Lady Farah Creates a Scandal by Bronwen Evans loses a good plot in its development
I hopped into Lady Farah Creates a Scandal by Bronwen Evans as my first book in the Seasons of Secrets series. While it obviously references events from the first book, it is easy enough to read without that context.
This book features an interesting forced proximity element to it, and a very interesting plot/story. However, the writing gets in the way. It is repetitive and, quite frankly, a bit cheesy — not in a good way — throughout. The entire premise is that Farah is a ‘timid mouse’ and could use Lord Rockwell’s help to create a mini-scandal that would allow her to take charge of her own life.
Read more about the plot here
How do you create a scandal?
Lady Farah Perrin, younger sister of the Duke of Blackstone, has earned the nickname ‘timid mouse’ because as the only daughter, she’s been brought up to be the demure, perfect ton diamond. But when her overbearing, stuffy brother announces she is to marry the odious Lord Franklin, the timid mouse is replaced by the sly fox. Publicly challenging the duke won’t work. However, creating a scandal that cannot be ignored is very achievable. Now all she has to do is ascertain which of the current London rakes will unwittingly aid in her plan.
How do you avoid temptation?
Lord Rockwell Ware, the younger brother of the Marquess of Wolfarth, loathes being known as ‘the spare’. If that’s how he’s viewed, he’ll enjoy living his life on his own terms, amassing a fortune, taking on many wagers or dares, and doing whatever he bloody well pleases. It appears someone else lives life on her own terms—Farah. His best friend’s soon-to-be-betrothed little sister begins sending him private missives of the most intimate nature. He should hand them to Blackstone to deal with, but as each note arrives, he finds himself falling further into temptation.
Yet, Rockwell soon learns, every wicked game has its price.
However, she is basically taking charge of her life from the start of this book. The mousy references don’t hold up, and the endless self-boosting talk gets tiresome. I searched 21 uses of “timid mouse,” and I honestly thought there were more. This may be because these were heavily concentrated in a few chapters — four in one, two in the epilogue, and so on.
Other weird things just pop out to prop up Farah. For example, someone mentions work they want to do on their estate, and she suggests they add education for the children.
Great suggestion.
No context for it previously.
Childhood education was never once mentioned (in this book) by Farah. There was no real discussion of this estate with Farah previously, and only the most introspective readers of the previous chapters would have assumed education wasn’t available. But the estate owner said, “God, you are magnificent….You think of things I never would have considered.”
I died a little inside.
This was just one overdone area. The spicy launch also qualifies. In Chapter 15, I officially started highlighting eyerolls and was up to 13 by the end. I was exercising restraint.
Despite this, I ruminated on whether I would give this 3 or 4 stars as I was reaching the end, because I err generously with fun fiction. I decided to let the last 15% make the call, and it did. The passage I highlighted above and the final dramatic point were the dealbreakers and pulled the book down to a 2. If I were not so far along, it would have been a DNF.
I feel bad being this harsh over an overall harmless book, but I think it could be tons better. The author had a nifty plot and outline. It easily could have risen to a 4 or 5-star read by tweaking Farah and the reactions of others to her. It also sounds like, based on the other reviews, the first book in this series was better. I may take a chance on it to see if this was a questionable one-off for the author.
Review based on ARC from NetGalley. This post contains affiliate links.
