Series: Infamous Lords, #6
Traits & Tropes: compromised; bluestocking; marriage of convenience; hero abused by father; titled hero
Publication Date: 06.28.22
Genre/Setting: Historical; Victorian; London/Richmond, England
Heat Level: 2/5
Rating: 3/5
Lady Sara Elsmere has been relegated to the fringes of high society thanks to her unfortunate tendency to burst into nervous laughter when asked to dance. She doesn’t really mind since she’s devoted to her study of butterflies and has no interest in society gossip. She’s still a bit embarrassed about her behavior around men, but there’s not much to be done about the fact that they make her nervous. However, one man doesn’t cause that reaction in her when he yanks her into a dark room at a ball and kisses her thoroughly.
Ian McAllister, the Duke of Dorchester, has quite the reputation as a scandalous rake and he would’ve been perfectly fine with keeping that bachelor’s image for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, he’s now kissed the wrong shepherdess. Though he enjoyed it immensely, he now must decide if he can go through with marrying the innocent girl whose reputation, he’s ruined to ensure that his business dealings aren’t damaged by the scandal. His two young wards also need a mother figure they won’t be able to run off as they have with their last three nannies. Sara wants freedom and independence, so when Ian offers to let her keep her dowry for herself upon their union, she agrees to a businesslike marriage. But as Sara and Ian begin life together, the mutual attraction between them burns ever hotter, surprising them both with the stirrings of genuine emotion in the midst of their perfectly civilized arrangement.
I’m not sure if this was really the book or just me, but I found the pacing to be quite slow and for some reason I never really found any of the characters to be particularly compelling. Sara annoyed me most of all, I think because she’s meant to be highly educated and erudite, but she’s incredibly naïve about nearly everything. I think her prudishness was also pretty over the top given that she’s supposed to be so educated. Her character just seemed a bit all over the place to me. She was also unnecessarily mean to Ian even when he didn’t deserve it, baiting him out of nowhere, and it just didn’t make sense to me. I loved that these two were together so early on, but the intimacy faded quickly enough to give me whiplash and then we had no other intimate scenes between them for quite some time. Perhaps most disappointing for me was nearer the end when the way was paved for a truly wonderful love scene in which the hero is going to show the heroine all the emotions he cannot give voice to, and then it fades to black.
I also think a lot of this story was bogged down with inanities that really did nothing to advance the plot. Some descriptions of mannerisms and gestures were repeated ad nauseum, most specifically that Sara lifted an eyebrow in imitation of the arrogant way that Ian had. I’m not sure why, but this repetition got on my nerves after a while. Sara spends much of the book trying to prove her independence to Ian, but most of this behavior just comes off as rude, and all the while she’s harping on about how rude he is when really, he’s just awkward and uncertain. Basically, Sara just makes a lot of power moves for no reason
There’s quite a bit of book in which not much happens but everyday life and Ian and Sara not spending much time together. There are also a good number of pages devoted to the pranks Sara and the boys play on each other, which were humorous and cute, but I think these also did pull away from the romance of the story. Sara also spends a lot of time thinking about all the questions she has about Ian, but rarely asking him anything, instead going to the servants to try to glean information. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the other woman drama that got inserted near the end, though it did ramp up the pacing and helped reinvest me and made me want to go ahead and finish the book. Ian had such potential to be one of those unloved heroes who has to learn how to give and receive love, a trope I adore, but it just fell a bit flat here and I still can’t quite pinpoint why. This wasn’t a bad story by any means, and I did enjoy it, I just don’t think it quite lived up to the hopes I had for it given all the potential these tropes held, but I still found it to be worth the read.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4110967324
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/3175759457
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