ARC Review: "The Reluctant Countess" (Would-Be Wallflowers #2) by Eloisa James

The Reluctant Countess by Eloisa James
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Summary from GoodReads

New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James returns to the Would-Be Wallflowers series with an enemies-to-lovers romance between a proper earl and an entirely improper lady--whom he can't stop thinking about.

Giles Renwick, Earl of Lilford, has never made a fool of himself over a woman--until he meets Lady Yasmin Regnier. Yasmin is ineligible for his attentions in every way: not as a wife, certainly not as a mistress (she is a lady!), nor even as a friend, since they vehemently dislike each other. Her gowns are too low, and her skirts are dampened to cling to admittedly lovely thighs. She loves to gossip--and giggle.

She isn't dignified, or polite, or even truly British, given that her father's French ancestry clearly predominated. Not to mention the fact that her mother had been one of Napoleon's mistresses, a fact she makes no effort to hide.

So what--in heaven's name--possesses him to propose?

And what will he do if she says yes?

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REVIEW

I received an e-ARC from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. 

This was a great surprise. I was approved for an ARC of one of Eloisa Jame's books and I could be happier! When Beauty tamed the Beast is one of my top favorite historical romances and The Reluctant Countess made me very happy.

So we have Giles, the Earl of Lilford who tries to hold onto the reputation of his family's good name or whatever is left of it and on the other hand, we have Lady Yasmin a gorgeous French woman with a past that riles up the gossip in the stuffy higher British society. Honestly, if even half of what we read in these books was true those aristocrats were worse than the trashiest social media.

So our stuffy Earl is looking for a proper wife, one who can fix his family's tarnished reputation, but he can't help but be attracted to Yasmin. Add in a sister who needed some good slaps into her system, a grandpa who is quite awesome and a strong pure female friendship and you have a signature Eloisa James novel with its funny moments and the angst which we all love.

I enjoyed Yasmin; she is truly a character who has her issues from the past she suffered from, but she grows as a person and finds her own worth despite what society wants to label her as. Giles needed some shocks to his system to wake up but I'll forgive him as he manages to save face.

This is a delightful read and if you like historical romances then this is for you. Not to mention that the cover is so pretty!

About the author:

New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James writes historical romances for HarperCollins Publishers. Her novels have been published to great acclaim. A reviewer from USA Today wrote of Eloisa's very first book that she "found herself devouring the book like a dieter with a Hershey bar"; later People Magazine raved that "romance writing does not get much better than this." Her novels have repeatedly received starred reviews from Publishers' Weekly and Library Journal and regularly appear on the best-seller lists.

After graduating from Harvard University, Eloisa got an M.Phil. from Oxford University, a Ph.D. from Yale and eventually became a Shakespeare professor, publishing an academic book with Oxford University Press. Currently she is an associate professor and head of the Creative Writing program at Fordham University in New York City. Her "double life" is a source of fascination to the media and her readers. In her professorial guise, she's written a New York Times op-ed defending romance, as well as articles published everywhere from women's magazines such as More to writers' journals such as the Romance Writers' Report.