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A review by merrinish
Temptations of a Wallflower by Eva Leigh
4.0
I really liked this. I've never seen a romance novel with a vicar before? So that was awesome straight off the bat. I liked the story and the characters. The emotional payoff felt real to me, including that he didn't accept her secrets straight off.
Things I liked:
I really liked that the hero is a vicar, which is literally nothing I've ever read in a romance novel before. The heroine writes erotic novels, and a lot of what she said felt like a defense of romance novels in general, which felt pretty meta but was also really cool. The added tension that his father was forcing our hero to unmask the anonymous author of the erotic novels added a really nice tension through the whole book.
I really, really liked that their first time was so awkward and terrible at first. Like, he's been with one lady. He's a vicar. She's a virgin. It was so believable that it would actually be kind of terrible and painful, and I like that it felt so real. And then I liked that what actually brought him around to figuring out what she would like was ACTING OUT WHAT HE'D READ IN HER EROTIC NOVELS. Y'all this was so perfect.
I really liked that Jeremy wasn't accepting of her secret at first. That he struggled with it. I liked that after she came to the conclusion that she just wouldn't write, he accepted it as compromise at first, because I liked that he didn't take her choices away from her again. And I really liked that after she said she wanted all of it, him and the writing, that he recognized THAT as the real way to happiness, and was really happy with what she'd chosen. Most of all, I like that even though it hurt him a lot, he gave her agency in her choices while acknowledging his own pain.
Things that were meh:
Like. His dad was only okay? I get that it's a romance novel but his character was so one dimensional that it was kind of . . . meh. Like I get it. He's sooooooo moral and he wants the author unmasked but is also soooooo unwilling to let go of this that he stops talking to his son because of it? Really? Okay.
Things I liked:
I really liked that the hero is a vicar, which is literally nothing I've ever read in a romance novel before. The heroine writes erotic novels, and a lot of what she said felt like a defense of romance novels in general, which felt pretty meta but was also really cool. The added tension that his father was forcing our hero to unmask the anonymous author of the erotic novels added a really nice tension through the whole book.
I really, really liked that their first time was so awkward and terrible at first. Like, he's been with one lady. He's a vicar. She's a virgin. It was so believable that it would actually be kind of terrible and painful, and I like that it felt so real. And then I liked that what actually brought him around to figuring out what she would like was ACTING OUT WHAT HE'D READ IN HER EROTIC NOVELS. Y'all this was so perfect.
I really liked that Jeremy wasn't accepting of her secret at first. That he struggled with it. I liked that after she came to the conclusion that she just wouldn't write, he accepted it as compromise at first, because I liked that he didn't take her choices away from her again. And I really liked that after she said she wanted all of it, him and the writing, that he recognized THAT as the real way to happiness, and was really happy with what she'd chosen. Most of all, I like that even though it hurt him a lot, he gave her agency in her choices while acknowledging his own pain.
Things that were meh:
Like. His dad was only okay? I get that it's a romance novel but his character was so one dimensional that it was kind of . . . meh. Like I get it. He's sooooooo moral and he wants the author unmasked but is also soooooo unwilling to let go of this that he stops talking to his son because of it? Really? Okay.