The Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare

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The August theme for the patreon exclusive review for the Smart Women Read Romance podcast was wallflowers. The winner of the poll was The Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare. This is the third book in her Girl Meets Duke series. I applied this to the prompt feel good for the Summer of Swoon board 3.

Lady Penelope has taken in another animal, this time a parrot. She escapes into the neighbors house. It's been recently purchased and has been going through renovations. Penny sneaks over to catch the bird and ends up running into the new owner, Gabriel. He's a self-made man and known as the Duke of Ruin. He's hoping to flip the house and use Lady Penny's as a neighbor as a selling point. When her brother and aunt threaten to send her back to the country, Gabriel and Penny hatch a plan to help her stay.

Of the three books in this series, this was my favorite. I would probably give it 4.25-stars or 4.5 if pressed to differentiate, but I went ahead and rounded down. Penny was very sweet and loving and I really fell for character. I mentioned in The Governess Game that I was a little nervous going in since the blurb kind of made me think of Love in the Afternoon, my favorite Lisa Kleypas and one of my favorite historicals. Thankfully this had a completely different feel. I loved the connection between Penny and Gabriel. Also, I've come to a realization. Now when it comes to historicals, especially regency era, I'm not the biggest fan of class difference unless it's the man that's self-made. I just feel like a lot of the tropes that I dislike are commonly found more when the lower class is the woman. Although Lisa Kleypas almost single handedly is the exception to the rule. Gabriel here I really enjoyed and gave me the same kind of aura.

Where this feel short for me is once again I feel like we spent more time on one person's trauma than the other. I also felt like there was so much packed in the last 30 pages that I wish we would've dealt with some of it earlier. I just found myself wanting more before the epilogue. Although I did like the turn around of Aunt Caroline, but also wish we saw a little more of her. Also, I feel like this one got a little more pushy about women's rights and feminism. Usually Tessa Dare is an author I feel like doesn't beat you over the head, but this one was more obvious. It just kind of took me out of the fantasy.

I still really enjoyed the book overall and I do see the hype around the next book. I know it's been pushed back a couple times and people are still waiting for it. There is a placeholder for 2024, but I know that Tessa posted late last year that is a placeholder and she's hoping to get it out before then. I'm certainly intrigued, especially with the blurb. I was excited to chat about the book a couple days ago and am excited for the next pick, the theme is Werewolves!

Have you read The Wallflower Wager?

Bookishly Yours,

Stasi🍎

STATISTICS: The Wallflower Wager, Tessa Dare, 4-stars, 1 day, eBook, 353 pages, published in 2019