Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Regency romance book review: The Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare

While technically a separate genre from smut, regency romances are often as close as you can get while (unlike many of their heroines) still staying barely on this side of respectability.  Also, they are my guilty pleasure.  

The Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare is a pretty good book.  The best regency romances address topical issues sensitively and with an entirely modern sensibility (and I say that with respect).  In this book the issue is childhood sexual abuse.  Dare manages to fold dealing with if not healing from trauma into the overall happily-ever-after arc, and she does it very well.

Alas, not everything in the book is done as well.  It often sinks into sitcom territory, with stray animals that are out-of-place and much too cute, quirky servants who we should either see much more of or much less of, and minor characters jockeying for "best friend" status at entirely inappropriately times. 

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