Something Extraordinary

Something Extraordinary (2024) Alexis Hall (Something Fabulous #3)

Set in England in ~1814

I’ll be honest–I put off reading this because in earlier books I found Bella annoying and frustrating and I didn’t want to spend time with her. But she was a little better in book two, as was Horley Comewithers, so I moved it up my TBR.

So when I got sick, this seemed like a good opportunity to dive in. Although the first day reading mostly made me more nauseated, so that was slow.

In Something Spectacular, Bonnie and Belle kidnap Sir Horley and his fiance Verity Carswile, because marriage seems like a terrible idea for the extremely gay Sir Horley. But he claimed he didn’t want rescued, so they turned him loose.

But on the eve of his wedding, Belle tried again, and discovers Sir Horley on a bender.

“My sweet child”—he reached out, catching clumsily for one of her curls, letting it twine about his finger—“people don’t drink to be helped. They drink because they can’t be.”

So she kidnaps him again.

Another shrug. “Whatever I believe, it doesn’t seem to have made a damn bit of difference. Because here you are. Attempting to disrupt my life all over again.”

“I’ve been worried,” Belle cried. “Attempting to disrupt someone’s life is one of the ways Bonny and I demonstrate affection.”

“It’s one of the ways you demonstrate you don’t have a fucking clue about how the world works.”

We learn why Sir Horley felt he had to follow his aunt’s wishes and get married.

To be fair,” he went on, mildly, “he is not the only man whose life I have ended. But the others I murdered at Wellington’s side. So those deaths were glorious, patriotic, and just.”

And we also see Belle struggle with being aromantic–despite her wishes for romance and romantic love.

“As we have comprehensively established, I am in love with nothing and no-one.”

The kidnapping, turned elopement, turned kidnapping is precisely what you’d expect from Alexis Hall and this series.

“This is already the worst elopement in history.”

“The very worst?” asked Sir Horley, as he allowed Belle to lead him towards the gate, only staggering through three more herbaceous borders en route. “In the whole of human history? That feels a vainglorious claim.”

I very much liked Sir Horley in this story, and quickly became unannoyed with Belle as she tried to help Sir Horley and come to terms with her own nature.

As with the previous two book, I was able to enjoy it by classifying it as a fantasy and NOT an historical romance, except that the only element of fantasy was how queer everyone was and how no one got arrested and hanged for it. (Why did I need to do this? Because generally in queer historicals the threat of hanging/beatings/horribleness lies lies in the background and I fret if characters don’t lock their doors. Here, there is no worry about that.)

What made me find this book particularly good was that I didn’t want to read it because I disliked one the main characters immensely. That I quickly did an about face is a pretty good recommendation for a story in my opinion.

Characters: Horley Rufus Grandison Comewithers, Arabella Tarleton, Bonny Tarleton, Valentine Duke of Malvern, Mrs. Ruth Greenleaf, Mr. Roland Bogstwaddle, Gilead Postlethwaite, Miss Verity Carswile, Mr. Valour Carswile, Hannah, Tom, Mr. Francis Smith, Mr. Asher Andrews, Uncle Wilbur, Æthelflæd (piglet), Margaret Peggy Delancey, Orfeo, Lady Farrow, Roberta “Bob” Everley, Rufus Comewithers, Ygraine Comewithers, Stella

Cover design by Hang Le

Publisher: Montlake

Rating: 9/10

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