Series: Never a Wallflower, #2
Traits & Tropes: bluestocking heroine; soldier; heroine wears glasses; hero suffers from depression; titled hero; marriage of convenience
Publication Date: 08.23.22
Genre/Setting: Historical; Regency; London, England
Heat Level: 2
Rating: 2/5
Narration Rating: 3/5
William Easton, the Duke of Blackheath has spent his adult life avoiding emotional entanglements or the slightest mention of love. He has his work to occupy his time and his mind along with a secure fortune. What he didn’t account for was his reaction to headstrong, outspoken women's rights activist Beatrice Haven, or his reaction to her.
Lady Beatrice has always sworn she’d never marry but instead spend her life and her inheritance fighting for women’s rights. She’s happy to provoke the duke even if he does claim to agree with her own beliefs, as she firmly believes all dukes are inherently her enemy. She can’t account for the pleasure she derives from her verbal sparring sessions with the duke.
When Beatrice suddenly learns her fortune is gone and she could soon lose any semblance of security, she reluctantly agrees to a marriage of convenience with the man who makes her blood boil. He’s not prepared to tap into his emotions, but he knows they can at least enjoy one another in the bedroom if they can put their animosity aside.
Phew. This book. It had some good qualities, and the writing was solid, but the characters and dialogue, mainly the heroine, just did not work for me. I’m all for women’s rights, of course, don’t get me wrong there, but I do read romance to try to escape from the problems and injustices of the world at least to some extent, so having the feminism thrown in my face constantly and belligerently by this heroine got old fast. I also feel like I’ve read this book before with the bluestocking, loudly feminist, manhating heroine and it’s honestly getting old for me as well. This review may devolve into a bit of a venting session, but oh well; it happens sometimes.
This particular heroine specialized in monologues and diatribes that grew very repetitive very quickly and she literally never said anything new. She believes her way is the only way and is very judgmental and set in her ways from the get-go. She starts out very clearly stating her view that all dukes are her enemy and must be against her cause, not men with titles or rights to sit in Parliament, just dukes, even though she doesn’t actually know any dukes. She came off as arrogant, judgmental, and very narrow-minded, which I found ironic given her goals. She put me off from the beginning of the story when she was belaboring all the reasons, she hates the duke (brother to her cousin’s fiancé) and making her cousin’s courtship all about her, then we find out she has never actually even met the duke. She’s just decided to hate him because he has that particular title. What rubbish. She basically hates all men, even those who support her cause, because they have rights where she doesn’t and I’m not a fan of this blanket generalization. She built the duke up in her imagination and then was somehow surprised that he was different from her stereotype, and she amazingly seems upset that he doesn’t fall in line with her presumptions.
For his part, William suffers from depressive tendencies, and I found this to be very relatable and it was admirable that he admitted this weakness fairly readily, at least to himself. Beatrice didn’t seem too concerned about William or his feelings and actually did her best to alienate him for a while, despite the fact that he was the one man who agreed with her and might be able to help her cause. Even as he was telling her he agreed with her, she was still coming after him. Because he was a man, she refused to listen to anything he had to say. This wasn’t helped by the fact that William feels connected to Beatrice (though for the life of me I can’t see why), and this makes him terrified because she makes him feel. These two may have agreed on a great many things, but Beatrice wouldn’t concede that they had anything in common or give him any credit, so I was just puzzled about the connection that was supposedly growing between them. Beatrice spends a great deal of time bemoaning William’s arrogance, but I found her to be much more arrogant than he was, perhaps made even worse by the fact that she thinks she knows everything but it’s very clear that she’s incredibly naïve and has a lot to learn.
Beatrice saw her parents’ love match and somehow determined from this that no man could ever possibly catch her eye and that love is a myth. This makes no sense to me that she’d be so jaded and not believe in love after seeing it so firsthand. I’m not a fan of this trope and William’s background wasn’t much better. His mother left him and his two younger brothers when they were all children and never saw them again, so he has abandonment issues and is determined never to love again so as to never be hurt. I’m not a fan of that trope either so this might’ve just been a lose-lose for me. Even after their marriage, I struggled and it’s probably only the narration that kept me going here because I never felt any romance between these two. Somehow, they develop feelings for one another, and William’s infatuation with her did come across on the page, but true love between these two just didn’t really show well, especially on her part and we never saw any change in her. In fact, she was angry when William was giving her space after their marriage, though she’d done nothing but made it seem as if her freedom and a separate life is exactly what she wants. It was honestly a bit sickening the way he bows and rolls over and does anything she says to do. He gives her a lot of support, but it never feels mutual because she castigates him so much without ever really praising him. When their big disagreement comes about, and he cares more about his brother than women’s rights she decides she’s done with him, and she can’t see why he’d think that way.
This heroine was just incredibly arrogant in her own ignorance and the hero didn’t hold up well against her. I wanted to see a partnership and some actual romance, and I never felt like we really got that here. Nonetheless, that’s merely my take on things and I think there are tons of readers who will, and clearly already do, love this incredibly headstrong, feminist heroine, it just didn’t quite do it for me.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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