Series Review: The Brothers Sinister by Courtney Milan
Greetings and welcome to Reviews That Burn: Series Reviews, part of Books That Burn. Series Reviews discuss at least three books in a series and cover the overarching themes and development of the story across several books. This review is for The Brothers Sinister by Courtney Milan.
The Governess Affair
Miss Serena Barton intends to hold the petty, selfish duke who had her sacked responsible for his crimes. But the man who handles all the duke's dirty business has been ordered to get rid of her by fair means or foul. She’ll have to prove more than his match…
The Duchess War
The last time Minerva Lane was the center of attention, it ended badly—so badly that she changed her name to escape her scandalous past. So when a handsome duke comes to town, the last thing she wants is his attention.
But that is precisely what she gets...
A Kiss for Midwinter
Miss Lydia Charingford does her best to forget the dark secret that nearly ruined her life, hiding it beneath her smiles. But someone else knows the truth of those dark days: the sarcastic Doctor Jonas Grantham. She wants nothing to do with him...or the butterflies that take flight in her stomach every time he looks her way...
The Heiress Effect
Miss Jane Fairfield does everything wrong in society--intentionally.
Mr. Oliver Marshall does everything right. So why is it, then, that the one woman he can't forget is the exact opposite of what he needs?
The Countess Conspiracy
Sebastian Malheur is the most dangerous sort of rake. Violet Waterfield, the widowed Countess of Cambury, on the other hand, is entirely respectable--and she’d like to stay that way. Their association would be scandalous even if someone suspected lies. But the truth about the secrets they share will bring England to its knees…
The Suffragette Scandal
A suffragette meets a scoundrel, and as scoundrels do, he lies to her, attempts to blackmail her…and falls in love with her against his better judgment. By the time he realizes that his cynical heart is hers, it's too late. Once the woman he loves realizes how much he's lied to her, he'll lose her forever.
Talk Sweetly to Me
Miss Rose Sweetly is a shy, mathematically-minded shopkeeper’s daughter who dreams of the stars. When Stephen Shaughnessy, infamous advice columnist and known rake, moves next door, she knows she should avoid him. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and astronomers…
PUBLISHER: Independently Published
LENGTH: 1841 pages across four books and three novellas
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Historical Romance
RECOMMENDED: Highly
Queer Rep Summary: No canon queer rep.
TITLES DISCUSSED
- The Governess Affair (2012)
- The Duchess War (2012)
- A Kiss for Midwinter (2012)
- The Heiress Effect (2013)
- The Countess Conspiracy (2013)
- The Suffragette Scandal (2014)
- Talk Sweetly to Me (2014)
Minimal Spoiler Zone
Series Premise
The Brothers Sinister is a historical romance series which plays fast and loose with both "brothers" and "sinister" to tell the stories of a group of half-siblings, cousins, and childhood friends who fall in love with people who are themselves out of step with society in some way.
The series has a strong focus on the way that marginalization is supported and encouraged by the social structures in Regency-era England. The protagonists are people who, by their very existence, are inconvenient for those structures in some way. This does not mean that they automatically are working against the kyriarchy, but, by the end of each book, they and the people around them end up positioning themselves to ease some of society's strictures for each other.
Something I appreciate in Milan's historical romances are the use of contemporaneous names for various contraceptives. They help make the point that not only have certain kinds of contraceptives and barrier protections been around for a long time, but enough people understood the point of them for them to be widely disseminated, even if it wouldn't have been proper to write about them in mainstream fiction of the time.
Narrator(s)
Miscommunication is a trope that stresses me out quite easily, but the way Milan structures her books either alleviates it completely or makes it much easier to bear. Part of this is due to the consistent presence of alternating narrators. In each book the narrators are each other's love interest. This helps to give context to the reader for things which are said and done while still obscuring those motives when necessary between characters. Characters may think that they have to be misreading something in the other person's words because it seems incomprehensible that anyone or at least that particular person might desire them, but the reader is positioned to avoid doubt by having access soon after to the other person's thoughts. This is especially helpful when the characters exist in a society which has as a baseline state the idea that men not only cannot but should not actually respect women and take them seriously as whole persons. Milan places this in a context where the male characters treat taking women seriously as a baseline, and then adjust as needed based on what best suits the people in their lives in addition to that.
Neurodivergence
Due to the historical setting, no one says "I have ADHD" or "I'm autistic", but the series is clearly full of neurodivergent people who are written with care by Milan, and encouraged by their loved ones to be more fully themselves. Of particular note is that there are at least two autistic women. I say "at least" because while I'm very confident about Violet and Rose, I leave room for other characters to have been deliberately written as autistic or otherwise neurodivergent in ways I didn't catch this first time around.
Current Status
The series appears to be complete! There are three novellas and four novels, with different main characters for each book. I've read the whole thing, devouring it in a handful of days, and it is as romantic as it is thought-provoking, with a complex understanding of the characters, their society, and their relationships with each other (familial, friendly, and romantic alike).
If you read these books out of order then it doesn't totally break the story, but some revelations will change how earlier events appear. If you read the third or fourth before the others, then you'll lose the gradual buildup of information that happens if the series is read in order. I should note that the prequel novella can be read before any other books in the series, and that it ought to be read before the second novel. The dynamics between the Brother Sinister stem from this first story and make more initial sense with that context.
Major Series CWs: sexual content
Miscellaneous CWs: sexual assault, war, confinement, death
Here There Be Spoilers
Early On
In the prequel novella, The Governess Affair, a duke exploited his position to sexually assault Miss Serena Barton while she was a governess in someone else's home, and tell her she wanted it because she didn't make a fuss. She is in the background of the main stories, thought of with varying frequency but rarely on the page. The prequel has room to focus fully on Serena (and her eventual husband) because the way their relationship proceeds sets the tone for the rest of the series. The four main novels focus on members of the titular "brothers", but play around with exactly which characters tie the stories together. As the next generation grows up, the duke's children on both sides of the sheets have good reason to be very aware of their social positions and to dislike abuse of power. This extends to their close friends like Stephen and Violet who are part of the Brothers Sinister (gender-expansive). In The Countess Conspiracy, Violet and Stephen become a couple, and in The Suffragette Scandal, Free is sibling to one of the brothers, but Edward is the one who is left handed.
Character Twists
In the third book it is revealed that Violet has actually been the scientist behind Stephen Malheur's work on genetics in plants. This makes clear something that was implied by the way the reader hears of Stephen spending his time, but it never actually made sense for someone seen about town as much as Stephen to have all this time for meticulous genetic research, breeding and crossbreeding of plants. It's the kind of thing that could could have looked to the reader like nothing of significance, after all, in a book it's much harder to notice when something isn't there. This is especially true for a secondary character whose time is not constantly being spent in the reader's view. But it turned out that Violet was spending all of that time, and doing so in front of the reader. The first two books include various scenes of someone seeing Violet in her greenhouses, or tending to plants. Not many, but it's easy to have more than nothing.
Later Series Developments
In "The Suffragette Scandal", Edward asks Free why she does all that she does in terms of communication and education and fighting against patriarchy when she's just (metaphorically) taking thimbles of water from a river that's too large to stop. She tells him that while he's looking at the river, she is watering the flowers along the banks. It's worth fighting against injustices not just in the hope that eventually things will be better for people who aren't yet born (though that is important), but also to give aid, comfort, and hope to the people who are alive now and in the immediate future.
Of particular note are the number of neurodivergent women who are experts in an area, often while being told by society at large that they can at best be a helper to a man who holds the actual notoriety and prestige. In The Countess Conspiracy, it is revealed that Stephen was Violet's frontman, speaking her genetic theories publicly while absorbing the populace's ridicule and scorn. Stephen's position as a scientist was taken as granted in the first half of the series, despite the fact that he's never seen doing any actual science. This something I completely missed until it was made explicit in The Countess Conspiracy. Stephen can no longer stand the stress and scorn of being hated for ideas which aren't his own. While speaking for Violet he has grown to understand and agree with the science she produces, but over the years his personal reputation as a seducer has been tangled into Violet's scientific theories. This creates a dynamic where people are upset for what he supposedly does in the bedroom and for speaking in public of genetics and the breeding of plants, twisting together into a reputation for a godless obsession with reproduction and copulation, two things men like him are supposed to do, quietly, in ways that don't upset other men's freedom to indulge themselves in kind. Stephen is expected to be like the duke who assaulted Serena, and so many other men in society, tempered in proportion to his (lower but still privileged) position. While his exact position of having been asked by Violet to be her public face and the mouthpiece for her ideas is unusual, that is because she asked for his assistance rather than him taking advantage of her. It's made quite clear to Stephen and the reader that this isn't a hypothetical or a one-off event: in western science it has been common for the work of women to be obscured through proximity to men. I appreciate the way Milan refuses to leave this as subtext, using a male character in another such exploitative relationship to explain as clearly as he can to Stephen several of the ways that (in one common version of this dynamic) women's contributions are attributed to their husbands instead. A woman may be known to be her husband's scribe or editor when she is actually responsible for most or all of the ideas lauded in his name. Indeed, the most unusual thing about Violet and Stephen's partnership is that they've conducted it while unmarried.
If you like this you may like:
- Four Weddings to Fall in Love by Jackie Lau
- The Duke Who Didn't by Courtney Milan
Bookshop Affiliate Buy Links:
-----
Reviews That Burn is a review blog which accompanies the Books That Burn podcast. Books That Burn is a member of the Certain Point of View podcast network. Essays, blog posts, and reviews are by Robin. This was written without the use of generative AI, and may not be used for the training of LLMs or genAI models. All music was composed by HeartBeatArt and is used with permission.
This content is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at (617) 249-4255, or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org.
Comments
Post a Comment