Battling the Bluestocking

Title: Battling the Bluestocking

Series: The Donovans #3

Author: Martha Keyes 

Narrators: Ella Lynch & Rupert Degas

Source: Hoopla

My Review:

Battling the Bluestocking is the third book in the Donovan series. While it COULD be read as a standalone novel, I highly recommend reading The Art of Victory and A Confirmed Rake first.

If I let this book stand alone, it is a pretty good read. However, if compared to the first two books of the series, it is just an okay read. I loved the first two books, but this one lacked the humor and chemistry between the main characters that the first two had.

I was excited to read Phineas' story. He was an enigma in the first two stories, so I was looking forward to learning more about him. However, I really don't feel like I learned much about him.

I didn't like Sarah at first. She comes across as spoiled and entitled. I grew to like her, but I didn't feel like she was a good match for Phineas, and as previously mentioned, they didn't have great chemistry.

Side note: I am not a Jane Austen fan and this book was riddled with talk about her books. Maybe I would have enjoyed the book more had I been a fan.

Overall, it was an okay story and ending to the series.

★★★/5

Synopsis (Goodreads):

Great minds do NOT always think alike.
Phineas Donovan is possessed of a sharp intellect. Fresh from Cambridge, he obtains a generous live-in position as tutor for the son of the wealthy Lord Bettencourt. If he can prove his value, he has hopes of being given the patronage of his employer, allowing him to take up a position as vicar. There, he can pursue his intellectual endeavors in peace and relative financial comfort.

In her humble but informed opinion, Lady Sarah Danneville is possessed of an even sharper intellect. If anyone should be tutoring her younger brother, it is she, not the reserved, bespectacled gentleman her father has employed to do the job. He is not fit to instruct a Danneville of Bettencourt Court.

But as Sarah works to undermine him, Mr. Donovan shows more pluck than she expects, not to mention harboring a secret hobby that would be laughable if it weren’t so dreadfully unsophisticated. If she can use this secret against him, she can finally persuade her father she is more than bait to lure a prosperous match.

Now, if only she can avoid being drawn into the unsophistication—and Mr. Donovan’s eyes—herself.