A Gentleman Undone by Cecilia Grant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
What can I possibly have to say to a man who would split a pair of fives?
As promised in my last post, my first romance review! I read this series 2-1-3 solely because of the library’s e-book availability and oddly enough I enjoyed them in the same order, though the gap between this book and its predecessor is quite narrow.
Will Blackshear returns home from the Battle of Waterloo with a debt of conscience to the widow of a comrade. Being a youngest son with no income he turns to the gaming tables in hopes of winning the funds he needs to both provide for his friend’s family and survive himself.
Lydia Slaughter is a numerical genius with ambitions of financial independence, no small dream for a woman in 19th century England. Her position as a contracted mistress to the landed and wealthy provides the perfect cover for her cleverness with counting cards until an ex-soldier with an over developed sense of honor catches her in the act-in more ways than one.
No matter the genre I am an absolute sucker for a troubled man in–or recently out of–a uniform as anyone who knew me during my PotC phase can attest, so Will Blackshear had my attention from page one. Beyond being my most favorite of character types Will is a genuinely well crafted one who showcases the difficulties of re-entry into civilian life without being melodramatic about it. It comes out in small ways; he’s lost most of his friends from before, he doesn’t know how to talk to his family, he has dark, mildly dissociative “moods” that he knows will pass. All of this is handled with a subtlety that was a happy surprise and made it clear that there was something more to his friend Talbot’s death than what we were shown in the beginning.
I picked up this book because I was hoping for a heroine who knows what she wants-sexually and otherwise-and Lydia is a glorious fulfillment of that hope. This woman does not mess around. She is wickedly smart and Grant shows us this not by making Lydia scoff at the relative dimness of others a la Sherlock but by treating us to her runaway mathematical thought patterns. She thinks of a solitary afternoon making complex calculations as blissful and rambles about it to her maid, who she knows doesn’t follow but she’s just so excited about teaching Will about odds she can’t help it.
By the way, a note about Lydia’s maid, Jane. I was so afraid that she would betray Lydia in some way, either by accident or out of spite, and I felt an actual release of tension when I realized that wasn’t going to happen. I was also pleased that Lydia’s courtesan friends were actual friends who had her back and not rivals of any kind. Eff yeah strong female friendships!
Some of the best moments to me were actually scenes that the lead characters had not with each other but in their own storylines. Maybe this is an odd thing to like in a romance novel but because of it Will and Lydia feel like actual people. The central story is absolutely their relationship, but it’s not the only one that matters to them. Lydia’s arc is just as much about her relationship to other people in general as it is about her sexual and romantic one with Will, and her true moment of change is illustrated with someone else entirely. In a grin-worthy bookend of a previous scene, too.
In Summation: A Gentleman Undone is a very satisfying slow burn romance that features engaging and grounded lead characters, a plot that never feels contrived, and a happy ending that puts a lovely ribbon around it all without being cloying. Fans of the first book in the series A Lady Awakened will recognize some familiar faces but you won’t be spoiled or miss anything by reading out of order.
Literally the only downsides are that Cecilia Grant hasn’t written more yet and she’s set a really high bar for my expectations!
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