The Wallflower Wager

The Wallflower Wager (Girl Meets Duke #3) by Tessa Dare (2019)

We've met Lady Penelope Campion earlier in this series. She is an animal lover - her house full of a whole menagerie of animals from a dog to a goat to a hedgehog - and a vegetarian who is constantly foisting her creations, such as her "sham" sandwiches on her friends. She is also (unsurprisingly?) single. When the book opens, her Aunt Caroline tells her that her brother is on his way to come collect her and take her back to the country since she has no marriage prospects and has pretty much squandered her opportunities in society. Penny panics, and makes a deal with her aunt that she'll get rid of all her animals and appear in the society pages at least once if it means she can stay.

Meanwhile, the house next to hers has been newly purchased by Gabriel Duke, also known as the Duke of Ruin. He has a tragic backstory of growing up in a workhouse and making himself rich, I guess by financially ruining other people. He has a terrible reputation, but Penny is irresistibly drawn to him and doesn't care what anyone else thinks. He's planning to resell the house after it's remodeled and wants Penny to stay in her house because apparently having a Lady next door makes the property more valuable, so he ends up agreeing to help her rehome her menagerie and make it into the society pages.

I read all three books in this series because I had heard such good reviews of this one, but it turns out to be the book I liked least. The premise wasn't very strong to begin with and somehow the romance between Penny and Gabriel didn't have enough tension for me. The latter part of the book, where things ramp up before the finale, was not very satisfying. Without spoiling too much, it involves a part where Gabriel threatens another person on Penny's behalf and without her approval, which is thing I hate, and which also happened in the first book in the series. Here though, it was worse and he could have gotten himself killed, which makes it clear it's something he's doing to satisfy his own anger and not actually for her (which I think is usually the case when men get all self-righteous about going after someone who wronged their woman.)

Also, this all came to a head in the middle of a ball, and things were kind of left hanging. When the person arrived who had wronged Penny in the past, Gabriel took him to his study and Penny followed and it got all dramatic, but then the story skipped ahead to the morning. First of all, Gabriel was going to announce their engagement at this ball. But did they even return to the ball after this meeting? I mean, they must have since it was at Gabriel's house. Or did he make everyone leave? It was weird to not even mention this. Also, just before this thing happened, Penny's friend Nicola freaked out because she spotted someone in the ballroom who she said was her fiance, and everyone was shocked and asked her to explain. They all went to discuss this surprise, but Penny followed Gabe instead and this thread of Nicola's secret relationship was never picked up again. I assume that's what the next book will be about, but it was handled rather clumsily here.

I know a lot of people loved this book, and I didn't dislike it enough to stop reading it - mostly, it was fairly amusing and I do love Penny's character. But when all was said and done, it fell rather flat for me.

The Governess Game

The Governess Game (Girls Meets Duke #2) by Tessa Dare (2018)

Alexandra Mountbatten has been on her own for quite a while since her sea captain father died, and she now makes her living setting clocks. But when she loses the instruments of her trade, desperation drives her to take a job as a governess for Chase Reynaud and his two orphan charges. Many a governess has passed through their house and Chase is ready to send the kids off to boarding school far, far away. He can't be bothered to deal with them himself; he's too busy seducing every female in the greater London area. That is, until he can't take his eyes off Alexandra.

Alexandra was a great heroine, with her interest interest in science, especially comets, and her friendship with other smart, single women. Before moving into Chase's house to take care of the two little monster girls, she lived with two of her best friends, who were both fairly eccentric single women. I also like that when Chase finally decides he's in love with her and asks her to marry him, she's like "Meh, it seems like staying single might be better?"

Chase is her employer, which I find a bit distressing (as do her friends.) The power unbalance, especially when so much is riding on her employment, is something we'd never tolerate in a contemporary novel. Chase is also a rogue, a character type I don't especially like. This is one of those situations with a sexually experienced man and a virgin heroine and I'm kind of sick of that whole setup. But despite that, I did really like both of them.

I'm also not a big fan of plot moppets, but although the little girls were just a way to help get Chase and Alex together, I thought Tessa Dare did a good job of making their story, and their relationships with both Chase and Alex, interesting. Alex knew what it was like to be unwanted, to be sent off to school, and to not know what the future brings. She was able to relate to these girls because she knew where they were coming from. She also abandoned thoughts of making them into proper young ladies and started teaching them piracy instead, channeling their natural interests to trick them into learning. Chase insisted he didn't care for the girls but every morning when they announced that their doll Millicent was dead (yet again) from consumption or dropsy or whatever illness Daisy was currently fixated on, he was right there at the funeral.

All in all, I found it to be a pretty well-crafted romance. Maybe not a favorite, but it was exactly what I felt like reading at the time and it was definitely satisfying.

The Duchess Deal

The Duchess Deal (Girl Meets Duke #1) by Tessa Dare (2017)

I read a book by Tessa Dare several years ago and wasn't impressed. Or rather, I liked it until near the end when everything went kind of stupid. I've shied away from her books since then even though I know a lot of people love them. But recently I heard such good things about The Wallflower Wager that I thought it would be worth trying this series and I wanted to start from the beginning.

Our story begins with Emma Gladstone paying a call to the Duke of Ashbury. She's a seamstress, appearing in a dress commissioned by the Duke's now-ex-fiance. Emma is desperate for payment, though I don't understand why she couldn't simply carry the dress with her. At any rate, the Duke makes her a counter-offer: marriage.

The Duke returned from war with hideous scars covering one side of his face and body, which is the reason his fiance changed her mind about marriage. It was a huge blow to his self-esteem and he's a bitter, brooding man. But he still needs an heir so he offers Emma a way out of poverty. The deal is that as soon as she gets pregnant, he'll give her a house in the country and she'll never have to see him again. This has an appeal to Emma because, in addition to wanting financial security, she has just learned that one of her unmarried friends is pregnant and needs a place to go during the final months of her pregnancy.

Emma is fairly attracted to the Duke early on, and all the sex they're having to try and produce an heir only increases that attraction. The Duke, though he tries very hard to retain his cynical outer shell, also begins falling for Emma. But he's not convinced he's worth loving, and his former fiance isn't entirely out of the picture, plus Emma's plans to hide away her pregnant friend begin to complicate things. It was a pretty good story that I was invested in from the start. I love a marriage of convenience, and a hero or heroine who has a physical or mental disability (not that his scars disable him, exactly.) Additionally, the Duke's staff really wanted him to fall in love with Emma and they would contrive situations to throw them together and it was kind of hilarious and cute.

There was a lot of humor actually, which seems to be the case with most romances I end up reading - are they all that way? Emma doesn't know what to call her new husband, refusing to call him the Duke, or Ash, or his real first name, George, because it's her father's name. So she resorts to making up silly little nicknames which he hates, but she is fond of torturing him in this way. I liked some of their wry observations about society too. For instance, when Emma insists on using her seamstress skills to make her own clothing, the Duke will not hear of it. She tries to reason with him, saying that ladies are supposed to do needlework. His response is "Fine ladies make useless things, like wretched pillows, and samplers no one wants, and disturbing covers for the commode. They don't use their skills to perform common labor."

Which brings me to one of the things I liked most about this hero. He was very conscientious about how his decisions affected others. So when he shows Emma her house in the country and tells her to hire people to fix it up and she insists it's perfect the way it is, he tells her how that doesn't matter because the important thing is giving work to people who need jobs. That is something she understands.

What he did that I didn't like was threaten Emma's father on her behalf and without her consent. When the Duke learned why Emma was so poor, that her father had thrown her out of the house and let her make her own way (starving and freezing and even losing a toe) he was outraged. He snuck away, found her father's house, and slipped into the guy's bedroom in the middle of the night to threatened that he'd go to hell. I appreciate the gesture, but I hate when men act like their female partners are helpless and need protecting and don't even ask before seeking out those who have wronged them. Maybe she wants you to stay the hell out of it.

I liked Emma too. She was clever and resourceful and didn't take shit from anyone. She was down-to-earth and forgiving and could see the good in people even when it was hard for others to. I also like the women she befriends, who are all unconventional and interesting, and who I think are the subjects of the other books in this series, which I now want to continue reading.

This was a fun story about an unlikely match and I was happy that I liked it a lot more than the last book by Tessa Dare that I read. I was really in the mood for something light and escapist, and this really fit the bill.

A Lady by Midnight

A Lady By Midnight by Tessa Dare (2012)

Coming from a modest background, with no family, Kate Taylor has made a comfortable home for herself in Spindle Cove. Here she gives music lessons to young ladies at the local combination bar/tea house, the Bull and Blossom. One occasionally runs into unpleasant types here, such as the inscrutable Corporal Thorne. Although they have barely spoken to each other, circumstances suddenly throw them together and they are instantly drawn to one another. When a motley band of strangers arrives in town to claim Kate as a relative, the suspicious Thorne fakes an engagement with Kate. Hilarity ensues. Passions are kindled. Love is found at last.

This story contains some great elements. Kate and Thorne are from a similar background and, in fact, fairly early in the book we learn that they met in the past. Thorne realizes that Kate doesn't remember and tries to protect her from memories that, if dredged up, could be upsetting to her. Meanwhile, the Gramercy family arrives with information linking Kate to their family. Kate is instantly taken with this colorful crew and wants more than anything to finally have a family, but should she trust their story? Why did they wait so many years to find her?

Kate was orphaned at a young age and if that's not enough to undercut one's sense of self-confidence out in the world, she was also graced with a port wine birthmark on her temple. Although she's self-conscious about her appearance, she strives in her role as music teacher to instill feelings of confidence in her students. Perhaps because of her modest beginnings, she reserves judgment about others who she is sure just want to be accepted and loved as she does. In this way she is able to overlook many characteristics deemed unsavory by polite society.

This is good news for Corporal Thorne, a coarse man with a dubious background that includes prison time. Never does he think he deserves the attention of someone like Kate, yet he has protected her interests for much longer than she realizes. Only through a great deal of coaxing - and some help from a dog named Badger - is he willing to open up to the possibility of romance. Although they are very different people, their shared background gave them enough in common that I found their relationship believable. Of course the depth of their passion was just as over-the-top as I would expect from a romance novel, peppered liberally with wanton sex for good measure.

I really was actually liking this fairly well until near the end when there is a confrontation and a melodrama, and Kate is treated as a piece of disputed property before the whole thing peters out in a less-than-believable way. It was silly that the whole debacle even occurred, but I got really, really annoyed that she was fought over as though she had no opinion in the matter when, in fact, she has given her opinion quite clearly, loudly, and repeatedly.

Although it was sort of saved by the final scenes and satisfying conclusion, I was soured enough by the penultimate events that I ended up giving the book only 2.5 stars. This may not be fair, as I was rating it when those parts were fresh in my mind; had the parts I disliked occurred earlier they may not have factored so heavily in my rating. To rectify things a bit, let me recommend this review which gives the an book A-. A Lady By Midnight was the third in the Spindle Cove series (but the only one I've read), and despite my issues it showed enough promise in general that I might be willing to try other books in the series.