Title: Wilde in Love Series: The Wildes of Lindow Castle #1
Author: Eloisa James
Published: October 31, 2017
Genre(s): Romance: Historical
Page Count: 416
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Lord Alaric Wilde, son of the Duke of Lindow, is the most celebrated man in England, revered for his dangerous adventures and rakish good looks. Arriving home from years abroad, he has no idea of his own celebrity until his boat is met by mobs of screaming ladies. Alaric escapes to his father’s castle, but just as he grasps that he’s not only famous but notorious, he encounters the very private, very witty, Miss Willa Ffynche.
Willa presents the façade of a serene young lady to the world. Her love of books and bawdy jokes is purely for the delight of her intimate friends. She wants nothing to do with a man whose private life is splashed over every newspaper.
Alaric has never met a woman he wanted for his own . . . until he meets Willa. He’s never lost a battle.
But a spirited woman like Willa isn’t going to make it easy...
Featuring crazed fangirls, wigs the size of blimps, an overabundance of sequel baiting, and skunks, Eloisa James’s latest, Wilde in Love was…moderately good. Not great, but good.
The year is 1778, and Willa Ffynche has just finished her first season. An unrivaled success, she received 14 proposals through her cunning plan to act exactly the way men expect their wives to—simpering, ingratiating, only slightly intelligent, etc. Now she’s off to a 6-week house party where she intends to have a fun time before she makes any marital decisions.
Problem: Lord Alaric Wilde, “Lord Wilde” has just landed in England for the first time in 5 years, and every female at the house party is swooning and sighing and ripping their own bodices at the very thought of him. Including Willa’s best friend. Tsk tsk, how ridiculous.
Willa, of course, has absolutely no interest in the infamous Lord Wilde (James’s version of an early Byron) who, by all accounts is very much “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” Lord Alaric doesn’t like this, and decides that he has to have Willa, at all costs! His very tender Manly Sensibilities have been most mightily offended! Rawr, caveman in a fluffy wig emerges.
Frankly, she might as well have waved a red cloth in front of a bull. The uncivilized male inside him, the one who hated wearing a wig, had got wind of a hunt.
(Run, Willa, run!)
“I am not a territory to be conquered for the mere sake of it. I would be grateful if you would direct your attentions elsewhere.”
But then, like…Willa and Alaric actually get along really well and genuinely enjoy each other, so there’s not even all that much conflict. For all that build-up, Wilde in Love is actually kind of tedious. James sets up obstacles in the path of her couple, but then lets them overcome their issues way too quickly. For instance, Alaric and Willa are engaged (and married) about 6 or 7 chapters from the end, and the last quarter of the book just needlessly drags on with a psychotic, murderous villain (yep) and shameless sequel baiting, and just…nonsense.
This book wanted to be so good! I was really, really excited by the fact that the heroine wasn’t socially awkward, ugly, or wallflowerish in any way. She’s pretty! She’s smart! She’s well-dressed and popular and confident in her own powers of attraction! Yay Willa! And yay Eloisa James for not doing the usual thing. But…I don’t know. The depth of characterization in Wilde in Love wasn’t actually all that good. The author slaps the idea of Alaric and Willa down on the page, but doesn’t do any kind of valuable exploration of their personalities. Which was a shame, because I was rather excited by them as a concept.
Along with that, the tone of the book felt a bit off. It seems like James wanted this to be humorous, sort of a funny “oh drat, I’m famous by accident, however will I win the woman of my dreams?” scenario featuring a lot of humor and comedic interludes. Instead, things went dark. And melodramatic. Seriously. A deranged Puritan villain??? Romance is a very emotional genre, but it doesn’t need to be quite so overwrought.
And, again, the sequel baiting was unnecessary. We have an entire chapter at the end that’s just dedicated to the couple for the next book. Which is well and fine, but doesn’t work when you’re trying to create a satisfying conclusion to your current romance but are just wasting a lot of time dilly-dallying with trivial stuff.
So, overall I just say “eh, it was all right.” I did like the skunk! She was great.
