Review by Ronny

Series Name: Girl Meets Duke, # 3

The Wallflower Wager is Tessa Dare at her best.

 Favourite Quote:

The Lady Penelope Campion?
Gabe tilted his head to one side, shaking the last bit of bathwater from his ear. He could not have heard her correctly. Surely she meant to say she was a servant in the house of Lady Penelope Campion.
“You can’t be Lady Penelope.”
“I can’t?”
“No. Lady Penelope is a spinster who lives alone with dozens of cats.”
“Not dozens,” she said, “A touch over one dozen at the moment, but that’s only because it’s springtime. Kitten season, you know.”
No, he didn’t know. None of this made any sense whatsoever.

Book Synopsis:

Wealthy and ruthless, Gabriel Duke clawed his way from the lowliest slums to the pinnacle of high society—and now he wants to get even.
Loyal and passionate, Lady Penelope Campion never met a lost or wounded creature she wouldn’t take into her home and her heart.
When her imposing—and attractive—new neighbor demands she clear out the rescued animals, Penny sets him a challenge. She will part with her precious charges, if he can find them loving homes.
Done, Gabriel says. How hard can it be to find homes for a few kittens?
And a two-legged dog.
And a foul-mouthed parrot.
And a goat, an otter, a hedgehog . . .
Easier said than done, for a cold-blooded bastard who wouldn’t know a loving home from a workhouse. Soon he’s covered in cat hair, knee-deep in adorable, and bewitched by a shyly pretty spinster who defies his every attempt to resist. Now she’s set her mind and heart on saving him.
Not if he ruins her first.

Review:

This book was swoony, entertaining, and just a hoot to read. Tessa Dare is one of my favourite Regency romance authors. Her stories are so enjoyable and romantic that you cannot help but fall in love with them. One of the reasons why I love Tessa’s writing is that she weaves quirky and fun humour throughout her stories. This humour is often connected to the heroine, but any laughable moments are never done at the heroine’s expense. You are laughing with her or laughing at the chaos she tends to create whenever she is around. Penny is one of Tessa’s more quirky characters, and I’ve adored her from the first moment she popped on the page in The Duchess Deal. She lives her life caring for animals that have been neglected by others, which means she has quite a collection of animals roaming her Mayfair home. She also has this heart of gold and an openness to her that you cannot help but love. She is well and truly the complete opposite of Gabriel, and it was ever so delicious watching as this quirky, ray of sunshine woman destroys Gabriel’s carefully constructed, organized world. 

Since Penny is a more chaotic and quirky character, there are more fun shenanigans in this book, which I loved. It is a fun and easy read. The story really includes all those Regency elements that are so delicious to read. You have balls and fancy garden parties, a mini road trip that ends with a one-bed situation, a deal between the two MCs, and lots of secret swoony moments that will get your heart racing. Tessa shows why she is a master at her craft because she is able to take all these different story elements and tropes and create something that is not only well-written but engrossing. I could not put this book down. 

The romance is perfection. Tessa has taken my two favourite tropes, grumpy sunshine and a broody, broken alpha male, and made a love story that had my heart pitter-pattering. There is nothing better than watching two characters that have polar opposite personalities interact with one another. Penny and Gabriel find themselves working together to help re-launch Penny into high society. They both have their own reasons for doing so. Penny doesn’t want to be sent to the country to live the rest of her life alone, and Gabriel needs Penny to continue living in her Mayfair residence in order to increase the value of the house he bought, which is right beside Penny’s house. It is clear right from their first encounter that Gabriel is shaken and drawn to Penny. But of course, the silly hero thinks he can stay away from the heroine; what a fool. Despite the many attempts by Gabriel to keep his distance from Penny, the universe or Penny’s chaotic energy keeps on drawing them back together. I devoured every moment these two were together, and even though their banter wasn’t overly witty, it was still fun and playful. Gabriel was that one person who treated Penny like she was her own woman, who was fully capable of making her own decisions, which helped to empower Penny (and made her fall even more in love with the grumpy man). Besides all the fun, chaotic, laughable moments, there is this underlying lusty tension that exists between Penny and Gabriel, which means there are some spicy moments in this book. 

The Wallflower Wager is a swoonastic Regency romance and perfect for any bookworm who is a fan of Julie Garwood’s books.