About the Book
-
Author:
- Evie Dunmore
- Voices:
- Cis Boy
- Cis Girl
- Lebanese
- White (Non-Specified)
First Impressions: Misleading
What’s Your Type? Academics In Love, Class Differences, Forbidden Love, Heists, Neurodivergent Heroines, Feminism, Social Activism
Meet Cute: Lady Of The Lake
The Lean: Smart Is Sexy
We Need to Talk: A Respectable Wrap-Up
Was It Good For You? Checkmate
First Impressions: Misleading
I appreciate that all the covers have a similar design and style, even if, at this point, their cheery colors and cartoon drawings don’t really match up with the more serious tone of the novels themselves.
What’s Your Type?
- Academics In Love
- Class Differences
- Forbidden Love
- Heists
- Neurodivergent Heroines
- Feminism
- Social Activism
Dating Profile
Elias Khoury is a Lebanese anti-Indiana Jones—he’s out there traveling the world stealing artifacts to return them back to the people they were taken from in the first place. He comes from a family of merchants with a head for business, and he’s been gone from his home in the Levant so long he isn’t quite sure where he belongs anymore. His latest acquisitions are currently being held in the storeroom at St. John’s College, and it’s going to take some sucking up to a scholarly Scottish Earl to gain access.
Catriona Campbell, daughter of said Scottish Earl, has always felt like the odd one out, even when she’s among her dear friends in the suffragist movement. As someone who is easily overwhelmed by interactions with people, Catriona would love nothing more than to be left alone forever to read and write her scholarly works.
Meet Cute: Lady Of The Lake
Growing up in the Scottish Highlands without a mother meant that Catriona has always been a bit more “wild” than some other ladies she knows, who would, for example, never dare to swim naked in a pond even on the teeniest off-chance someone would see them. Someone like the impossibly gorgeous Elias, who decided to do some bird watching after arriving early for his visit with Catriona’s father and got QUITE an eyeful of a naked bird of the non-feathered variety. Talk about an uncomfortable dinner after everyone gets back to the castle! It only gets worse when the Earl gets called away on estate business and asks Catriona to accompany Elias to the College.
The Lean: Smart Is Sexy
There are many things (supposedly) that make a union between Catriona and Elias make zero sense, so despite any attraction they may feel (and there’s plenty), they are penned in by propriety and their own personal expectations of what their lives and their loves should look like. I think Dunmore struck a good balance between the pining and the actual relationship, so both sides who prefer one or the other in their books should be happy with this courtship.
Dirty Talk
In books, it’s an actual fact that sexy times are always sexier when what’s happening is currently forbidden. During their first make-out-and-a-bit-more:
She gripped the warm cotton fabric of his shirt for purchase, and he glanced down at her, his gaze black; his throat sheened with sweat. He’d be like this in bed, above her, steadily moving back-and-forth between her thighs, filling her with frantic energy. “It’s as though we are doing it,” she said, her voice high and strained.
“Not even close,” he ground out, but the image she had painted derailed his rhythm.
And when the, ah, partial deeds are done:
Elias cupped the curve of her heated cheek in his hand. “We will not do this again,” he said.
They took measure of each other’s damp faces and turbulent eyes, and without any more words being exchanged they both knew that they would absolutely do this again.
YES, YOU WILL, YOU SEXY CREATURES.
Ms. Perky’s Prize for Purplest Prose
The day after their first assignation, our couple is playing their usual game of chess—partially as an excuse to meet, because the olden days sucked majorly for personal freedom. I declare things also get an indeterminate amount of sexier when the couple can converse in public in another language to be able to flirt talk about their feelings without anyone else knowing:
Don’t deny me, she thought stupidly. Kiss me again. For a moment, neither seemed to know what to say. Last evening, her numbness after an overwhelm had proven useful: she had fixed her hair in front of Elias’s mirror, and she had returned to Hall in time for pudding. She had reinstated a cordial relationship with Leighton and Miss Regina, and they had furthered their plans to put the Ashmolean pieces into the British Museum. All throughout, she had seen Elias’s face , taut with dark desire as he rocked against her.
Elias’s eyelids lowered. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said in Arabic.
She pressed her lips together, feeling caught. “Like what.”
“Like you did last evening, in my room.”
“I wasn’t,” she said, her tone convincingly prim.
MacKenzie’s needles clanged like foils coming together. MacKenzie, who always seemed to be with her these days, always watching from under critical brows.
We Need To Talk: A Respectable Wrap-Up
I have been waiting for this book for what feels like FOREVER. After the third book in the series was just fine for me, I was a bit apprehensive about how this one would go. Luckily, there was much to love! I really enjoyed Elias and Catriona as characters on their own, and their personal journeys to resolve what was holding them back from being together made sense and were thoughtfully laid out.
Dunmore’s series, from its start, has always been romance AND historical fiction, in that she gives deference to both subjects, and that was no different for The Gentlemen’s Gambit. Securing women’s rights in the eyes of the law is still a big plot point, but special attention is given to the topic of colonizing thievery and the damage it causes to the people who lose their right to be themselves and celebrate their culture. It’s a centuries-long and still on-going issue, and I did find it interesting that this is the second new release I’ve read this year that deals with the topic of returning cultural artifacts to their people. (New publishing trend alert?)
There may still be a bit “too much” emphasis on the non-romance parts of the book for some readers, but there are a ton of frivolous and fun historical romances still out there, so I’m happy that Dunmore continues to give us these occasional palate cleansers.
Was It Good For You? Checkmate
The epilogue flashes forward decades in the future to tell us where our quartet of friends ended up, and it was a sweet moment that brings all four women’s stories to a close, letting us know that Dunmore is officially moving on from the series. There have been a few ups and downs, but overall I’m very happy with the time I spent with these extraordinary women.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received my free review copy from Berkley Books. I received neither money nor peanut butter cups in exchange for this review. The Gentlemen’s Gambit is available now.
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I hated the third book in this series to the point of not finishing it, so I’ve been hesitant to pick this one up in spite of enjoying the first two. Glad to hear it’s better than the last one.
Yeah, there was just something about that one that was very depressing. I was a bit concerned myself, but I feel like there was a bit more lightness, even if some of the topics were still a bit weightier.
I enjoyed the wrap up – but I want to know what happened to Elias. Did he go back and defend his country? Did he realize his dream of putting Applecross into a money making estate?
That is true, there wasn’t a lot of focus on what the men had done throughout their lives! She was going for a specific angle there, with the women suffrage and our core group of ladies, but that would’ve been nice to know!