Rating: 4.5 Stars
Lady Emma Avery had high hopes in her first season. She was hopeful that she will have a whirlwind romance and find a husband that loves her, and one she loves just as much. After meeting Mr. Benedict Chase, she thought all her wishes have come true… But now she is in her fourth season and though she loves Benedict, and is sure that he feels the same, he still hasn’t proposed. After the opening season’s ball her friends, Lady Olivia Archer and Miss Prudence Payton went to her room with a bottle of Sherry, and after a couple of glasses Olivia and Prudence put it into there heads to send a proposal announcement to the newspaper, but if they were going to do it, why should they settle for Benedict and decided that they might as well make it a proposal announcement of Emma with the most eligable bachelor….
Blake William Peregrine Auden, the ninth Duke Of Ashbrooke never thought of getting married. He has women falling at his feet, and some have dubbed it the Ashbrooke Effect. But when he sees the notice in the paper, he decides to play along with it, so he can better is reputation among the ton and his Aunt Agatha, who is the most important family member to him, and decides to go meet his future, if not-real bride, Lady Emma Avery. After he meets her and finds that his charms don’t work on her, he sets out to seduce her…
But what neither one expected was the attraction they had for each other or the growing camaderie they gain. It makes Blake wonder if he is ready to marry for real, and it makes Emma question who she truely loves, Benedict the man she has been in love with for the past three seasons, or Blake, the one that makes her want to be the woman he sees in her…
This was a great start in the “Bad Boys & Wallfowers” series. I enjoyed Blake and Emma’s story. I liked how they got to know each other throughout the book, even though they had an unorthodoxed start. Blake was an absolutely fun, dreamy character. I especially liked when Blake realized he was falling for Emma, and thought it was utterly romantic how he tried to make their whirlwind romance real, by what they had written in the letters they fabericated. And though at the beggining of the book, Emma didn’t hold a strong impression with me (after all who falls in love with someone they just met, unless your one of Disney’s heriones), as the story drew on her character grew on me and I was able to see how she evolved from the influences of Blake and Aunt Agatha, into a fun character. I especially liked how she took matters into her own hand to prove to Blake that she loved him and wanted to be with him.
I am looking forward to Olivia and Prudence’s stories. We didn’t really get to know their characters since they were breifly mentioned and when they were mentioned it was only when they were helping Emma with this or that, so I am looking forward to see what their personalities are like and who the gentlemen are that will when each of them.
Realm of Romantic Mystical Manuscripts 