hollanddavis 's review for:

The Gentleman's Gambit by Evie Dunmore
4.0
 
I think anytime an author writes multiple books in a series she run the risk of the characters blurring together, but Dunmore does a great job of all of her MCs feeling distinct and like their own person. This tetralogy can, yes, be categorized as a historical romance, but Dunmore does a wonderful job of fully immersing the reader into the causes of the characters outside of the romance itself. Sometimes you read a book with a subplot about the suffrage movement or art history or coal mining, but it feels surface level and you leave the book knowing no more about the subject than when you started. That's never the case with one of Dunmore's books, and I always appreciate her more for it.

The relationship between Catriona and Elias felt flushed out and real. The chemistry was there, the attraction, absolutely, but so was the time together to actually build a foundation of mutual trust and respect. We love to see it.

There were so many beautiful quotes, but I'll leave you with this

"Ghosts could be laid to rest. Patterns could be reversed. One could cross out The End and add another paragraph. And occasionally, one had to let go of a good thing to make room for a potentially better thing. It was a risk. But life, just by way of passing, eventually caused a change of circumstances anyway, so a woman might as well make the decision to be brave, and trust in her ability to navigate the unknown."