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whimsicaldragonette · 5 months

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Blog Tour & ARC Review: The Gentleman's Gambit by Evie Dunmore

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Publication Date: December 5, 2023

Welcome to The Gentleman's Gambit book tour with Berkley Publishing Group. (This blog tour post is also posted on my Wordpress book blog Whimsical Dragonette.)

Synopsis:

Bookish suffragist Catriona Campbell is busy: An ailing estate, academic writer’s block, and a tense time for England’s women’s rights campaign—the last thing she needs is to be stuck playing host to her father’s distractingly attractive young colleague.

Deeply introverted Catriona lives for her work at Oxford and her fight for women’s suffrage. She dreams of romance, too, but since all her attempts at love have ended badly, she now keeps her desires firmly locked inside her head—until she climbs out of a Scottish loch after a good swim and finds herself rather exposed to her new colleague. Elias Khoury has wheedled his way into Professor Campbell’s circle under false pretenses: He did not come to Oxford to classify ancient artefacts; he is determined to take them back to his homeland in the Middle East. Winning Catriona’s favor could be the key to his success. Unfortunately, seducing the coolly intense lady scholar quickly becomes a mission in itself and his well-laid plans are in danger of derailing.... Forced into close proximity in Oxford’s hallowed halls, two very different people have to face the fact that they might just be a perfect match. Soon, a risky new game begins that asks Catriona one more time to put her heart and wildest dreams at stake.

Author Bio:

Evie Dunmore wrote her USA Today bestselling series inspired by the magical scenery of Oxford and her passion for romance, women pioneers, and all things Victorian. In her civilian life, she is a consultant with a M.Sc. in diplomacy from Oxford. Evie lives in Berlin and pours her fascination with nineteenth-century Britain into her writing. Learn more online at www.eviedunmore.com.

author photo credit: Evie Dunmore

Rating: ★★★★

*My Review, Favorite Quotes, and Non-Exclusive Extract below the cut.

My Review:

It took me a little while to get into this book. I wasn't sure at first about the representation of Elias's character, but I think it improved as the book went on. He and Catriona grew on me slowly until I realized I loved them, more than I have any of Evie Dunmore's previous characters. I identified a lot with Catriona and that pulled me further into the story as it went along. There was a point in the middle where it almost lost me, where there is basically one excruciatingly long extended sex scene that goes on for multiple chapters. As far as sex scenes go, it was well-written, but I am ace and don't find such things particularly appealing or engaging. Luckily the last chunk of the book drops the sex in favor of emotional and intellectual connection, which is my personal preference in a romance. Perhaps because I love intellectual and emotional connection, and especially slow-burn, I found the amount of history in this book perfect. Catriona is a very intellectual person and it makes sense that her book would be more history-focused. I appreciated the discussion of the ethics of collecting artefacts in the UK when the countries they originated in wanted them back. I thought it went very well with the underlying suffragist theme. I also really, really appreciated that Catriona is LGBT. This is something that hasn't come up in Evie Dunmore's books before that I recall, and that combined with Catriona being obviously not neurotypical made me love her and identify with her even more. I also appreciated that this doesn't turn into a point of contention between them. Elias accepts it along with her neuroatypicalness as just another facet of her character. The way Elias treats her quirks and sensory struggles is really heartwarming. He doesn't make fun of her. He doesn't try to get her to hide or mask them and pretend to be 'normal.' Instead, he accomodates her at every turn and offers suggestions of things that might help ease her way when she has to be surrounded by people. That is rare and shows his gentleness and care better than any of the sex can. At first the chapters from previous characters' POVs were jarring, but I came to appreciate the glimpses into their lives. I didn't feel like they took away from Catriona's story at all. The epilogue, set when they are all grandmothers and get to see women finally gain the right to vote, was emotional and heartwarming and was a great way to round out a series where women's suffrage was so central to all of the characters and plots. I loved this, and of all the books in this series, this is the one I will most likely revisit. *Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for providing an early copy of this book.

Favorite Quotes:

Lord Peregrin's chin rose. "I doubt it will improve your opinion of me, sir, but for what it's worth, I was forced into this appalling scheme by the lady herself." What kind of man are you, Elias thought, to allow yourself to be forced into idiotic, improper acts that endanger a woman's name and safety? As he stared into Lord Peregrin's perspiring face, he felt supremely annoyed because he himself had been exactly that kind of man.

Non-Exclusive Excerpt

Applecross, Scotland, July 1882 The breeze stirred and sent shivers across the loch, and the cold entered her bones, urging her to return. She swam with practiced backstrokes, her mind inattentive as her body knew the route to the eastern bank by habit. No one ever visited the small crescent of shoreline where she had left her clothes. The spot was shielded by a rare patch of forest, and only sheep and old gamekeeper Collins knew the path, neither of whom posed a threat to the daughter of Alastair Campbell, Earl of Wester Ross. Gooseflesh rose on her wet skin when she emerged from the water. She strode to the forest edge quickly. Her clothes were still laid out on the boulder, secured in place by a thick volume of Virgil's Aeneid. With clammy fingers, she picked up the book and her spectacles. Then she noticed it: the presence to her right. She froze. A man. A man was blocking the entrance of the forest path. Ice shot through her stomach. She clutched the Virgil in front of her modesty; her spectacles clattered to the ground. He was five yards away. Watching her. Her heart was racing. He had already seen her . . . he had seen everything. She turned to him fully with the treacle-slow motion of a bad dream. His contours were fuzzy, but conclusive enough: still young, strong features, broad but lean shoulders in a fitted coat-he was in fine fighting form. Not good. And he was still staring. With an age-old expression of awe. As though he had unexpectedly stumbled through the doors of a cathedral and felt ambushed by the dizzying heights and the dusty taste of the eternal. It would have given her pause, except there was a pair of binoculars resting against his chest. A white-hot sensation rushed to her head. "What do you think you are doing," she snapped, the words shooting out cold and clipped. The man came alive as if he had been released from a spell. He turned his face away. "You . . . are a woman," he said, sounding vaguely stunned. "Astutely observed, sir," she said, incredulous. He made a noise in his throat, like a surprised chuckle. The pulse pounding in her ears near drowned out her conscious thinking. "Of course you're amused," she said. "One would expect nothing but low humor from a cowardly Peeping Tom." He twitched, as though it cost him effort to not whip his head back round to her. "I was not . . . peeping." "So you did not, while walking along the ridge, spot me in the water, use your binoculars to ascertain that I was indeed an unclothed woman, and then creep all the way down through the forest to spy on me?" Her tone had sharpened with every word and by the end, he should have lain on the ground in neat slices. He stood quite intact if a bit befuddled. His head tipped back on a soft laugh.

"That sounds like a lot of trouble just to see an unclothed woman," he said. "You are very charming, miss," he added, "but it's nothing I have not seen before." Her cheeks stung as if she had been slapped. "Then why," she cried, "are you still standing there-oh!" Her startled gasp did make him look back at her, just as a translucent shape flew toward him on a fresh gust of wind. Hell. Her untethered underclothes, fine like cobwebs, had taken off in the breeze. "Blast." She lunged forward and slammed her palm down on a remaining stocking. She cast a quick glance sideways. The man was straightening from a crouch with her chemise caught in his fist, as if he had swiped it from midair like a large cat. He eyed her pantaloons next-they had landed in a shrub, and it had to be the pantaloons because there were blurry pink ribbons, doing a saucy dance. "Don't touch that," she wheezed. He raised his arms over his head. "I won't touch." Her chemise fluttered in his hand like a white flag. "You really ought to take your leave now," she suggested through gritted teeth. "Absolutely," he agreed. "See here." He turned around, seemed to survey the nearest tree, and then he deftly tied her chemise to the trunk by its decorative cords. "Voilà," he said and spread his fingers. "You shall never see me again." Without a backward glance, he strode into the forest at a fluid pace. "Nearly gone now," he called out before his elegant form disappeared around the bend. Excerpted from The Gentleman's Gambit by Evie Dunmore Copyright © 2023 by Evie Dunmore. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

#berkeley #evie dunmore #historical romance #the gentleman's gambit #regency romance #romance #shilo reads #arc review #netgalley #blog tour #a league of extraordinary women

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