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A review by read_game_stitch
The Ladies Rewrite the Rules by Suzanne Allain
3.0
In this Regency romance, wealthy widow Diana Boyle discovers that she's been listed in a directory of single rich women, which results in random men turning up at her door, sparking her fury. When confronting Maxwell Dean, the directory's author, she finds him unexpectedly charming. Determined to thwart fortune hunters, one of the other ladies on the registry rallies the listed women to turn the registry around to their advantage.
This book had a really strong premise but I don't think it did enough with it. There wasn't a lot of passion between the main characters, and there wasn't any public backlash to the women who were involved in the registry until 70% of the way through the book and even then the impact was revealed and then basically never mentioned again. This would be highly unlikely given how improper the ladies' new rules and their actions would be viewed, even for widows and spinsters. Even amongst the group themselves, the women and men all paired off without any sort of drama, even though the men were self-admitted fortune hunters and that didn't change just because the women became aware of the registry. I felt that there should have been more conflict with or admonishment towards the men who used the Registry without informing the women of its publication as they had a right to be angry. But it only showed Diana feeling that way during her initial conversation with Maxwell and there was one passing reveal right at the end regarding a minor character.
Overall, it was like a watered down version of Mr Malcolm's List by the same author - one where no-one involved got any sort of comeuppance, everything just worked out pleasantly and everyone turned out not to be a villain despite all signs of villainy and deception throughout the book. I didn't love the miscommunication trope in the last half either and just wanted Diana and Maxwell to talk to each other about their feelings. This was called out by another character, but it came a bit late for my liking.
I really wanted to love this, and the story could have been amazing but it just played everything too nice.
This book had a really strong premise but I don't think it did enough with it. There wasn't a lot of passion between the main characters, and there wasn't any public backlash to the women who were involved in the registry until 70% of the way through the book and even then the impact was revealed and then basically never mentioned again. This would be highly unlikely given how improper the ladies' new rules and their actions would be viewed, even for widows and spinsters. Even amongst the group themselves, the women and men all paired off without any sort of drama, even though the men were self-admitted fortune hunters and that didn't change just because the women became aware of the registry. I felt that there should have been more conflict with or admonishment towards the men who used the Registry without informing the women of its publication as they had a right to be angry. But it only showed Diana feeling that way during her initial conversation with Maxwell and there was one passing reveal right at the end regarding a minor character.
Overall, it was like a watered down version of Mr Malcolm's List by the same author - one where no-one involved got any sort of comeuppance, everything just worked out pleasantly and everyone turned out not to be a villain despite all signs of villainy and deception throughout the book. I didn't love the miscommunication trope in the last half either and just wanted Diana and Maxwell to talk to each other about their feelings. This was called out by another character, but it came a bit late for my liking.
I really wanted to love this, and the story could have been amazing but it just played everything too nice.