E. L. James was one of the authors that rekindled my love of reading. When I first read her Fifty Shades trilogy, I devoured it. I quickly became a fan, and she was immediately placed on my list of “one-click” authors. Anything she was putting out, I was buying. In 2019 when James released an entirely new book based on a completely new world with The Mister, I was excited to dive in. And I was double excited with its sequel, The Missus.
As a fan of the Fifty Shades Trilogy, I had no idea what to expect going into The Mister. If you were looking for Fifty Shades, that was different from what you would find with this story. And that’s perfectly fine. While we love Anastasia and Christian, we wanted to read a new book with different characters.
When I read The Mister, we did enjoy it, but the ending left us and others that read it wanting to know more about the main characters, Alessia and Maxim. That’s why I was thrilled to get my hands on book two, The Missus.
Before we get into this review, we have to mention some trigger warnings to be aware of. Mainly sex-trafficking. Though it is not heavily mentioned throughout The Missus, it is still something to be aware of before diving into this story.
The Missus draws you in from the very first page and picks up where The Mister left off, with Maxim and Alessia preparing for a shotgun wedding in Albania. Alessia, who was Maxim’s daily which is a term for a maid, goes into a whirlwind Romance with him in The Mister.
That probably sounds weird, considering we just mentioned a shotgun wedding. That’s because of Alessia’s father. Before meeting Maxim, Alessia was set to marry a man named Anatoli, an abusive gangster whom she ran away from.
Unbeknownst to her family, once she ran away from Anatoli while trying to get into the U.K., she was kidnapped by sex traffickers. Thankfully, she escaped before anything terrible happened. When she did run, she ended up in the U.K. working for Maxim.
Alessia moved on with her life and thought she was clear until Anatoli found her, kidnapped her, and forced her to return to Albania. Maxim, who fell in love with Alessia, was determined to save her, so he went to Albania. After rescuing her, he declared that he wanted to marry her. We realize that was a lot to unpack, but it’s the best way to set things up for The Missus.
Maxim, a Lord, lives a different life than Alessia, and once they are married, she has to make some significant adjustments. Alessia is not accustomed to many things in his life, and as she tries to learn what it means to be Lady Trevethick, she’s also dealing with skeletons from his past. In addition, she’s got his family to contend with, including his disapproving mother and a former sister-in-law who can’t seem to let go.
Though he’s not dealing with the same issues as Alessia, Maxim does have problems. He’s also trying to contend with his mother and sister-in-law Caroline and working to protect Alessia as best he can. And he’s dealing with some things from his past, including new information about his late brother Kit.
What we enjoyed most about The Missus was that Alessia and Maxim remained united throughout the obstacles that came their way. However, we did want to see Alessia at times let Maxim know her feelings on some things because she was a bit quiet when we felt she should have been more vocal.
We also felt more time could have been spent on Alessia trying to help Bleriana and the other trafficked young ladies. We know it was mentioned again in the Epilogue, but we would have liked to see more of what Alessia attempted to do.
Something else we enjoyed in The Missus was the musical portions of the story. We still find it incredibly interesting that Alessia has synesthesia. Or, more specifically, chromesthesia, which is the association of sounds with colors.
We have only ever read two books that have characters with this condition. James did a great job describing the colors Alessia would see when she played songs on the piano.
We liked The Missus, and we loved it more than The Mister. It was an entertaining romance novel and an excellent way to close out the love story for Alessia and Maxim. There was some angst, and the love scenes were classic James. It was filled with sexiness and steam. If you love E. L. James, then you will love this book, and we highly recommend it.
Other Thoughts About ‘The Missus’ by E. L. James
- Didn’t need another moment of period sex. It wasn’t Fifty Shades level, but that’s still not my cup of tea in any book.
- I didn’t feel like we needed Anatoli to come back again. I don’t think he did anything to move the story along.
- I know Caroline was grieving, but she got on my nerves. She was showing up far too much for my liking.
The Missus by E. L. James is available now.
