Review: 3.5 Stars
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 7, 2014
John, the Earl of Wrexham is in need of a wife. Preferably a demure, conventional, well-behaved woman who will raise his son, Scottie, while John focuses on Parliamentary matters. He’s not looking for grand passion and thus he settles on the first woman who meets all his requirements. The only problem is, Scottie can’t stand the “Steel Corset” John’s all but engaged to, and John’s interfering sister seems to agree with her nephew.Olivia Sloane is everything Scottie’s looking for in a mother and nothing that John wants in a wife. She’s bold, opinionated, and doesn’t give a fig for what well-bred young ladies are supposed to be obsessing over. She’d much rather be writing political columns for the newspaper than pursing a husband, but when she and John collide, sparks fly.A proper hero and a bluestocking activist? It’s a match made in High Street ;)Propriety takes a back seat to passion in Cara Elliott’s Regency romp, Scandalously Yours. Ms. Elliott takes the popular romance trope of pairing a hellion heroine with an outwardly reserved hero and gives it a fresh spin. I absolutely adored the Sleepless in Seattle-like plot of Scandalously Yours and found myself utterly charmed by John’s son, Scottie, and his best friend, Lucy. Indeed, I was more taken with the supporting cast than I was with John and Olivia, which sounds odd but didn’t particularly bother me. John and Olivia are likeable, albeit not too memorable main characters. They’re a like-minded duo who have great sexual chemistry but truly fall for one another on an intellectual level first and foremost, which I enjoyed. But it’s Scottie, Lucy, and future Hellions of High Street protagonists Anna, Caro, and “the Devil Davenport” who truly captured my attention in Scandalously Yours.The story follows a rather predictable route, but it’s a comfortably familiar journey for fans of historical romance. There were a few things that strained credulity in Scandalously Yours (the ease of which Olivia and John carried out an affair under society’s nose, the manufactured kidnapping plot), but overall I really liked the book. Best of all, I’m excited to read the next Hellions of High Street book, Sinfully Yours, for Anna and “the Devil” are sure to be a fantastic pair!KimberlyReview courtesy of Wit and Sin