Book Review :: The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks by Mackenzi Lee

The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks by Mackenzi Lee
ISBN: 0062916033
Series: Montague Siblings #3
Also in this series: The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy
Published by Katherine Tegen Books
on 2021-11-16
Genres: LGBTQ+, Mental Health, Young Adult
Pages: 464
Goodreads

Adrian Montague has a bright future. The sole heir to his father's estate, he is an up and coming political writer and engaged to an activist who challenges and inspires him. But most young Lords aren't battling the debilitating anxiety Adrian secretly lives with or the growing fear that it might consume him and all he hopes to accomplish. In the wake of his mother's unexpected death, Adrian is also concerned people will find out that he has the mental illness she struggled with for years.

When a newly found keepsake of hers - a piece of a broken spyglass - comes into Adrian's possession, he's thrust into the past and finds himself face to face with an older brother he never knew he had. Henry "Monty" Montague has been living quietly in London for years, and his sudden appearance sends Adrian on a quest to unravel family secrets that only the spyglass can answer.

In pursuit of answers about the relic, the brothers chart a course to locate their sister Felicity. But as they travel between the pirate courts of Rabat, Portuguese islands, the canals of Amsterdam, and into unknown Artic waters, the Montague siblings are thrown into one final adventure as they face a ghostly legend that threatens their whole family.

Last updated on 6 October 2024

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What is The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks about?

The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks is set 20-odd years since we last ventured out into the European continent with Monty, Percy and, later, Felicity. But now we’re back with the Montague siblings as Adrian ‘the Goblin’ Montague starts his own adventure.

The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks follows the third sibling (and a tail-ender at that) as he comes into possession of his mother’s spyglass after her death. As Adrian gets fixated on the story behind the spyglass, it begins to lead him on a journey to uncover the truth, no matter how dark or tragic it may be.

He leaves his fiance, Louisa, back in England as he and his recently-discovered older brother, Monty, set off on a ship, chasing stories and tales from the past, and uncovering the real reason their mother had the spyglass. Along the way, they meet pirates, professors, and old friends, and Adrian learns more about the siblings he never knew he had, but, more importantly, learns more about himself in the process.

My thoughts on The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks

It was such a joy to be back in the Montague siblings’ stories. We didn’t know much about Adrian from the past two books – The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy – as he was just a young child, many years Monty and Felicity’s junior. He was known as ‘the Goblin’ by Monty, and we knew that Monty showed general dislike and disdain towards his baby brother and his parents.

But here in The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks, we finally meet Adrian as a young man of 19 and he is far from the ‘goblin’ that his older siblings portrayed him in the other books. And just as well, as the story is written from Adrian’s perspective and it would be cruel to go a whole book disliking the Goblin Montague.

What I loved about The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks, aside from simply jumping back into one of Mackenzi Lee’s wonderful stories, was that she took something that is so common among people but that not many write about in Young Adult historical fiction. Perhaps that’s a bit of a sweeping statement. Let me adjust: not many write about in the YA historical fiction that I’ve read in the past.

Adrian has anxiety and struggles with his mental health, neither of which were really recognised in the 1700s, and as such, Adrian thinks there’s something wrong with him, which, of course, only adds to the anxiety. It doesn’t help that he’s secretly the writer of political publications which he and Louisa hand out on the street, or that he’s on the cusp of joining parliament; all the stress and anxiety weighs him down, and he gets fixated on things and can’t let them go.

“… there is life after you survive.”

I am fortunate to not have anxiety creeping into my everyday life, but I do have friends who live with mental health struggles like this. The way Mackenzi Lee write’s Adrian’s character and the thoughts and feelings that he goes through every day is a reminder of how so many around the world live their days. While I don’t have any personal experience, I recognise many of the things that Adrian goes through, having seen people close to me work through similar struggles.

The plot

The plot of The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks clips along at a good pace, much like the other two books, and as Adrian discover he has siblings, he also meets some of the characters we know and love from the past books. Percy makes an appearance (although not for nearly as long as I would have liked), and along the way, we follow Adrian as he meets people such as Sim and Johanna and not-s0-little George who were all quite central to Monty and Feclitiy’s own adventures.

“I want to stop picking at life like it’s a meal I don’t want to eat, because I want to. I want to taste it all. I want life to be a feast, even if I have to eat it raw and bloody and burned some days. I will pick bones from my teeth. I will let the juice drip down my chin.”

Adrian (like I mentioned before and as the Goodreads book description points out) is about to head into the House of Lords at Parliament. The first few chapters of the book are very much focused on him and his political endeavours, and while his sharp political brain is used multiple times on his sea-fearing adventure, the politics of the story very much felt like bookends in the plot.

Richard Peele also makes an appearance. (If you know, you know.)

The setting

Once again we’re sailing around the European waters, though this time we follow Adrian from England to Portugal, Africa, Iceland … we’re not short of location-interest that’s for sure. Just like books 1 and 2 of the Montague Siblings trilogy, Adrian spends a lot of time on pirate ships, throwing up, learning about staves and sea superstitions. We even get a bit of myth and legend thrown into the story, which impacts where the characters go and when.

My rating explained

So why did I get The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks only a 3.5-star rating if I liked it so much? A few reasons.

One of my favourite things about Gentleman’s Guide and Lady’s Guide was the romance and the flirtations of the characters. Monty and Percy’s relationship is central to Gentleman’s Guide, and while Felicity doesn’t have much of a similar story to Monty (in terms of relationships), there are still those swoon-worthy scenes and, of course, Monty and Percy are still very much in that story.

Adrian, however, leaves his fiance in England when he goes off adventuring, which makes for far less romance and sweet lines throughout the story. I’m not saying that you need romance to make a good story – far from it! I think so many books focus far too much on romance and it is nice to read a book where the relationships take more of a back foot – but it was just a lot different than the other two books and thus, it felt like it was lacking in something. Perhaps if Louisa had come along for part of the journey, just so we could see a little more of Adrian and Louisa together …

The other thing I didn’t love about The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks was Monty and Felicity.

Now, before you freak out, hear me out. I love them to bits. I’ve always been impressed by the way that Lee creates her characters. You’re annoyed at them most of the time, but they grow so much in who they are and how they relate to others that you can’t help but love them. Monty is one of my favourite characters in recent years, and Felicity is feisty as heck and I want to be her.

But in The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks, Monty and Felicity are meant to be around 40 years old. Remember, in their stories, Adrian is the ‘goblin’ and he’s probably not even at school yet (I can’t recall how old he is in the other books).

So Adrian being 19 now makes his older siblings … quite a bit older still. And yet, neither Monty nor Felicity behave like their 40 years old. Monty, perhaps, never would; that’s not who he is. But Felicity is a smart, educated woman who is a Doctor, works at a university, and fought hard to get to where she is … all while getting involved with pirates on and off over the years. But she doesn’t really act like it. It was just as if she was a teenager like Adrian and I was just picking up where Lady’s Guide left off.

I gave Gentleman’s Guide a 5 start, and Lady’s Guide a 4-star, and I’ve decided to place Nobleman’s Guide at a 3.5. I really did enjoy it, a lot, and I’m so glad I read it as soon as it landed on my doorstep. I’ll definitely re-read the book (the other two I’ve also read twice – once in hardcover and once on audiobook), but I didn’t love it as much as the others.

I would love to know: have you read The Nobleman’s Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks?

What did you think? Let me know in the comments!