The Groom List was an utter mess. This was my least favorite book I've read all year and I only finished out of obligation to the publisher. The pages were bloated with unnecessary dialogue, the characters had zero chemistry, and we got a single sentence of closed-door action. It was a disappointment from every angle. Historical romance is my favorite subgenre and it was a chore to get through this novel. I mostly skimmed this book and found no joy in it. The only positive feedback I can contribute is the pretty cover. The characters are well illustrated and the costumes look lovely. I will not be continuing with this series nor this author. I do not believe starting this book midseries was my issue because the main couple fought like cats and dogs. I often lament how can you expect a reader to support a romance when they bicker like siblings? Although this book is entitled The Groom List, it's one sheet I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole regardless of my desperation to find my own groom.

Gifford, Earl of St. Albans, heir to The Duke of Cleveland, his father has bizarre idea that Gift should not learn estate business until he weds. He has decided to wed this season. His mother is willing to help him. When he weds he gets Whippoorwill Manor near St. Albans family seat.

His friend, John, Marquis of Montagu, is also looking for a wife this season. They enjoy early morning rides before everyone invades the park.

Lord Normanby, broke needs to marry money. Villainous person, keeps a mistress and secrets.

Lady Alice Carpenter, sisters, Lady Eleanor Carpenter, Alice’s twin, and Lady Madeline Vivers are all debuting this season. They are thinking logically on what they are looking for in a husband. They have made a list: Intelligent, Kind, Like house animals, Like children, Make us laugh, and think we are funny, Interested in the plight of the poor and unfortunate, Must support us in our charities and other ventures, Passable looking, Allow us to be ourselves, Be able to support a family, Must love us in return.

We return to Mayfair and the Carpenter/Viver's bunch for the new season. Who will wed, can they handle a family meal with all the children present plus the two great Danes Posey and Zeus. Will they find someone that means their Groom List?


Join the fun of the marriage mart. emerse yourself with the balls, musicals, garden parties, and other entertainment events plus Gunter for Ices. Enjoy yourself as Gift is clubbing his way thru and messing up. Momma to the rescue? What dastardly reads will Normanby get up too.

Ella Quinn brings light, laughter, and mystery to your reading in this fun comedy of errors courting. A well rounded read that will have you laughing and ready for boxing as these three pit wits against each other.

He's clueless..

Giff is clueless, with no ability to survive in the real world that isn't titled and privileged.
When his parents tell him its time to marry, he totally goes along with it.
Alice has a list and is trying to find a match from that list. Giff has no qualities on said list.
He's a frivolous man child dancing through a shallow life.
Alice, thankfully has a bit more sense.

She has a list and is checking it twice and no matter how hard her heart beats for Gifford, Marquis of St. Albans he just doesn't come up to snuff as far as the list is concerned.  Could it be that she needs to expand the criteria for finding her suitable match?
As her siblings and particularly her twin, find their matches and move away from home, Alice feels this pressure to set up her own home and nursery.  Out of the two gentlemen who seem to be in the running, one excites her but definitely does not check off the items on her list, and of course the other one doesn't seem so exciting to her heart but meets every criterion that she's set for the perfect husband. 
Poor Giff, he's in a similar situation, he has this image of what it takes to court a woman and perhaps that might be true of most women in society but the woman he's set his heart on is quite different.  In fact, so different that he has offended her to the extent that she does not want him invited to her coming out ball. Then things take a turn, and they find that they both have some growing up and learning to do. 
These series bring in all the characters ever associated with the core family that just continues growing and growing and becoming more and more influential and it's a lot of fun seeing how they help steer the poor hapless Gifford in becoming a suitable candidate for Alice's affections.
A thoroughly enjoyable though predicable romp.

Lady Alice Carpenter is making her society debut along with her twin sister & sister by marriage. The three debutantes have drawn up a list of “musts” for eligible bachelors, yet when she encounters a striking nobleman on her morning ride in Hyde Park, Alice soon tallies another list of first impressions - Shallow. Flirtatious. Without seriousness of purpose. Impossible to avoid & I’m sorry to say these attributes fit
Gifford, the Marquis of St. Albans like a glove. Grif must wed in order to wrest his estate from his controlling father. Grif sets his sights on Alice
The third book in this spin off series of The Worthingtons, I’d recommend reading the earlier books are there are many characters & if you’ve not met them before then it would be confusing. I actually loved catching up with the rest of the family. This book takes place in the same timeframe as the earlier two books in the series so events do overlap. I loved the intelligent, feisty Alice & was surprised that not only she but Matt was taken in by a suitor. Matt has been the all - seeing older brother who is highly protective of his siblings & has previously delved into each & every suitors’ background, so why didn’t he this time? I liked Grif but boy was he one obedient son. It was almost as if he was the vacuous debutante & Alice the world wise one. I would have loved to have known more about his background, there were hints but these never came to light. I also found it difficult to believe that his mother wouldn’t have used her wiles to ensure he was trained in preparation for the Dukedom. I also found it unbelievable that a proud Duke wouldn’t train his son almost from birth to keep the Dukedom to the best of his ability. I did like the chemistry between Grif & Alice & how they became friends whilst falling in love. I did love that the villain had met his match & would have loved being a fly on the wall when he realised just what he’d signed for in the settlements. An enjoyable romance which wasn’t my favourite but I’m glad I read it. I do hope the younger siblings have their stories especially Mary & Theo
I voluntarily read and reviewed a special copy of this book; all thoughts and opinions are my own

I always love to read historical romance, and Ella Quinn had come up in several recommendations I found on Bookstagram so it was a good way to get close to her pen.

This is the third book of the Worthington saga (I have not read the other two), here we meet Lady Alice Carpenter who is enjoying her first social season, therefore, she has made a list of those attributes that her future suitor must have in order to be the chosen one; it is here where Griff appears who despite being a marquis does not necessarily meet these requirements.

In spite of being attracted to each other, they find themselves embarked on a tug of war between him, who does not meet the requirements, and Griff, who also has feelings for him.

It was a good read to pass the time.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with this advanced copy, the opinion is entirely my own.

#TheGroomList #NetGalley

Happy to be back in the world of the Worthingtons.
Alice is ready to be on the marriage mart alongside Eleanor.
She has a list of the worthy attributes in a husband.
Unfortunately Giff does not meet her qualifications and she plans to move on but Giff will only try harder to be the man in her life.
Fun interactions and dialogue is amusing.
Amazing epilogue.

** Rating = 3.3 **
This is the third (and I believe final) book in this Worthington spinoff series, so you get a nice wrap-up for all of the couples previously featured in the series. You also get a fair amount of redundancy in the beginning because the three books in this series happen concurrently. Therefore, you get some of the same scenes, just told from another person’s perspective.

Lady Alice Carpenter is closer than close with her two sisters and they are now sharing the wonderful experience of their first season together. They’ve made a list of requirements the males in their lives must meet – and her two sisters have found their mates. Alice didn’t realize how lonely she’d be when they were gone or how much she’d miss them. Now, she just wants to marry and have a family of her own. In her anxiety to join her sisters in marital bliss, she might not have been as careful as she should have been in vetting the men wooing her. One gave her disconcerting tingles, but he seemed to be a useless fribble, while the other gave her no tingles, but agreed with everything she asked about from her list.

Gifford (Giff), Marquis of St. Albans, is pretty much a blank slate. I’m not sure how he made it to maturity without having a thought of his own, but he seems to have done so. Whatever his parents decreed, he adhered to. That whole family dynamic just made no sense to me. Perhaps if there were more page time describing the parents and how they came to be and how this strong-willed, demanding duchess allowed her son to be raised to know nothing and have no thoughts, I just didn’t understand. We could have surely done with less ‘Worthington’ page time to allow for a page or two on Giff’s family and the dynamics of it. At any rate, Giff has no thoughts on political or charitable endeavors, no idea of how to run the ducal estate when his father passes, and gives no arguments when his parents tell him it is time to marry. He seems to have no initiative and has never tried to earn money to supplement his meager allowance nor has he bestirred himself to form an opinion of any of the current political and social events/issues of the day. So, I had to wonder how he found the initiative to find a bride for himself. Does that sound like I didn’t like him? That isn’t truly the case. In general, I liked him, I just never understood the need for him to be such a vacuous fribble.

Giff is attracted to Alice as soon as he sees her riding in the park with her sisters. She seems interested in him as well – until she doesn’t. What did he do wrong? When she tells him she doesn’t want him to pursue her any longer, he realizes how much he has gone wrong in his pursuit of her. Is it too late for him? She is being courted by someone else and seems seriously interested. However, Giff doesn’t trust the man who is wooing Alice and endeavors to change his ways to win her back.

I enjoyed the last half of the book – and I absolutely LOVED the part of the book where Miss Greenway visits to respond to the note sent by Alice’s younger sisters. That is one of the best villain punishments I’ve ever seen in any book. I finally came to like Giff after he discovered there was a world outside his own head and I liked Alice all along. As I mentioned earlier, what I would have really liked in this book was less of the Worthington connections and more of Giff’s family – why was there animosity between Giff’s father and Scottish grandfather? Was his parent’s union a love match? I would have thought so, but they didn’t act that way. One thing that perplexed me was how the villain could slip through all those Worthington-world folks without his nefarious intents being detected. The Duchess seemed to get all the pertinent information within hours – or a day at most. Giff was grilled repeatedly, yet the villain was asked a few innocuous questions (by Alice) and let slide. That doesn’t seem like the very protective Worthington bunch I’ve known and loved to date. So, I read the book and I liked it okay, but I wouldn’t read it a second time.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Great ending to this series! I am a big fan of this author and have been eagerly waiting for this book. Would read this book and the entire series again!

This was not my favorite book of this series. It started out exactly the same as the last two books. In fact I had to go back and make sure I was not reading the previous book. It wasn't until about the 25% point that Alice's story actually started.
From that point until about the 80% point, I loved the story. Griff thought his title would get him the woman he wanted and that he didn't have to do anything to work for it. Alice wasn't interested in a title. She wanted a man of quality. She had her Groom's list of qualities that he must meet. Griff failed miserably. So he has to start his courtship all over again from a different technique. The problem is there is a new man in the picture. I loved all Alice put him thru and I loved he was willing to change to be with her.
But at the 80% point if the book, they were engaged and planning their wedding. The last 20% was all about them setting up their house.
5 chapters on the setting up of a house. I became very bored at the end.
So although half this book was very good, the other half was repetitive and boring.
3⭐⭐⭐
I want to thank Netgalley for the opportunity to review this book.

Ella Quinn is a master at giving you the absolute best HEA but she’ll have you doubting you’ll get there. But in the most wonderful way. Alice knows what kind of husband she wants and her and her sisters have got it all written down. But when you’re the last to fall in love you might make the wrong decision. It doesn’t help that the one meant for you keeps acting like a buffoon. Goff is the son of a Duke and pretty good looking, if he does say so himself, so how hard could it be to gain a wife? Turns out, it can be hard, especially if you fall for a woman that doesn’t care about either. I loved Giff’s growth from self-absorbed man about town to just a guy trying to win his girl. The author’s timing from allowing them to learn about each other, their conflict and then bringing them together to fight a mutual foe is where Quinn shines. I love when we get to see our main characters together and happy for more than just a couple of pages and Giff and Alice’s story gives us -plenty. It’s perfection, pure perfection….sigh ❤️

The Worthington’s have returned with the third sister of the triplets getting her chance to shine. She is intelligent, beautiful, and ready to be married and start her own family. Little does she know what a ride that will be. The Groom’s List by Ella Quinn is the third book in The Worthington Bride’s series.

Lady Alice Carpenter loves her family and really wants to be married to start her own family. She does have a list of requirements for her husband to be. She is looking forward to meeting a variety of young men. One of the first men she met was Gifford, the Marquis of St Albans, unfortunately he did not treat her as she expected and as much as he pressed his suit, she was not interested. Another man has caught her attention and is able to make inroads to her and romance. The worst part is he is a scoundrel and when Alice finds out, she is determined to cut him out of her life.

Slowly GIfford is able to show Alice how he feels, after he realizes that he needs to change his methods of wooing her. They begin to move toward an eventual wedding when the scoundrel makes a move, but the family is a worthy component. The Groom’s List by Ella Quinn was a good read!

I missed the earlier books and so found myself a bit at sea with all the characters (and there are a lot of them) and their relationship except for ....Alice and Griff. Their love story is a fresh, spirited take on the genre. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A good read..

I loved Alice and Griff’s story! I must admit though, that I was a little confused at the beginning, as it has been a while since I read the last book in this series and it took me a couple of chapters to get everyone’s relationship’s straight ( it is a very large, extended family!) I especially like the way Alice is portrayed, very capable, independent and intelligent, but also not afraid to lean on Griff and be emotionally vulnerable when a situation warrants it. Her family is so much fun - I never tire of reading about the children’s antics and wondering how their stories will eventually play out. You could read this as a standalone, but it is so much more enjoyable when the series is read in sequence.

Lady Alice Carpenter has made a list of all she requires for a husband.
She meets Gifford, the Marquess of St. Albans while riding in the park.
I found their interactions to be stilted and there were way too many characters to try to keep track of in the book that took away from the main plot.
There were also so many descriptions of items and such that weren't necessary to the plot.
This is the third book in the series. I truly enjoyed the others, but this one just didn't do it for me.
I gave it three stars.

Alice becomes impatient when she can not find a groom like her twin sister and her cousin just did. They even found grooms who were everything on their list. Attracted to each other as soon as they meet, Alice is not sure Giff is up to marrying and taking part in the various causes her family are part of. Instead, she falls under the spell of a fortune hunter who tells her whatever she wants to hear. Giff decides to fight for Alice and make her his bride. I received an ARC from NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for my honest review.

Love this series and Alice’s story with her hero Gifford did not disappoint! The story was charming, amusing, and intriguing. Recommended book to bring to the beach for a relaxing and fun read.

Although I was ready to read St Albans story, I was a bit disappointed. As a reader I appreciate a backstory when the read is part of a series, but there were sections I had to make sure I was reading the third book. The dialog, in sections, was word for word. I would of liked a bit more story about Alice and Giff rather than rehash the previous book.

The premise of The Groom List seemed right up my alley and the stunning cover drew me right in.

Unfortunately, this was quite confusing and I couldn’t enjoy it no matter how hard I tried. Maybe it’s the writing style that didn’t work for me (the conversation was so STIFF and everyone felt like starched cardboard)? But for a book that’s supposed to be a standalone (the series is supposedly interconnected standalones), it didn’t really….stand alone. I think Quinn tried to remedy this by giving us information on the previous books, but it doesn’t work here. It’s info dumpy in the first 20% and throws too many characters at us at once.

Plus the MCs had next to no chemistry. I have to buy the characters as a romantic couple to enjoy a romance and this didn’t convince me they knew each other, much less loved each other.

I was a big fan of the original Worthington series, so I was excited to pick this one up, not realizing that it was the third (and final) book in the spin-off series. And to be honest, there were some issues with it, but on the whole I enjoyed it.

So we can end on a positive note, let me start off with the things I didn't enjoy. To begin with there are so many characters from the previous novels, and I was not expecting each and every one of them to make an appearance in this one. There were so many people constantly in and out of the main story-lines that I often became confused forgetting who is who. It would have been nice to have a family tree or something to refer back to.

Was it weird to anyone other than me how Alice's guardian didn't seem to do proper research into her perspective suitors? I found it to be very odd that between her guardian and all of the men in her life that were related to her, not a single one of them knew anything was amiss? Yet Giff's mother had no trouble whatsoever obtaining the information? Also, in what world does it make sense that Giff would have no training whatsoever in estate management, or account books when he was the heir? I understand his father wanted him wed and wanted to force his hand over it, but to leave your heir completely unprepared? What if his father had had a tragic accident and died before Giff married? He still would have been the heir.

I'm also very tired of the kidnapping in order to force a marriage that isn't wanted trope that I see happening a lot in this genre (a trope that this author herself uses in the original series as well). Instead of this, I would have loved to have learned more about why St.Alban's English father and Scottish grandfather hate each other so much if his father was allowed to wed his mother. What happened to cause the rift between them? Or did his mother marry his father for love despite her father's objections? I will also admit to some curiosity about the fate of Alice's other suitor especially when it comes to light that his bride-to-be has her own agenda. I would have loved for a glimpse into their future.

Now on to what I did like, I liked how Alice was quick to shut Giff down when she thought they weren't going to be a good match despite how attracted she was to him, yet she was also open to giving him a second chance when he started showing her his true personality. And as time went on, she was able to be honest with him about the way he had messed up with her the first time around. In that, I liked her directness and the way they were able to form a friendship in which she was able to help him learn more about things pertaining to his estates. And despite their rocky start I also loved the little tests she threw out to him (especially breakfast with her family, and then the way he later went on to try and include the children in other things).

This author has been the author of some of my favorite historical novels in the past, and I have no doubt I will read more from them in the future.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.