3 Stars

One Liner: Okay! Liked the first book better

Millicent Whittenburg has been secretly training as one of the Queen’s ladies to join a deadly mission and find the gang trafficking young women to France. However, she needs to first get out of the horrible betrothal finalized by her evil stepmother. There’s only one way – seduce a man who hates marriage.

Major General Beaufort Drake has scars on his body and a rock for his heart. While the war gave him the scar, his then fiancée’s betrayal made him hate women and stay away from matrimony. However, Millie’s attempts to escape her fate stir a few feelings in him.

With both on the same secret mission, a marriage of convenience might benefit them, even if they realize their hearts are at risk of loving the other.

The story comes in the third-person POV of Millie and Beau (Drake).

My Thoughts:

The book works as a standalone though the characters have met in the earlier one. Reading that is not mandatory but could help see that the MCs had a couple of conversations (banter of sorts).

This series is predominantly steamy romance (~4). The mystery and danger are a subplot and take center stage only in the last quarter. The writing has a contemporary flavor as most books in this genre tend to be.

There’s quite a lot of drama in this one – evil stepmother, shitty exes (jealousy and all that), a struggling relationship (or the lack of it) between the main characters, the mystery of the gang, etc. Some of it works.

For me, the bright spot was Billy Bright, the young lad from book one. Boy, the kid brightened up the scenes whenever he was around. Lady Phillipa, once again, makes her presence felt. I hope she gets her own book.

While the previous book also had a dark backstory for the FMC, the chosen track in this book did not appeal to me. A certain scene, especially around 15% was unexpected. What made sense in the previous book doesn’t work here since the characters and the resolutions are different. Just look at that yellow cover and the flowery design on it. I didn’t expect something this triggering to happen. What’s worse is that the person responsible doesn’t even pay for their actions. No justice! Also, after a point, the issue isn’t even discussed again.

There’s one more random piece of information about a different character that’s revealed and left hanging. Possible that it will be tackled in the next book. Since I did guess a bit from the earlier scene, I knew what the trigger would be. It might affect other readers, though.

Quite a few issues are supposed to be presumed as settled (sorted off page). This doesn’t make the ending as satisfying as it should be. I wanted a more comprehensive approach to tying up at least the major subplots. Only one gets a sort of resolution.

To summarize, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal has its moments but doesn’t appeal to me as much as the previous book in the series. I had high hopes for this since I liked both characters, but the execution wasn’t great. Hopefully, things will be better in the next book. Fingers crossed!

Thank you, Rachel’s Random Resources and Boldwood Books, for eARC. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

#NetGalley