I usually love second-chance romances. I'm a firm
believer that finding love is as much about luck and
timing as it is about compatibility, so this particular
trope just makes me happy. In HOW TO HANDLE A SCANDAL by
Emily Greenwood,
however, I spent a lot of the book wondering why the hero
bothered to hold a flame for the heroine. She was callous
and childish when they knew each other before and,
despite some reform and work in a charity involving
homeless young women, I found her to still be callous and
a bit bratty. Their break-up was not due to circumstances
beyond their control, it was due to her being a jerk, and
so I needed her to not be a jerk upon their reunion.
The main engine of this plot revolves not around this
second chance that Tommy and Eliza have for love, but a
disguise and an accidental pregnancy and everything felt
a bit like entrapment. The happily-ever-after was sudden
and not that well earned and I just kind of rolled my
eyes at the conclusion of it all. I've liked several
other books by Greenwood, so I was a bit taken aback to
dislike this heroine so much. I actually made four
attempts to finish this book before successfully doing
so, that is how much it just didn't work for me.
I see a lot of mixed reviews around the internet about HOW
TO HANDLE A SCANDAL, so
perhaps you'll completely disagree with me! If you do,
please comment and defend Eliza. I'm sure she has some
good qualities to make Tommy pine for her for so long,
but lands alive I could not find them.
They thought the debutante was
scandalous Miss Elizabeth Tarryton was the toast
of the London Season the year she was seventeen and spurned
young Tommy Halifax. A careless flirt who didn't know what
she wanted, she was startled into laughter by his public
proposal of marriage. Furious and heartbroken, Tommy
promptly left home for a life of adventure in India.
If they only knew about the widow Seven
years later, Elizabeth has much to make up for, but the
methods she chooses for doing good are as shocking as her
earlier wanton behavior—should the ton ever find out. Tommy
returns to England a hero, with no intention of allowing
himself to be hurt by a woman ever again, but he's
fascinated nonetheless by Elizabeth, now widowed and more
alluring than ever.
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