ARC Review: How the Wallflower was Won by Eva Leigh (Last Chance Scoundrels #2)

How the Wallflower was Won by Eva Leigh

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Horse rating: 0 of 5 horses

Expected publication: September 27th 2022

Overall, a decent historical romance, more idealistic than some but that’s okay, it made it entertaining.

Positives:

• I liked the casual FF relationship between side characters.
• Lots of diversity rep just casually dropped in.
• Anachronistic but idgaf.
• The beginning was a really fun read - both of them being in denial, Finn trying to set up Tabitha and • Dom despite the obvious chemistry between Finn and Tabitha…a lot of good moments.
• There were also excellent sex scenes throughout the book.

Criticisms:

The biggest criticism that I have is how unbalanced this is between the leads, emotionally speaking. Finn does so much for Tabitha - libraries, going to the Sterling Society, bringing her books, helping build the Platinum Collective, and then the big thing he does at the end despite their estrangement…! He does so much. Emotionally devoted, so much emotional labor. What does she do?

…not much. Says nice things a little, encouraged him to follow his already planned out dream - which he then shifted to fit into hers, for decent reasons but still - >:(

The third act breakup! What was this. What.

It was unnecessary for them, in a relationship plot line. It was also, once again, severely unbalanced. Finn accidentally says something that hits a sore spot with Tabitha, who then deliberately says extremely cruel things and runs away. Finn then does all of the legwork to fix their relationship. All of it. What the heck. He said something clumsily, with no intent to hurt, and honestly something pretty much anyone would have said in that moment. Ugh. Drove me mad seeing him acting and believing and the other characters believing he did the most wrong when he didn’t do anything terrible.

This whole thing really lowered my enjoyment and kind of soured me on the ending. Not only was it an unnecessary plot device, it continued the imbalance in their relationship.

Other thoughts:

I think I would have liked it if there was more focus on relationship obstacles like their light-speed marriage maybe? The build up to that was excellent, but then it was all taken care of very speedily. Which ok, guess that wasn’t the focus…but I would have liked that more than all the society details ultimately. It felt a little too heavy on debate and society at the end.

I love the trope of nighttime intimacy and hiding emotions in the daytime like dingdongs, which was used pretty well here.

The reveal of his dyslexia was very anticlimactic. I guess I kind of wish a little more time had been spent on it, since it was such a big deal for Finn and his whole life. It felt like another way that he got sidelined in the story relative to Tabitha and her interests.

Overall, this was a generally enjoyable historical romance, with some nice little modern social mores added in. The imbalance on treatment of the leads made it a little less fun for me unfortunately. It’s still a pleasant read overall, and I find myself pretty curious about Dom and his (hopefully) intense groveling coming up. Hope Willa is as much as a badass as she sounds in this book.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All the opinions are my own.


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