How the Wallflower Was Won by Eva Leigh | ARC Review

Series: Last Chance Scoundrels, #2
Traits & Tropes: beta hero; marriage of convenience; spare son; dyslexic hero; bluestocking heroine
Publication Date: 09.27.22
Genre/Setting: Historical; Regency; London, England, 1818
Heat Level: 4
Rating: 4/5

Finn Ransome is so skilled at gambling that he’s able to earn a comfortable living at it, but he knows himself to be unlovable and nothing but a disappointment to the people around him. As the son of an earl, he’s always been held to an impossible standard by his exacting father and now is no different as he’s been given a timetable in which he must marry. The only woman he’s really noticed is a brilliant bluestocking who he’s sure would never give him the time of day.

Tabitha Seaton had one season that was an utter failure and since then she has focused her attention on her academic studies in the hopes of joining the Sterling Society. The influential club helps guide London’s lawmakers and Tabitha has hopes of broadening their opinions. But she’s been told in no uncertain terms that an unmarried lady will never be admitted to their ranks. Tabitha needs a husband in a short amount of time and the painfully handsome gambler may be her best option.

Finn and Tabitha are total opposites, but their marriage of convenience is helpful to them both and poses no risk to their hearts. They’ve even agreed to keep feelings out of it. But after they’re married, the attraction between them grows into a fierce passion that comes as a surprise to them both. They’re both afraid to risk their hearts, but it soon becomes clear that a little risk is necessary if they want to solidify their future happiness.

I have some mixed feelings about this book. The Good Girl’s Guide to Rakes went instantly onto my favorites list, so this one did have a high standard to live up to, but I really thought sweet, underestimated, overlooked Finn would be able to do it. Sadly, I don’t think that happened and it was mostly down to the heroine of this story, Tabitha. Finn is dyslexic and has always been ridiculed by his family and tutors for his difficulty with reading and Tabitha has been fairly misunderstood and mostly ignored because her family doesn’t really understand her bookish tendencies. I can totally relate to that, and I was so looking forward to seeing her and Finn be that person who understood each other, and while we sort of got that, it wasn’t quite in the way I was hoping. Tabitha spent most of the book being afraid and pushing Finn away to protect her own heart, all the while just reinforcing all the negative beliefs he had about himself by doing so. When they were together during other times, she did give him some positive affirmation, but then she went and basically undid it by leaving him to sleep alone after sex, so I felt like that more or less negated all the good she did during the day and left him just as insecure as ever.

My first impression of Tabitha was that she was very rigid in her intellectuality, to the point that she almost seemed flat as a character, as if her intelligence were her only defining characteristic and she were just a walking brain without feelings. In this respect, she felt a bit overdrawn, though I think she was meant to be charmingly awkward and socially unaware. Since I’m very much like this myself, I definitely expected this to resonate with me, but I just don’t think it hit me the way it was intended to. Tabitha’s residual trauma from her first love, while no doubt hurtful, did seem exaggerated in her reaction to it. Especially given the habitual emotional, verbal, and even physical abuse Finn endured for pretty much his whole life, her reason for keeping her heart so protected seemed pretty feeble compared to Finn’s own well-founded and much reinforced fears and low self-esteem.

Tabitha can’t bear to admit when she doesn’t know something and that makes her and Finn seem like quite the mismatch, which is the intent, I’m sure, but he’s so humble and has such damaged self-esteem that she just seems incredibly arrogant when juxtaposed with him. I was hopeful for this heroine because she’s so educated and intelligent, yet she was just as much a naïve, fairly narrowminded miss as any other virgin heroine. Finn seems to think she’s super supportive of him, but really, she just wasn’t openly telling him she didn’t think he could achieve his goals, which is what most everyone else in his life had done, so he couldn’t recognize the difference and that made my heart hurt for him and increased my frustration with her, though she wasn’t openly doing anything wrong.

I wanted to see two misunderstood souls finding acceptance in and with one another but I’m not sure that ever truly solidified until the very end, mostly because of her being so afraid to talk to him. She’s bold as brass in everything else so after a while of them being together, it just didn’t make much sense to me given her previous characterization for her to still be so afraid to talk to him. Even after she sees the damage that her pushing him away is causing, her solution is just to push him away some more.  With their hot and cold communication, their relationship trajectory was definitely very choppy, and I found Tabitha to be consistently overly dramatic, despite also being cold and methodical such that she was a bit hard to pin down as a character.

I’ve never been a fan of the third act breakup plot device, and this was no exception. Finn makes one mistake and she seems to blow things way out of proportion, saying something way more hurtful to him and making a misunderstanding and a poor choice of words into a whole thing. Yet, somehow, Finn mostly overlooks the fact that she’s hurt him and focuses only on what he said wrong to her, with no expectation that she should take responsibility for her own hurtful utterance, which I think was even more significant given their character backstories. While Tabitha does eventually take ownership of her role in their issues and take steps to make things right, Finn’s grand gesture towards her was very much more satisfying. It just felt like she wasn’t making nearly the same effort that Finn was and it was a bit disheartening that they fell apart so utterly with one mistaken bit of speech. Finn was very sweet and sensitive, full of love and just wanting someone to be a safe place for him to demonstrate that love and I just was left feeling like he deserved more much of the time. I just wanted to see more of Finn and Tabitha fighting this rival group together and less angst within their relationship, though I did appreciate the growth they both demonstrated when they did at last manage to come together as equals in a healthy relationship where they’ll hopefully eventually become each other’s refuge in the way I’d hoped they would.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4468708950

https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/3664032240