Review: You're the Problem, It's You

You're the Problem, It's You by Emma R. Alban
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Robert 'Bobby' Mason is the second son, his older brother Albert 'Albie' is Lord Mason recently married to Meredith who is expecting their first child. Bobby's cousin Gwen (one of the MCs of the previous book in this series) is in a relationship with Beth, who is Lord James Demeroven's cousin. Bobby and Albie's uncle (and Gwen's father) is Dashiell, Earl of Havenfort, just to make life complicated Dashiell has married Beth's mother. Lord Havenfort is trying to pass a bill in the House of Lords requiring doctors to have received some kind of medical training and he has enlisted Albie and James' help which maks Bobby (who doesn't have a seta in the House of Lords) feel excluded. Meanwhile, James is fighting to stay upright under the yoke of his stepfather's ire and caustic tongue.

As a consequence of all the above, Bobby and James are thrust into each others' company more often than they would like, especially since James had a crush on Bobby when they were at Oxford together, although luckily Bobby had no idea and doesn't recognise James at all.

Unfortunately, both james and Bobby fall foul of Lord Raverson, who likes to sleep with men and then blackmail them. Despite their differences they need to work together to get out of his grasping clutches.

Full disclosure, I read about a third of this, gave up, and then restarted several months later. My biggest problems were firstly the incestuous (figuratively speaking) relationships which made it difficult for me to work out who was who (especially since people were often called by several names eg Bobby, Robert, Mason etc), and secondly that they didn't seem to be any difference between Bobby and James' voices as each chapter was from alternating POVs but not a lot changed.

Overall, I just found it hard to keep the characters straight and there wasn't enough historical detail to really give me a sense of exactly when this was set (late 1850s apparently), although again that may be because I I don't have sufficient historical knowledge to know that the Medical Act (which was a real thing) was passed in 1858.

It was okay but I wouldn't go out of my way to read others in the series.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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