Barbara’s rating: 2.5/3 of 5 stars

Series: Dangerous Damsels #1
Publication Date: 6/15/21
Period: Victorian
Number of Pages: 336
** 2.5 Stars **

The GoodReads blurb for this book made it sound like a fun, entertaining, lighthearted, witty, and exciting read. I could hardly wait to get my hands on either the purchased copy or an ARC – whichever came first. To say I was sorely disappointed would be putting it mildly. Please take this as just one person’s opinion because we all like different things and we all find different things humorous. I’m sure some of you will read the book and love it – I just did not. After reading it, I am of the belief that they need to invent a whole new genre just for this book. I think it was just too much – too much of everything – too busy – it reminded me of some of the descriptions I’ve read from people having LSD trips.

If you get rid of the chaff, you have a nice love story. I couldn’t bring myself to like the heroine, Cecilia, but I did like the hero Nate. He was actually the only person in the story I did like.

In this alternate/fantasy universe, the members of the Wisteria Society fly their houses from place to place, dislike and disrespect men, love nobody, hire assassins to murder their friends, poison their husbands (or stab them, or …), steal the possessions of others, well, you name it – I sort of thought they were worse than the mafia. Queen Victoria even flies Windsor Castle into battle.

I really, really wanted to love this book as much as I loved the book blurb, but I just couldn’t get there. The writing is well done, I loved the author’s way of turning a phrase and the way she handled the internal dialogue, etc. I just couldn’t get into the story or the characters. I am sorry to say that I won’t be looking for further books by this author.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.