The Gentleman and His Vowsmith by Rebecca Ide

Timy reviews The Gentleman and His Vowsmith, a standalone mystery/romance/fantasy novel by Rebecca Ide.

An eARC was received by Tor via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Possible fit for The Sound of Madness Reading Challenge 2025 prompts:

Joker prompt that goes with anything: Freed from Desire

Set in Regency England, The Gentleman and His Vowsmith is a sparkling historical fantasy filled with arcane magic, deadly conspiracies and an irresistible queer romance. Perfect for fans of Freya Marske, Alexis Hall, and Bridgerton mixed with magic, mayhem and murder.

Lord Nicholas Monterris is trapped. The only heir to a declining dukedom, Nic is destined for a marriage of convenience. What he didn’t expect was for his bride to be Lady Leaf Serral, daughter of his father’s hated rivals. Now they must all be locked inside mouldering Monterris Court for the duration of the contract negotiations, along with head negotiator, master vowsmith Dashiell sa Vare—beautiful, perfect Dashiell sa Vare—an old flame Nic has neither forgiven nor forgotten.

What could go wrong?

Only a dead body turning up mere hours after they lock the doors. The first could be an accident, but a second death reveals something sinister is unfolding at Monterris Court, and long-buried secrets begin to surface. As accusations fly, Nic must work with his former lover and his future bride to uncover the killer before they become the next targets.

“You see, that was the word I wanted you to stop saying.”
Leaf looked entirely baffled. “Which word?”
“Murder. And murdered. And murderer. And -“
“What would you rather I called it? Premeditated life extinguishing?”
“You know what? Forget I said anything.”

It doesn’t happen often that a song presents itself WHILE I’m reading a book, but it happened with Dreaming by Sleeping Wolf. It came up during a romantic scene and I thought, yep, this is it. It’s not quite the perfect match, as The Gentleman and His Vowsmith is set in the Regency are, so no cars, but, the sentiment still stands.

When I first heard of The Gentleman and His Vowsmith, I got excited, and not just because Rebecca Ide is the pen name of Devin Madson, whose fantasy books I enjoyed over the years. The Gentleman and His Vowsmith promised to deliver everything I enjoy – murder mystery, M/M romance, fantasy, dressed in banter and set in the Regency era. Although the last is not a particular interest of mine, but I’m certainly not complaining. All that said, I had high expectations going in, and I wasn’t dissapointed.

Being the son of a poverished duke, who has strong magic abilities, it was always inevitable for Nic to get married off for good money to save the Monterris family name. The problem? His intended bride is not only a Serral, a family with whom the Monterrises have a strained relationship, but she is also a woman, while Nic prefers man. And when he thought things couldn’t get any worse than that, he ends up locked in for weeks with his childhood love (along with the whole Serral party and), who left him behind years ago, while the negotiations last and the contract gets vowsmithed (made magically bonding). And then the mysterious deads start happening. So Nic has to deal with ALL the feelings while playing a generous host which leds to unexpected discoveries.

The Gentleman and His Vowsmith is a mash of genres that works really well. It’s part closed space murder mystery, part M/M romance with a dash of fantasy just to spice it up a bit. Well, a bit more, because the romance has enough spice to it as it is 👀 Which is to say it has some steamy scenes, but it’s not overdone and doesn’t take away the focus from the mystery, well, not too much anyway, lol.

As for the characters, it took me a bit to get connected with Nic. I mean, I liked him, and his voice as we get the story from his POV, but sometimes I found his “woe me” attitude a bit tiring. Then again, it’s kind of understandable he is having a hard time, between a father who technically owns him, and doesn’t seem to care about him much, a mother who is absent most of the time, retreated into her own fantasy world, a fiancé whom he didn’t want and the temptation that is Dashiell, well, I think we all would be having a hard time. Not even talking about all the tension between different characters that comes out even stronger now that they are all closed in together, with nothing to do but bring old hurts and frustration to the open.

I liked how each person in the story was well characterised, their personality really came through, although, I admit I found Dashiell just a touch too bland for my liking, then again, most of the time he wore the mask of the professional vowsmith whose only role is to make sure his employer gets his wishes in the contract. It’s just that, it was hard for me to see what Nic saw in him, exactly, outside of his looks. They sure had chemistry, at least, so I’m complaining too hard. Leaf was an unexpected surprise for me. She is the bride to be, the daughter of the marquess, well bred, intelligent, and a sense of dry humor that I like. And also no filter between her brain and her mouth so that makes her witty comments just more fun. But she is also kind, and good hearted, and of course she also has her own dreams and ambitions – marriage is not one of those. I appreciated how Nic and Leaf ended up coming together forming a deep bond of friendship amidst all the chaos around them, and despite the high strung emotions on all sides.

I’m not going to talk about the mystery plot of The Gentleman and His Vowsmith, because of spoilers, but I can tell you it was well executed – as someone who reads many mysteries, it even had a couple of surprises for me too, and I kept guessing who might have been behind everything. Closed space mysteries are tricky, because you only have a limited selection of culprits, so you need to make sure everyone has motives and secret agendas to make sure you keep up the interest of the readers. Ide pulled that off quite well.

To bring this review to a close, I really don’t have much to complain about. If I really want to nitpick, then I would say that I would have liked to get a bit more about the magic, because the Brilliance thing was just a touch confusing, given the fact that the higher you are registrated, the more you are worth, but other than that, I enjoyed the mystery aspect, I enjoyed the romance aspect between Nic and Dashiell and I enjoyed Nic’s budding friendship with Leaf. And I didn’t even mention the steampunkish bits with the automatons. I don’t know how Rebecca Ide made all the different elements work, but the result is speaking for itself. And I can see why it’s compared to the works of Alexis Hall, and I probably would add AJ Lancaster as well. Either way, I highly recommend The Gentleman and His Vowsmith if you need a bit of bloodrush in the form of a spicy murder mystery.