Honestly, the plot of UNMASKED BY THE MARQUESS is too complicated to explain here. Just know it involves secret identities, families chasing advantageous marriages, and a marquess falling in love with someone he shouldn’t.

Now, let’s talk about what’s more interesting than the plot details - the queer representation in this book! Charity Church begins the book pretending to be a man named Robert Selby, but it quickly becomes apparent more is going on there. She (I use she/her as that’s what Charity uses) is extremely uncomfortable in dresses and in being treated like a woman, yet she has no desire to fully live life as a man. In modern terms, Charity is nonbinary.

Of course, this being set in the Regency era, no one has the vocabulary for that. However, it’s alternately joyous and frustrating to watch her try to navigate this world she does not fit into, and, in Lord Pembroke, find a queer man who (eventually) accepts her and finds ways to let her live fully as herself.

Also, this being a Cat Sebastian novel, the, ahem, other aspects of the plot are quite excellent as well.