Wagering for Miss Blake by Callie Hutton
Tracy’s rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Series: Lords & Ladies in Love

Release Date: June 11, 2018

I had a hard time with this book, the first half was very repetitive and the second half plunged headlong into the absurd.

Giles Templeton, third son of the Earl of Wexford meets Miss Suzanna Blake at the Duke of Bedford’s wedding and falls in love at first sight. He will have her, he never fails…

Suzanna is attracted to Giles, but her mother insists that she marry a man with a title and as a third son Giles is not that man. She fights her attraction and tries to push him away – but he is determined to win her. This is the gist of the first half – him chasing her and her pushing him away – but she never tells him why she is looking to marry a title.

They attend a house party and finally, Suzanna gives into temptation and they make love – in fact, she insists – because you know, she can’t marry the man she loves and wants the memory (eye roll). Giles thinks this means she has finally accepted the inevitable – but she tells him, it changes nothing, she will only marry a man with a title. He then suggests a wager – she will marry him and fall in love with him and if she doesn’t he will donate to her favorite charity. Game on!

When they return to London, Giles steps up his pursuit – but the arrival of her parents brings his courtship to a swift end. When they finally are able to talk alone, she tells him, she wants to marry him, but her mother will forbid it, he tells her he will win and not to worry. But when he misinterprets a meeting between Suzanna and Lord Pemberton (her mother’s choice for a son-in-law), he admits defeat and leaves London.

Weeks go by before he pulls his head out of his backside and decides to fight for the woman he loves, but is it too late??

Honestly, I have read this plot before and it has been done better – it seemed completely contrived and implausible – if they were really in love, they would have eloped – period. And since when is the handsome, wealthy, landowning with an income, son of an Earl “unsuitable” – Seriously?? Her parents where over the top and almost cartoonish, her mother was a complete witch and her father a wuss – I kept hoping they would run away together – just so they didn’t have to have her parents in their lives! And why her father loved her mother so much is a complete mystery to me – her mother flat out said that she would have been happier if she married someone with a title – I almost felt sorry for her lovelorn father. Giles and Suzanna were both likable, but I was annoyed that Suzanna didn’t tell him why she had to marry a title, keeping it from him made no sense and made her look bad – especially after she slept with him. The book has wonderful secondary characters, warmish love scenes and I did enjoy the ending and Giles’ shift from “winning” to “earning” – for me that was the best part of the book. So in the end, the book was OK, but not a keeper. It is part of the Lords & Ladies in Love series, but can definitely be read as a stand alone title.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that was provided to me by NetGalley and the publisher.*