Portrait of a Scotsman
Score: 3.5/5 Bookmarks
Steam Level: 🍆🍆🍆 /5
Thank you to Berkley and Penguin Random House Audio for gifting me review copies of Portrait of a Scotsman by Evie Dunmore.
This is the third book in the series, A League of Extraordinary Women, and while I have read the first book (but not the second) I thought this one worked pretty well as a stand-alone.
Hattie wants more freedom than her current life affords her, to be able to paint, and further the suffrage movement. Is that really so much to ask?
Lucian is a self-made man, which society don’t look kindly upon. He has a reputation for being dastardly, and yet Hattie finds herself drawn to him. In a bid for acceptance by polite society the bold Scotsman decides to make Hattie his wife, and all but tricks her into it.
Things don’t exactly go smoothly for either of them. Lucian is suffering from PTSD and has some pretty intense revenge plans he will need to set aside, and Hattie is just realizing what a sheltered existence she’s actually led, and trying to open her heart to do better and use her privilege for good. But can they find a way to get through their struggles together?
I liked Lucian’s character quite a lot…who doesn’t love a brooding Scotsman with a secret heart of gold…but I have to admit that Hattie irritated me quite a lot. She was childish and naive, and while I recognize that it may have been true to the times, I just found her both annoying and boring for most of the book. I don’t think that was helped by the particular narrator chosen for the audiobook either. I had a really hard time listening to the audio unless I sped it up to 2x or more, and then it was bearable.
It’s a shame, because I really wanted to love this book and the story premise had me intrigued. I don’t want to give anything away, but I did find that once they got out of London I enjoyed the story a little more.
The audio is just over 16 hours long, and you can grab the audiobook via the button below, or get a physical copy here.
Synopsis:
Going toe-to-toe with a brooding Scotsman is rather bold for a respectable suffragist, but when he happens to be one's unexpected husband, what else is an unwilling bride to do?
London banking heiress Hattie Greenfield wanted "just" three things in life:
1. Acclaim as an artist.
2. A noble cause.
3. Marriage to a young lord who puts the gentle in gentleman.
Why then does this Oxford scholar find herself at the altar with the darkly attractive financier Lucian Blackstone, whose murky past and ruthless business practices strike fear in the hearts of Britain's peerage? Trust Hattie to take an invigorating little adventure too far. Now she's stuck with a churlish Scot who just might be the end of her ambitions....
When the daughter of his business rival all but falls into his lap, Lucian sees opportunity. As a self-made man, he has vast wealth but holds little power, and Hattie might be the key to finally setting long-harbored political plans in motion. Driven by an old revenge, he has no room for his new wife's apprehensions or romantic notions, bewitching as he finds her.
But a sudden journey to Scotland paints everything in a different light. Hattie slowly sees the real Lucian and realizes she could win everything—as long as she is prepared to lose her heart.
