The Madcap
114. Nikki Poppen, The Madcap
As the granddaughter of a San Francisco gentleman who made his fortune through baking, Marianne Addison is popularly known as the “sourdough heiress.” She hopes to take New York society by storm, but an unfortunate social blunder sends her back to San Francisco in disgrace. Desperate to show the world that she can be accepted by polite society, Marianne decides to travel to London for the Season. There she meets Alasdair Braden, a handsome but penniless viscount, and she quickly finds herself attracted to him. But is he courting her for herself or her money?
This is a strange book in that it’s ostensibly set in the late-19th century, but It reads more like a Regency-era romance. I suspect that the author drew her settings from period films rather than from actual historical research. Personally, I didn’t mind the historical ambiguities as much as the total unoriginality of the plot and characters. Alasdair and Marianne are both superlatively uninteresting, and the “conflict” between them (he might be a fortune hunter, she might be too outspoken) is never a real issue. The writing style also bothered me, because it tended to be very repetitive. Overall, I was very disappointed with this book and wouldn’t recommend it, not even to fans of historical romance looking for some fluffy brain candy.