The Missus is a 2023 romance novel by E. L. James. It is a sequel to her 2019 novel The Mister.
Maxim Trevelyan, the Earl of Trevethick, and his Albanian-born former maid Alessia Demachi, return to the United Kingdom as newlyweds. Although the two are initially excited to begin their lives together as a married couple, new challenges soon arise. Maxim's family make it clear they don't approve of Alessia as Maxim's choice of countess and she herself has doubts about whether she can ever fit into Maxim's world. Not helping is Maxim's playboy past, with Alessia wondering if her husband will remain satisfied with her or return to his old habits. Meanwhile, Maxim struggles to not only convince his family to accept Alessia as his wife, but must also contend with dark and painful family secrets being dragged into the light.
All spoilers for The Mister are unmarked
Tropes present in this novel include:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: The Mister was published and presumably set in 2019. The Missus was published four years later in 2023, but as it begins exactly where The Mister ended (which is set over a few months), this book is set a few years earlier.
- Abhorrent Admirer: Alessia's abusive gangster ex Anatoli seriously believes he still has a chance to win Alessia back - including approaching her shortly before her wedding to Maxim to try and persuade her to return to him - despite Alessia being so unwilling to marry him she fled Albania, not to mention him having kidnapped Alessia and attempted to shoot her father and Maxim in the previous book's climax.
- Anger Born of Worry: When Alessia returns home a bit later than expected, without having answered Maxim's texts or having previously told him she was going out, Maxim's first response is to snap at her "Where the fuck have you been?" He admits he was angry because he was scared something had happened to her, given her recent kidnapping.
- Artistic License – Engineering: Regarding the correct use of a PlayStation 4. There's a scene where Alessia is trying to use a PS4 and is told she's holding the "console" upside down; it can be assumed this was an editing error and the author actually meant "controller", given that a PS4 console should be set down on a flat surface and it's the controller that is held in the player's hands.
- Artistic License – Law: Maxim and Alessia fret over whether they can have a second wedding in the UK as they already got legally married in Albania, wondering if it would be considered bigamy or invalidate the original wedding. This is redundant as it's perfectly legal (and not terribly uncommon) for couples who have already legally married (i.e. signed a marriage certificate) to have another ceremony if they want; while they wouldn't sign and submit another marriage certificate, they can still exchange vows and have the marriage blessed etc. even if they're already technically hitched in the eyes of the law. It's common for couples to do this if they couldn't have a bigger wedding at the time due to financial, logistical and/or time constraints, they're renewing their vows for a special anniversary and so on. Overall, from a legal standpoint it shouldn't be a big deal. It would only be considered bigamy if one of them was trying to marry a second person while they were still legally married to each other.
- Artistic License – Pharmacology: On their wedding night, Maxim reaches for a condom only for Alessia to stop him and say they don't need one because she's started the contraceptive pill. However, as she only started the pill around three days prior, it wouldn't be all that effective in preventing pregnancy yet (it takes around a month of taking the pill consistently for it to work). It's understandable Alessia may not know this given she's portrayed as quite naïve, though you'd think her doctor (whom she saw to get the prescription) would've explained this to her.
- Babies Ever After: The epilogue sees Maxim and Alessia learning the latter is pregnant as the cherry on top of their happy new lives together. Even though Alessia had previously expressed that she didn't feel ready to have children yet, she and Maxim are both thrilled by the unplanned pregnancy.
- Broken Pedestal: Maxim always thought of Kit as being more responsible than him, worthier of being Earl of Trevethick and that he was too good for Caroline, but loses a lot of respect for his late older brother after learning what a crappy husband he was to his sister-in-law.
- Bus Crash: It's revealed that Dante and Yili, the Human Traffickers who had been carted off to jail in the previous book for trying to recapture Alessia, were Killed Offscreen in prison.
- Death Seeker: Maxim had already pondered in the previous book whether Kit was trying to intentionally end his life when he had his fatal crash; he'd gone out on his motorcycle while it was raining, which was uncharacteristically risky of him. This book adds credence this, as it turns out that shortly before his death Kit had found out that he was the product of an affair and he'd inherited a genetic disorder from his biological father that would likely kill him (plus his marriage wasn't in the best shape either).
- Department of Redundancy Department: At one point, a cup of freshly-made coffee is described as both "hot" and "warming" in the same sentence.
- Domestic Abuse: Caroline reveals in the ending that Kit wasn't always a very loving husband, saying he could be aloof, controlling and sometimes even violent towards her. Rowena was aware of this to some extent, saying she knows Kit could be "difficult". Caroline refused to leave Kit because she still loved him, but the less-than-perfect state of their marriage led to Caroline cheating on Kit due to being starved of affection.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Dante and Yili were fairly significant villains for much of The Mister; while they were arrested, they still have contacts in the criminal underworld and the slave ring they help run is still operational. In this book, it's mentioned they were unceremoniously stabbed to death in prison.
- Hypocrite:
- Maxim dislikes Mr Demachi's paternalistic attitude towards women and him referring to Alessia as "[his] problem now"; he feels their views on women are polar opposites and that his father-in-law "needs dragging into the twenty-first century". While Maxim makes good points about Mr Demachi's misogyny, his own treatment of women is questionable; up until he met Alessia a mere two months ago, he treated most women in his life as nothing but sex objects / potential conquests - the exceptions being his sister and his mother, the latter of whom he views as a manipulative gold-digger (not without reason, admittedly) - and has trouble trusting and connecting with women beyond sex. He still has nude photos of his former hook-ups in his bedroom when he marries Alessia, had sex with his grieving sister-in-law days after his brother's funeral, and didn't warn Alessia about any of this. While Maxim isn't cruel and overtly controlling with Alessia, he does have a tendency to infantilise her and not consider her feelings (though he does try to improve this).
- Rowena. She looks down her nose at Alessia and makes it crystal clear she doesn't think she'll ever be a good countess because of her background (working-class, foreign, former cleaner), no matter how much she tries to fit in (such as getting a nice wardrobe and taking etiquette lessons). Rowena herself engages in behaviour many would consider trashy and ill-fitting of a countess (far worse than Alessia), such as her regular use of crass language, her lack of interest in being countess besides the privileged lifestyle (including marrying her ex only for his title/wealth, then divorcing him once she was bored), her spending money on luxuries beyond her already generous allowance and cheating on her then-husband and passing off the resulting baby as his. Rowena also calls Maxim to scream and swear at him for being "rude" to her and not showing her more respect, saying he's more likely to get what he wants from her if he's more polite without a shred of irony.
- Immediate Sequel: The book begins right where The Mister ended, with Maxim and Alessia preparing for their hastily-arranged wedding in Albania at the insistence of Alessia's father.
- Insecure Love Interest: Alessia is deeply insecure about whether Maxim truly loves her or if she's enough for him, especially after realising the extent of his playboy behaviour, which he was still cheerfully indulging in up until he began dating her about a month or two ago. She is uncomfortable around and/or suspicious of his ex-lovers (of which there are many) and even gets upset by the thought of her and Maxim Sleeping Single after someone merely makes a hypothetical joke about it. Anatoli, her ex-fiance, also plants seeds of doubt in her mind regarding her marriage right before her wedding, saying Alessia will never be able to fit into Maxim's world and that his family and peers will never accept someone like her marrying an earl. It's worsened by the fact Maxim's mother, sister and sister-in-law (the latter of whom is also another ex-lover) do look down on Alessia and make her feel like an outsider, despite Maxim defending her.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Caroline is unnecessarily bitchy about it and is mostly motivated by jealousy, but she does make some good points prior to Alessia and Maxim's wedding that Alessia doesn't fully understand Maxim's background, lifestyle and the implications of this for her, because they still barely know each other. Alessia is indeed not very comfortable with Maxim's sexual history (including having slept with his sister-in-law days before meeting Alessia) and the constant gossip surrounding him, and she's overwhelmed by how unprepared she is for her role as a countess.
- Love Martyr: Caroline says that even though Kit could be a demanding, unsympathetic and occasionally physically abusive husband, she refused to leave him because she was in love with him and they were sometimes happy together (though it didn't stop her from cheating on him). Caroline continues to mourn Kit and insists she still loves him despite his flaws.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Rowena eventually admits to Maxim and Alessia that her eldest son Kit was actually the product of an affair, but she passed him off as her ex-husband's child for almost his whole life; Kit learned the truth shortly before his death. Rowena explains that there was a chance he could've been her then-husband's child, so she kept quiet for years. However, she realised he was her lover's child because Kit tested positive for a fatal genetic condition that his biological father died of.
- Mistaken for Cheating: While Maxim and Alessia are attending a party, one of Maxim's exes forces a kiss on him; Alessia witnesses the kiss but doesn't see Maxim shoving his ex off, due to her getting upset and running out (especially as she's already having doubts about their marriage). Fortunately, Maxim quickly explains what really happened and reassures Alessia he's committed to her.
- My Own Private "I Do": Maxim and Alessia have a small, lowkey wedding in Albania with only a few family and friends in attendance, due to Alessia's traditionalist father demanding they marry before returning to the UK; he's not thrilled about Maxim deflowering Alessia outside of marriage, not to mention he now knows she was targeted by human traffickers, and wants to guarantee Maxim will provide for her. Maxim and Alessia consider having a much larger, grander wedding in the UK, but they're unsure about the legality of this.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Maxim's mother Rowena spends much of the book criticising and looking down on her new daughter-in-law Alessia because in Rowena's mind, Alessia is 'beneath' her son for being a poor immigrant who once worked as Maxim's cleaner. Rowena even attempts to pay Alessia to leave Maxim at one point. In the end she finally comes around, realising that Alessia truly cares for Maxim and is a good influence on him; she apologises for her poor treatment of her and makes it clear she now accepts her as part of her family.
- Past Experience Nightmare: The novel opens with Maxim having a nightmare about the day he had to identify his brother's body in the morgue, which turns into him seeing his own body on the slab.
- Pinball Protagonist: Maxim and to a lesser extent Alessia ultimately do very little to influence or move the plot forwards. Much of the time they just observe or discuss the story's events while having no discernible impact themselves. By the end of the novel, most of the major plotlines are resolved with little-to-no in-put from Alessia and Maxim; they're sometimes not even present for the resolution and just get told about it afterwards (this includes: Maxim's lawyer discovering and informing him that he and Alessia's marriage is legal so there'll be no problems with her staying in the UK, Alessia's kidnappers being killed in prison before the case goes to trial, the trafficked girl Alessia wanted to save already being rescued by the cops and finding Alessia by herself, Caroline and Rowena eventually voluntarily explaining the situation with Kit to Maxim and Rowena deciding on her own to finally accept Alessia as her daughter-in-law).
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Alessia delivers one to her mother-in-law when she shows up at her and Maxim's apartment uninvited, makes classist remarks to her and tries to pay her to leave Maxim, saying that she thinks Rowena is an awful mother and that if she wanted Maxim to marry a woman she approved of she should've been more loving and supportive, but she's glad that Rowena wasn't because then she wouldn't have gotten to marry Maxim. She tops it off by telling Rowena to Get Out! of her apartment.
- The Reveal:
- From reading his late brother's diaries and doing some other digging, Maxim discovers that Kit and Caroline's marriage was troubled, with Kit not treating Caroline too well and Caroline having an affair. Kit had also sought testing for and discovered he had a fatal hereditary disease shortly before his death, although Maxim himself doesn't have this condition.
- Maxim learns his mother cheated on her then-husband and that he and Kit were maternal half-brothers rather than full brothers as he'd always believed, which is the reason Maxim didn't inherit the same genetic condition Kit suffered from. It also means that Maxim was always technically the true heir to the earldom, as Kit wasn't the previous earl's biological son.
- Rich Bitch: Rowena, the former Countess of Trevethick who still lives off the Trevelyan estate, is a stuck-up, shallow and selfish Jerkass who demands respect she's done nothing to earn, treats her own children (especially Maxim) like crap and makes rude and classist remarks about Alessia both to other people and to Alessia's face (including referring to her as "the help" and saying that "you can't make a fine purse out of a sow's ear" in reference to Alessia's attempts to fit into London's high society). Rowena also tries to pay off Alessia to leave her son, asking her how much it'll cost to get rid of her.
- Secret-Keeper: It turns out that Maryann was aware that her mother had cheated on her and Maxim's father, and that Kit was a product of said affair. Maryann's frustration towards Maxim when she reveals this implies she thought he already knew as well.
- Shout-Out: When Maryann is trying to reassure her future sister-in-law about Maxim's promiscuous past, she tells Alessia "Reformed rakes make the best husbands", which is a line from the first Bridgerton book, The Duke and I.
- Tamer and Chaster: While The Missus does still have sexual content (it's erotica after all), there are fewer sex scenes and they generally aren't as explicit compared to The Mister (and especially Fifty Shades of Grey), with much of the sexual stuff being more suggestive or relying on innuendo rather than detailed descriptions of sex acts.
- Two-Timing with the Bestie: It's implied but not confirmed that Caroline had an affair with her late husband's best friend Oliver; her lover's identity isn't revealed, though there's some tension between her and Oliver that suggests it could be him.
