“The lady had a rapier for a tongue. She jabbed with nouns, riposted with verbs.” – 3.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: word battles, sharp tongues, schemes, promises, marriage proposals, funny banter, war trauma, letters, injuries, balconies and dances.

Is there any greater surprise than falling deeply, madly in love?

In This Battle of Wits

Lady Lucy Upton’s tongue may be too sharp to attract suitors but her heart is good, and when her painfully shy friend Cassandra needs help she devises a brilliant scheme to help her discourage an unwanted suitor, the Duke of Claringdon. Lucy will hide behind the hedgerow and tell Cass just what to say to discourage the duke…but it turns out that he’s made of sterner stuff than either of them anticipated. And Lucy is shocked to discover that tangling with the tenacious man is the most fun she’s had in ages.

Kisses Are the Best Weapon

Lord Derek Hunt made a promise to his dying friend to marry the demure Cassandra, and for a man who wants nothing more than peace and quiet after the horrors of war, she’ll make the perfect bride. If only the impudent Miss Upton will let him court the girl! Doing battle is the last thing on his mind, but bantering with Lucy behind the bushes is too tempting to resist. And the spoils of this war just may be true love…

I don’t know why but I have never picked up an actual historical romance – which is weird because I love romance books! I wanted to change that and I found out the three first books of this series were translated and published in Portuguese… so I bought them. Needless to say I was very excited to dive into this new genre, but unfortunately I was left a bit underwhelmed with the start of this series. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this book is terrible – I certainly have read way worse -, but I genuinely think it had the potential to be an amazing romance.

If you’re a fan of the “enemies-to-lovers” trope like I am, the premise of this book may seem captivating and exciting, but the romance was a bit two superficial for my own taste. There was something about the main characters that didn’t work well for me. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is, but I think it’s related to them being superficial and immature – Lucy lacked depth and maturity and Derek was irrational and shallow. And not only the characters and romance were superficial, but the story was too. The entire thing is mostly empty dialogs, a lot of flirting and the MC keeping Derek away from her best friend… and that’s about it. I understand that Derek’s war story was meant to give depth to the plot, but the execution was not the best so it ended out working the opposite way. As a whole, the combination of dialog choices, scenarios and situations the characters were put in felt unrealistic and it made it difficult for me to take them “seriously”.

On a positive side, I loved how this book is full of lovely female friendships. We love women supporting women! That I don’t mind having more of, and I’m hoping we’ll have more of it in the next books!

I’m continuing the series because I’m still hoping I will find a gemstone in this series – and also because I already bought some of the next books *nervous laughter*So would I recommend this book? Since I don’t have a lot of experience with historical romances, I can’t recommend you other books. But I will say that you can probably find a better historical romance with a stronger plot – I’ve heard great things about Tessa Dare’s books, and that’s where I’m heading next when it comes to historical romance!

xoxo,