The Governess Game and The Wallflower Wager by Tessa Dare

As I am still on a romance novel kick and I've had a lot of time to read lately, I managed to finish the two remaining novels in Tessa Dare's Girl Meets Duke series. As my feeling on both are pretty similar, I decided to combine my reviews. 

Book number two in the series, The Governess Game, follows a young woman named Alexandra Mountbatten. She works to support herself as a clock setter in London, but her true passion is astronomy. She hopes to work in that field one day, but first, she needs to save up for her own place and a good telescope. When she loses her chronometer in an accident one afternoon, she is forced to take a job as a governess to make ends meet. Her new employer is a dashingly handsome man named Chase Reynaud, who has recently become the guardian of two orphaned little girls from his family line. His reputation as a rake worries Alexandra, but she's desperate enough for work that she takes the position. She's facing a big challenge - her two charges are quite difficult, she has no previous experience as a governess to draw from. She's determined to do her best to help her girls, however, and make even help Chase reform some of his wild ways.

Book number three, The Wallflower Wager, follows Lady Penelope Campion. Despite having a title and big dowry to match, she hasn't had any luck in romance and tends to stay close to home. She loves animals and has quite a menagerie of rescued creatures to care for, including a two-legged dog, a goat, an otter, and a hedgehog. She lives with all her pets quite happily, but her family doesn't consider her hobbies and solitary life to be appropriate. Her older brother is threatening to move her into his home with his family and force a more traditional life onto her. Her aunt offers to help her put him off, but only if she engages more in society and finds homes for all her animals. She finds an unlikely ally in Gabriel Duke, an infamous wealthy businessman that purchases the house next to hers. He intends to renovate the house and turn a big profit on it, but Penelope's zoo and spinster-like behavior reduces the desirability of his property. He agrees to help her rehome the animals and reenter the social scene, but things become more complicated for both of them when they start developing feelings for each other.

Much like the first book in this series, these two stories were utterly charming. Once again, the writing was funny and emotional in turns, the characters were unique and well-developed, and the steamier scenes were very sexy. Everything was in good balance. The romantic elements and relationship-building took center stage, but there was enough story to make the novels feel different from each other and move at a good pace. These books aren't direct sequels, but characters from each one appear in the others, and I enjoyed seeing them pop up across the series. I was surprised how much affection I ended up developing for them - I was especially happy to see Lord Ashbury from The Duchess Deal again, as I ended up having a major soft spot for him.

These are the kind of books where you know what you're getting when you pick them up. They are full of romantic tropes, impossible attractive people, angsty misunderstandings, and happy endings. It's nice sometimes to read something that's pure junk food for your brain. There will be a fourth book in this series, but Amazon is saying that it won't be out until January of 2024, so I will have a long time to wait. Until then, I will definitely be checking out Tessa Dare's other works whenever I'm in the mood for a guilty pleasure romance.   

Challenge Tally

Total Books Read in 2020: 90