A Rogue’s Rules for Seduction (Last Chance Scoundrels) – book review

A Rogue’s Rules for Seduction
by Eva Leigh
Release Date: April 25, 2023
Publisher: Avon
Book #3 of the Last Chance Scoundrels series
Number of Pages:  349
Historical Romance
Ages 15 and up
CW: misogyny, patriarchy, abuse, neglect
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After Dominic Kilburn left Lady Willa Ransom at the altar, she vowed never to reveal how badly she was hurt. Following a year abroad, Willa wants to move on with her life, so she accepts an invitation to a house party. She’s determined to leave her humiliation behind, as well as the scorching attraction she still feels for the man who jilted her.

When dark secrets from his past surfaced right before his wedding, Dom knew he didn’t deserve Willa. So, he bolted. But he still burns for the only woman who ever claimed his heart. To escape the memories of all he lost, Dom heads to a friend’s estate on an isolated Scottish isle. Yet one of the other guests is the very woman who haunts his every thought and makes him wish for the impossible.

Thrown together by well-meaning family and friends, Willa and Dom try to resist the fiery pull between them. Soon the line between love and loathing begins to blur, and their attraction explodes. But Dom’s past lurks on the edge of their rekindled passion and Willa fears she’ll be devastated all over again. Can these star-crossed lovers find their happily ever after, or will everything detonate a second time?

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Now that I’ve finished up this series, the first that I’ve read from this author, I’m going to be going all in on her books. I loved this book and loved this series as a whole. I appreciate the backbone and grit of all the MFCs and the support and open-mindedness of the MMCs. I really hope her other stories are as progressive.

This book had me all in even before it started. One, because I’ve been itching to know what happened between Dom and Willa. Two, because the author had a heartfelt acknowledgment to start things off.

What I didn’t expect from this book was one of my favorite things. Turns out, Willa and Dom didn’t know each other that well. Being the little sister of his best friends, I assumed they knew each other quite intimately. Not so. These two weren’t so much in love as in love with an idea when they got engaged. Willa enjoyed sticking it to her uptight parents by dating someone outside the nobility, even if his family is now respectable and rich. Dom was proud someone as beautiful and elegant and who was “properly” bred was willing to be courted by him. It wasn’t such a bad thing their marriage didn’t happen. It gave them both time to appreciate what they had been building. Both needed to reach certain realizations about their relationship and their role in that relationship for it to work.

Watching Willa and Dom grow as characters and grow into a couple was everything. The way Dom’s nickname for Willa changed as he got to know the true person beneath the dresses and manners. He had always known she was fierce and headstrong, but he never dove into the reasons or how her personality shaped her interactions with her parents. Willa understood on a surface level that Dom worked his way up in the world through labor and good luck, she didn’t understand what that meant and the sacrifices he made along the way for his family.

I love that this is a forced proximity inside a forced proximity. The couple is on an island at a house party with all of our favorite characters from the previous two books. There’s no getting off this island until a boat from the mainland comes to resupply the house. They are thrown together over and over by their meddlesome siblings and they sure didn’t hate it, no matter how they tried to act as though they did. Dom does the sweetest things; not trying to win Willa over but trying to make the awkward situation more comfortable for her. That man had me swooning!

This story was the perfect ending to this amazing series. I’m going to close this out with a quote from the book that sums things up perfectly.

“The scoundrels had all found their perfect, “respectable” brides, but no one knew that the appearance of respectability was merely that – a veneer that barely concealed the strength and power and rebelliousness of women who would always follow their hearts, with men beside them doing all they could to support their wives’ journey to greatness.

5 stars