Gentleman Wolf

So, despite my love for Joanna Chambers’s Enlightenment series, this book turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.

After two years of keeping it on my ridiculously named tbr-asap shelf, I’d been very excited to finally read it — I mean, historical romance with an abuse victim shifter MC? YES!

Too bad that it ended up being way to tropey for me to really enjoy it. Add to that my indifference towards both of the MCs, and I was not a happy camper.

I wanted more plot, damn it! In the first chapters, Chambers teased us with a glimpse of this dastardly villain (that no one seems willing/able to kill??

Usually if a book is hovering around 3.5 stars but then has a satisfying ending I round up. I knew going in that it's a bit difficult to pull off a pleasing happily-for-now ending on a multi-book character arc, but even knowing that, it felt like the entire thing fell apart in the last chapter or two, and though that set up book 2, it didn't leave me feeling particularly happy. So the writing has potential, but ultimately this one's only 3 stars from me.

Content warning that there is reference to a prior death of an infant, and quite a significant amount of internalized judgement and shame due to sexuality.