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A review by rjordan19
In Which Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of Restraint by Alexandra Vasti
adventurous
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥
Humor: Yes
Perspective: Third person from both hero and heroine
Should I read in order?
This stands alone well, but book 1 is delicious and sets up what’s going on here – they take place concurrently for the most part.
Basic plot:
Christian de Bord has finally found who has been drawling salacious pictures of him for a society pamphlet and he is ready to make her pay.
Give this a try if you want:
- Late Regency time period (1821)
- widower Marquess hero
- artist heroine – who perhaps draws porn
- a small section of letters written to each other
- age gap/older hero – hero is 13 years older than the heroine
- vegetarian heroine and an animal lover (with some feline company on page!)
- bespectacled hero
- BEARDED HERO!! (Sorry I yelled. Its just been too long since I was able to say that)
- one bed at the inn
- Medium to high steam – 3 scenes within a shorter page count
Ages:
- Hero is 38, heroine is 25
My thoughts:
How can another book by Vasti be pure perfection???? I think I liked this one even MORE than the first book, and I didn’t think that was possible.
Vasti has quickly become one of my favorite authors. She has all my favorite things. There’s delicious angsty, emotional pull between the characters. There’s humor. There’s lovely character depth (and somehow she still does this in a novella! A novella!!). Steamy scenes that flare my insides on tug on my heart with their touching intimacy. Humor! It truly has been the absolute best of all the romance catnip for me. I am so in love!
Christian is one of my favorite types of heroes. He’s a bit dark. He has baggage from his past and is torn up inside with his wanting for Matilda, yet determined to stay away. The slow fall of the marquess was delicious.
Matilda was also a delight. I loved how she was trying to find herself and what she wanted in this life. I adored her strength and confidence and I LOVED that she’s a vegetarian (as a fellow vegetarian I never come across this in historical). I loved how sweet she was. I feel for Matilda just as Christian did.
Vasti’s novellas pack the most wonderful punch. I cannot wait for more from her. Can. Not. Wait!
Quotes/thoughts:
Dear Lady Matilda,
I beg your pardon. My note this morning was inappropriate. I cannot say what came over me. It would ease my mind if you would throw it in the fireplace.
Christian de Bord, Lord Ashford
----
And three, you are the most obstinate man I have ever encountered.
I have enclosed for you a picture of a man with the head of a pig. I leave you to wonder at its significance.
----
“You think you know what you like,” he hissed into her ear. “But you don’t really know, do you? You cannot imagine, little girl, what I want to do to you.”
---
“Do you enjoy this?” asked Ashford. His face was still forbidding.
“Enjoy what?”
“Doing just as you please. Tossing expectation to the ground and running over it in your phaeton.”
---
Conversation was likewise impossible. The problem, he had discovered, was that when he talked with her, he-he-
He liked her. He fancied her. He thought she was wonderful.
It was an absolute goddamned disaster.
----
“Matilda,” he said, and it was his dark voice again. Low and commanding. He had not heard himself use that voice in a very long time. “Are you naked underneath that dressing gown?”
---
He was a cad. A blackguard. He had taken advantage of her. He wanted to do it again. He could not sit across from her without wanting to get down on his knees in front of her, push up her skirts, and lick her cunny until she came.
---
“He started to track her voice, but then he paused.
He looked at the library door for a long moment.
And then he shut it. And before he could think too hard about what he was doing, he turned the key.
A few spoilers about the ending of the book I loved -
Content warnings:
- Mention of hero losing his wife
- There is a scene where the heroine’s twin is trying to get information and the hero starts kissing her, thinking her Matilda
- Hero lost his mother when he was an infant
- Mention of influenza taking his father and stepmother
- Hero had an unhappy marriage to his first wife
- Remembrance of attempted sexual assault of when Matilda was 16
Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:
52% - 🔥 touches, spanking for her, breast play, oral for her in the one bed at the inn
71% - 🔥 kiss, some light edging, fingering/oral for her, sex against the bookshelves in the library
82% - 🔥 kisses, light biting, heroine tied to the headboard, oral/fingering her her, her on top, light spanking
100% - kiss
Plot/Storyline: 📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥
Humor: Yes
Perspective: Third person from both hero and heroine
Should I read in order?
This stands alone well, but book 1 is delicious and sets up what’s going on here – they take place concurrently for the most part.
Basic plot:
Christian de Bord has finally found who has been drawling salacious pictures of him for a society pamphlet and he is ready to make her pay.
Give this a try if you want:
- Late Regency time period (1821)
- widower Marquess hero
- artist heroine – who perhaps draws porn
- a small section of letters written to each other
- age gap/older hero – hero is 13 years older than the heroine
- vegetarian heroine and an animal lover (with some feline company on page!)
- bespectacled hero
- BEARDED HERO!! (Sorry I yelled. Its just been too long since I was able to say that)
- one bed at the inn
- Medium to high steam – 3 scenes within a shorter page count
Ages:
- Hero is 38, heroine is 25
My thoughts:
How can another book by Vasti be pure perfection???? I think I liked this one even MORE than the first book, and I didn’t think that was possible.
Vasti has quickly become one of my favorite authors. She has all my favorite things. There’s delicious angsty, emotional pull between the characters. There’s humor. There’s lovely character depth (and somehow she still does this in a novella! A novella!!). Steamy scenes that flare my insides on tug on my heart with their touching intimacy. Humor! It truly has been the absolute best of all the romance catnip for me. I am so in love!
Christian is one of my favorite types of heroes. He’s a bit dark. He has baggage from his past and is torn up inside with his wanting for Matilda, yet determined to stay away. The slow fall of the marquess was delicious.
Matilda was also a delight. I loved how she was trying to find herself and what she wanted in this life. I adored her strength and confidence and I LOVED that she’s a vegetarian (as a fellow vegetarian I never come across this in historical). I loved how sweet she was. I feel for Matilda just as Christian did.
Vasti’s novellas pack the most wonderful punch. I cannot wait for more from her. Can. Not. Wait!
Quotes/thoughts:
Dear Lady Matilda,
I beg your pardon. My note this morning was inappropriate. I cannot say what came over me. It would ease my mind if you would throw it in the fireplace.
Christian de Bord, Lord Ashford
----
And three, you are the most obstinate man I have ever encountered.
I have enclosed for you a picture of a man with the head of a pig. I leave you to wonder at its significance.
----
“You think you know what you like,” he hissed into her ear. “But you don’t really know, do you? You cannot imagine, little girl, what I want to do to you.”
---
“Do you enjoy this?” asked Ashford. His face was still forbidding.
“Enjoy what?”
“Doing just as you please. Tossing expectation to the ground and running over it in your phaeton.”
---
Conversation was likewise impossible. The problem, he had discovered, was that when he talked with her, he-he-
He liked her. He fancied her. He thought she was wonderful.
It was an absolute goddamned disaster.
----
“Matilda,” he said, and it was his dark voice again. Low and commanding. He had not heard himself use that voice in a very long time. “Are you naked underneath that dressing gown?”
---
He was a cad. A blackguard. He had taken advantage of her. He wanted to do it again. He could not sit across from her without wanting to get down on his knees in front of her, push up her skirts, and lick her cunny until she came.
---
“He started to track her voice, but then he paused.
He looked at the library door for a long moment.
And then he shut it. And before he could think too hard about what he was doing, he turned the key.
A few spoilers about the ending of the book I loved -
Content warnings:
- Mention of hero losing his wife
- There is a scene where the heroine’s twin is trying to get information and the hero starts kissing her, thinking her Matilda
- Hero lost his mother when he was an infant
- Mention of influenza taking his father and stepmother
- Hero had an unhappy marriage to his first wife
- Remembrance of attempted sexual assault of when Matilda was 16
Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:
52% - 🔥 touches, spanking for her, breast play, oral for her in the one bed at the inn
71% - 🔥 kiss, some light edging, fingering/oral for her, sex against the bookshelves in the library
82% - 🔥 kisses, light biting, heroine tied to the headboard, oral/fingering her her, her on top, light spanking
100% - kiss