07 December 2015

Lord Dashwood Missed Out by Tessa Dare (Spindle Cove #4.5)

Summary from Goodreads:
A snowstorm hath no fury like a spinster scorned!

Miss Elinora Browning grew up yearning for the handsome, intelligent lord-next-door…but he left England without a word of farewell. One night, inspired by a bit too much sherry, Nora poured out her heartbreak on paper. Lord Dashwood Missed Out was a love letter to every young lady who’d been overlooked by gentlemen—and an instant bestseller. Now she’s on her way to speak in Spindle Cove when snowy weather delays her coach. She’s forced to wait out the storm with the worst possible companion: Lord Dashwood himself.

And he finally seems to have noticed her.

George Travers, Lord Dashwood, has traveled the globe as a cartographer. He returned to England with the goal of marrying and creating an heir--only to find his reputation shredded by an audacious, vexingly attractive bluestocking and her poison pen. Lord Dashwood Missed Out, his arse. Since Nora Browning seems to believe he overlooked the passion of a lifetime, Dash challenges her to prove it.

She has one night.

The first Tessa Dare book I read was A Week to be Wicked and I fell in love with her banter and silly nerd jokes.  Which means I fell in love with Colin, who tells some naughty math jokes.  So I've been waiting and waiting for Colin to reappear (we got a wee bit of Colin in Any Duchess Will Do).  I got my wish with Lord Dashwood Missed Out, where he, Griff, Rycliff, and Thorne have to go out and find a missing author who is supposed to have arrived for a reading at Pauline's bookshop in Spindle Cove (PS: if you haven't read any Spindle Cove books, you probably won't know who these characters are).  There are jokes and swashbuckling and silliness, which are my favorite parts of Tessa Dare novels and a sweet B-plot for Pauline and Griff involving missing sherry.

The main plot of the novella, that of Nora - the missing author - and her pamphlet about a man who missed what was under his nose and the globe-trotting Lord Dashwood who was her childhood friend and obviously the dude who "missed out" is sweet.  I don't feel like their backstory was quite strong enough to support the relationship outcome in this novella, so perhaps it needed more pages, but it was a fun read.  Clearly, my favorite parts were the ones with Colin.

Dear FTC: I received a DRC of this novella from the publisher via Edelweiss.

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