Miss Butterworth and the mad baron : a graphic novel /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Julia Quinn comes this irresistible treat, a charming and jaunty graphic novel, based on story snippets peppered throughout a number of her books. Originally mentioned in It's in His Kiss--one of the Bridgerton novels which inspired the smash Netflix series Bridgerton--Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron is finally told here in its entirety for the first time.

A madcap romantic adventure, Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron has appeared in several Julia Quinn novels and enthralled some of her most beloved characters. Now this delicious tale of love and peril is available for everyone to enjoy in this wonderfully unconventional graphic novel.

Born into a happy family that is tragically ravaged by smallpox, Miss Priscilla Butterworth uses her wits to survive a series of outlandish trials. Cruelly separated from her beloved mother and grandmother, the young girl is sent to live with a callous aunt who forces her to work for her keep. Eventually, the clever and tenderhearted Miss Butterworth makes her escape . . . a daring journey into the unknown that unexpectedly leads her to the "mad" baron and a lifetime of love.

Delightfully illustrated by Violet Charles, told in Julia Quinn's playful voice, Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron is a high-spirited nineteenth-century romp that will entertain and enchant modern readers.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Based on a novel-within-a-novel from Quinn's blockbuster Bridgerton series, this tongue-in-cheek send-up of Gothic melodrama aims for high comedy but fails to take off. Tragic heroine Priscilla Butterworth wanders through outlandish misadventures before landing at the manor of the reputedly mad Lord Savagewood. Fibbing her way into a position as lady's companion to Savagewood's grandmother, Miss Butterworth piques the brooding lord's interest and uncovers a plot against his life. The characters' outlandish travails include rampaging wild boars, lightning strikes, cannibalism, drug-addled pigeons, and murder attempts straight out of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. All of which ought to be funny, but the characters are caricatures, the plot jumps around too wildly to follow, and the manic artwork doesn't fit the period. The characters are inconsistently drawn big-eyed lumps, a choice likely to disappoint Bridgerton fans who expect well-lit beauty and elegance along with humor, and the barely sketched-in backgrounds don't give much impression of the era, either. There's plenty of fodder for graphic novel adaptations in the Bridgerton universe, but this feels rushed and lacks a firm grasp on the dynamics of visual storytelling. Agent: Steve Axelrod, the Axelrod Agency. (Jan.)

Booklist Review

Fans of Quinn's Bridgerton series will be amused to find the infamous Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron--a fictional, deliberately absurd novel read by characters in several of Quinn's books, beginning with the seventh Bridgerton installment--has been adapted into a graphic novel, with Quinn's sister, Violet Charles, providing the illustrations. The choice of format was a wise one--Charles' expressive, cartoonish art is well suited to the outlandish plot--and readers will be entertained by the increasingly melodramatic antics of Miss Butterworth who, after a tragic childhood, is hired as a companion to the grandmother of the titular mad baron, who turns out to be not so mad after all. Together they must overcome the scheming of a dastardly cousin attempting to have the baron institutionalized so that he might claim the title instead--and, of course, they find love along the way. Newcomers might roll their eyes at the silliness on offer, but this is a reasonably amusing, if somewhat forgettable romp that is likely to please Quinn's fans and will undoubtedly circulate well among her large readership.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Julia Quinn is the pseudonym used by Julie Pottinger (born Julie Cotler in 1970), a best-selling American historical romance author. Pottinger grew up in the New England and California. She has appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List nine times.

Pottinger went to Harvard and majored in Art History. After getting this degree, she decided that she wanted to be a doctor, so she had to complete two more years of college to fulfill her science credits. While studying science, she drafted two romance novels. A few weeks after she was accepted to medical school, she discovered that her first two novels, Splendid and Dancing At Midnight, had been sold at auction, so she postponed medical school for two years while she wrote two more novels. By the time Pottinger finally entered Yale medical school, three of her books had been published. After only a few short months of studying medicine, however, she left medical school and devoted herself full-time to her writing.

Pottinger lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Paul Pottinger. She was the recipient of the Romance Writers of America RITA Award in 2007 for "On the Way to the Wedding" and in 2008 for "The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever". In 2015 her novel, The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy made the New York Times bestseller list.

Julia's title, Because of Miss Bridgerton, is a April 2016 New York Times bestseller.

(Bowker Author Biography)