafe is determined that Clio will marry his brother—even if he has to plan the dratted wedding himself.

So how does a hardened fighter cure a reluctant bride’s cold feet?
● He starts with flowers. A wedding can’t have too many flowers. Or harps. Or cakes.

● He lets her know she’ll make a beautiful, desirable bride—and tries not to picture her as his.

● He doesn’t kiss her.

● If he kisses her, he definitely doesn’t kiss her again.

● When all else fails, he puts her in a stunning gown. And vows not to be nearby when the gown comes off.

● And no matter what—he doesn’t fall in disastrous, hopeless love with the one woman he can never call his own.

What a cute book this turned out to be.

I knew that I would enjoy this book because Tessa Dare has never steered me wrong and I have complete faith in her entertaining abilities. I wasn’t wrong.

This is the second book in the Castles Ever After series and Rafe and Clio’s story was just as adorable as Ransom and Izzy’s story.

Clio is known as Lady Waitmore because she’s been engaged to her fiance for more than 8 years and she’s tired of waiting for him. She’s tired of being the laughingstock of London so when she inherits her own castle, she starts making plans. Plans that don’t include her fiance.

In fact, the only part of her plans that her fiance is part of is the part where she tries to end their engagement…permanently. But with him off traveling the world, her only hope in dissolving their engagement is to get his brother and her friend, Rafe Brandon to sign the papers that will end their engagement. But Rafe won’t sign the papers. He’s determined that she marry his brother, even if he has to plan the wedding himself.

Sparks flew between both Rafe and Clio from the very first moment they shared page time. I liked them both right from the jump. My heart went out to Clio but Rafe snagged a bit of my heart right from the start. Seeing these two bump heads and battle wits was entertaining.

Clio was strong and she was independent but she was also extremely patient and kind. The way that she was with her sisters (because Diana drove me up the wall and I would have been throat punched the shit out of her had she been my sister) and even how loyal she was to Piers for all of those years. She held her head high even when things were so hard for her to take because she saw and felt the whispers behind her back. Watching her get closer and closer to her childhood friend, Rafe had me all giddy because they were just so freaking cute together.

Rafe was another great Tessa Dare hero. He isn’t perfect but he was completely perfect for Clio. I loved seeing Clio win him over. Seeing how unworthy he felt and seeing Clio change his mind made for such a great romance. The chemistry between these two characters was delicious and I ate it all up.

On top of having such wonderful main characters, the secondary characters were pretty great as well. My favorite of the secondary characters was probably Bruiser. He had me cracking up throughout most of the book. The way he got so excited about every little thing at the castle was too funny. I adored his wit, the relationship that he had with Rafe and just his enthusiasm for everything. It was just great. Ellingsworth was pretty great too.

The only gripe that I had with this book was probably Clio’s sister, Daphne. I wanted to throttle her more than once and oh man, the game that their mother used to play with them? I wasn’t a fan of that either. It gave Clio such a complex that she shouldn’t have had because she was perfect the way that she was and I was glad that Rafe showed her just how perfect she was.

My favorite part of the book was probably the cake fight. That was just great. The romance between Rafe and Clio was full of awesome and I’m super excited for the next book in this series. Does anyone know what it’ll be? I definitely recommend this book.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

Reading Order:

This book is available from Avon. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


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4 responses to “Review: Say Yes to the Marquess by Tessa Dare

  1. Sharlene Wegner

    Oh, I read this last week & loved it, too! Both books were excellent! PS I checked Amazon & the next book is When a Scot Ties the Knot on Aug 25th!

    • Hey Sharlene! Thanks for stopping by and thanks for looking up the next book since I’m much too lazy to do it myself. 🙂 August 25th isn’t too long to wait. I can’t wait for the next release. I loved both Book 1 and Book 2. So, so good but I expect nothing less from Tessa Dare. She’s awesome.

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