Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 When I saw that Lauren Willig was one of three authors of what was described as "a blend of romance, historical fiction and family saga," I was like OMG PUT THAT IN MY HANDS RIGHT NOW. The Forgotten Room checks the box for all three categories, but unfortunately I found a lot of the tropes within the book to be tired and I struggled to really engage with the heroes. As family saga/ historical fiction it worked pretty well for me. As a romance, it did not. 
 For me, the biggest issues with the novel were the heroes and the portrayal of "other" women. Let's start with the heroes. All three men -- Harry, Philip and Cooper -- put the heroines in serious jeopardy when they begin to pursue them, even if their intentions aren't malicious. In Olive's case, an Upstairs-Downstairs romance almost always leads to the Downstairs party being dismissed in shame. Harry is a romantic, and he truly loves Olive and wants to run away with her, but I don't think he ever fully appreciates the precariousness of her situation. His class standing is so far above hers that he can he destroy her ability to find other domestic employment by pursuing her romantically-hell, even by just painting her. 
 Now, class issues come up all the time in romance novels. It's a familiar plot conflict. The only time it works for me, though, is when the hero is fully cognizant of the fact that his station above the heroine's means anything he does runs the risk of, quite frankly, ruining her life. In all three cases, the heroes in this book have the ability to destroy the heroine's careers and sources of income by thoughtless actions, and while their intentions were pure, I didn't feel that they fully understood how precarious the situation was for the heroines. 
 Which brings us to the "other" women. Both Philip and Cooper's fiancees are portrayed as cold, aloof, selfish women. The "other" woman in Olive's story is Harry's sister, Prunella, who is determined to see Olive ruined for no other reason than she's an awful human being. Didi and Prunella come across as mostly materialistic and scheming. 
 I'm just really, really tired of books with the beautiful, ice queen villainous 'other woman.' Unless she's an actual ice queen in which case, BRING IT. Otherwise, I hate the other woman trope. It's tired. It contributes to the bullshit idea that women have to tear each other down because there are only so many good things (in this case men) to compete over. Prunella, Didi and Caroline (Cooper's fiancee) are portrayed as selfish, foot-stamping, spoiled brats. It's a way of showing how good the heroine is by comparison -- "pure" and "kind." It's a lazy method of characterization for the heroine, it makes the heroes look like dicks for cheating (except Harry), and it's a damaging and outdated portrayal of women in general. 
 As I said, The Forgotten Room worked okay for me on the historical fiction and family saga front. I enjoyed following the Pratt mansion through its many lives over the years and I was invested in unraveling what really happened between Olive and Harry. As a romance, it falls short, in part because I would have appreciated more nuanced, complex portrayals of the secondary female characters. 
 - Elyse