Series: The Widow Rules, #3
Traits & Tropes: second chance; slow burn; titled hero; road trip; hero needs to marry for money; ruined heroine
Publication Date: 04.25.23
Genre/Setting: Historical; Regency; England, 1816
Heat Level: 3
Rating: 2/5
After learning that her husband was actually already married to two other women, Beth Howell was left with a ruined reputation and finances, reduced to living with her scapegrace brother. If she hopes to avoid his machinations to marry her off to a man old enough to be her father, Beth must learn what happened to the fortune she brought to her marriage. Though with her supposed husband now deceased, finding out what happened to the money will be even more of a challenge.
Julian Raleah, the Marquess of Grayson, isn’t one for social niceties and has kept everyone at arm’s length since his hopes of marrying Beth were shattered long before she married the trigamist. Now Julian is surprised to see the woman he still loves at his doorstep and asking him to escort her on the search for her missing dowry. Julian knows going on a road trip with the woman he’s been unable to remove from his thoughts is a bad idea, but he also can’t let her down when she needs help, even if it does leave him wondering if there’s even a slight chance of them finding the happy ending after all.
I wanted to like this so much, but it just didn’t work for me, so you risk spoilers from here as I get my thoughts out. I honestly haven’t cared for this series as a whole, but this was definitely the worst installment for me. I’m not sure if I was already going into a slump anyway (probably just because of things going on in my life), but it took me over two months to finish this and that was with me skimming quite a bit of the latter half. I will say that I liked Julian as a hero; his loyalty and steadfastness are to be commended. However, they are also a strike against Beth because I just kept feeling like she didn’t deserve him and wondering what he actually saw in her.
Both Julian and Beth annoyed me at the beginning with their refusal to ask their friends for help. Beth acted as if everyone around her was trying to tell her what to do, but only her brother was doing that, and she refused to put him in his place. From the get-go, this just felt like yet another supposedly feminist book with a man hating heroine. Nothing special, something I’ve read loads of times and never really enjoy. Beth kept going on about all this freedom she now had since her fake husband’s passing, but I have no idea where she got that notion from given that her brother was still clearly controlling her so much and she was allowing it.
I was already not a fan of Beth and then we learned that she hates horses, which was something of a final straw for me as a lifelong horse lover and owner. I’m also amazed at how she treated everyone around her. She’s certainly not someone I’d want as a friend given the way she treated Julian. Beth remained adamant about keeping her promise to herself to never marry again, but rather than make her seem like a strong heroine to me this just got old fast as she was constantly at cross purposes with what she truly wanted for herself. For instance, she hated all horses because of a minor incident with one that was truly caused by a horsemanship error on her part. She applied that same logic to men as well and it just made her seem even more airheaded than she already did.
Aside from that, I thoroughly lost patience with the book and the road trip antics which were probably meant to be funny were lost on me. Beth railing about her reasons for not wanting to marry again to a stranger who is threatening her life was just ridiculous. The moment of peril should’ve been a turning point in her relationship with Julian as they were reminded how precious and fleeting life is, but that’s not what happened. Way too much time was spent on this scene with the highwayman, and it felt like it just delayed the already slow plot even more. I also wasn’t a fan of how weak Julian was made to look here, though I did like his tenderness toward Beth even though she wasn’t exactly kind to him.
The pacing of the entire book was very slow, and I struggled to maintain any interest. The plotting felt very slapdash and Beth very childlike. Then, as if I didn’t already dislike her enough, she questioned Julian about his past and tried to hold it against him that he’d been with others, though the same was true for herself as well. Hypocrisy is something I cannot stand and that was another strike against her. She was the queen of mixed signals, with Julian, but also in other areas of her life. For instance, she openly blames her brother for ruining her life and yet she idiotically continued to dismiss him as harmless.
If all that weren’t enough, we then get the dreaded third act break up because of course. Essentially Beth just used Julian for comfort and then threw him away when she was done with him. I’m not sure if this was supposed to feel empowering to women but I didn’t care for it. She then had the audacity to be upset with Julian for saying he couldn’t see her anymore as just friends, because it would hurt him too much. She just put on this false, misplaced sense of nobility that just made her look dumb and emphasized the fact that she was out of touch with anyone else’s feelings but her own.
Lastly, I wanted to see the brother put in his place more and I didn’t need any sort of redemption arc for Meri the trigamist, especially one that didn’t actually explain his terrible behavior. I see why this was useful as a plot device, but I was not a fan. Even when everything had worked out and there were no barriers left, Beth still saw a problem between herself and Julian, once again creating her own issues. She even said she wanted someone who just wanted her and not her money…she hadn’t had any money the entire time and Julian still professed his love for her, so the only conclusion I could draw was that she was a featherheaded pea brain. Perhaps this is why the chemistry between these two felt rather forced, especially because she was so hot and cold with him, and he was so (understandably) lacking in confidence.
I’m usually a fan of epilogues but this one just felt dumb and unnecessary. I didn’t need another nod to Meri, nor did I want more weird attempts at redemption for him without any explanation for his behavior. I normally love a slow burn road trip romance that’s full of pining, but this was not it. I’m still a fan of this author and she’s responsible for some of my favorite stories, so here’s hoping this series was just a fluke for me as many other readers have loved it.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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