The Gentleman's Gambit

"Slow and fast Political Women’s rights Strong female lead Non traditional for era "

"I learned interesting facts about history while still having a light read . The subjects are not common too: suffragette, Lebanon. You don't find this in all romances !"

"I found it rather disappointing, the other 3 from the series were quite enjoyable to read. Unfortunately, this one is slow, uninteresting, and rather boring. I’m struggling through it."

"This book was boring. I said what I said.<br/>And, what a buzzkill that was.<br/><br/>I was so looking forward to this book because this series has been AMAZING. Books #1 & #3, especially. I was so excited for Catriona's story but, to be honest, the premise was lame. And sad. And it went on. And on. And on. <br/><br/>I didn't completely HATE the book: There were some aspects of it I liked. We get vignette chapters with all three of the previous couples (Tristan / Lucie & Sebastian / Annabelle's were HOT! And good!) and I liked when Elias / Catriona finally got together. Tristan pushing Lucie to get married was ADORABLE ("He just hums the wedding march when he thinks I'm not paying attention and goes, 'What?!'") and Annabelle using Sebastian's gift to save the artifacts was good too LOL ("He had a feeling who was behind all of this and she was currently upstairs in the nursery with their son.") I also liked the fact that Wester Ross was so very "hands-off" in this book, because that's his modus operandi. He lets his daughter run free because he's too absorbed in his studies. She essentially lives out of her OWN house for ten days in London while Elias plays sleepover / live-in boyfriend the entire time. Sounds COMPLETELY ridiculous and anachronistic, given the time period, but given that nobody seems to check up or check-in on her, she can do that. I also liked that Lucian (who is one of my favorite characters of the series) uses his morally-grey connections to blow the lid off of Elias' plans. That's true to his character :)<br/><br/>I didn't like this book for quite a few reasons: One, it was boring. For the first half of the book, it was giving "Pride & Prejudice" vibes: They were just talking and bouncing locations. Also, MacKenzie, the housekeeper, was ANNOYING. Preachy and quite the buzzkill, romantically. She seemed to stick her nose in everywhere and I was glad when she finally went back to Scotland. The scene with Mrs. Weldon was unnecessary. She added nothing to the overall plot of the story and was just a blip. Also, she was crazy. The chess part was cute but I thought it'd be a bigger part of the story. There are some scenes with it and the instance with the White King and then it just evaporates (considering the title is "The Gentleman's Gambit" - figured chess would be a bigger part of the ending of the story). The "will they or won't they" piece of the beginning of their relationship was annoying too. Like, girl. If you want to ignore him, IGNORE him. She was waffling and it was annoying. <br/><br/>All in all, mondo downer ending the series. I was glad, though, that the author wrapped EVERYTHING (the entire series) up in the epilogue. Gave the series some closure."

"I love Catriona. It was fun to watch her story unfold along with her embracing change."

"3.5/5 ⭐️ I had been looking forward to this book for a long time, as this is definitely a favorite series of mine. The first installment is one of my favorite historical romances, and all the books in this one have been solid. This one took me a while to get into (though I do think it might be better on reread). I enjoyed the context around the story - Evie Dunmore is so great at exploring larger themes and historical events in her books. Though I initially didn’t understand the female lead, I eventually did deeply connect with her and empathize with her. I also loved the male lead (again more in the second half). I think I just didn’t get their connection in the beginning, and the setup of the larger context of the story was a bit dense at times since it was background I was unfamiliar with. However, once the story moved past that, I did love so much about it. I did enjoy this conclusion to this series, and this one did emphasize how unique this author’s voice is in this genre. (Even if the epilogue left me wanting a bit more from their story.)"