SUCH good angst! This is exactly my kind of book, even if the heroine's plainness was mostly inconsequential. I love when both main characters believe their love is unrequited! (4.5 stars) ( )

I hardly ever set a book aside once I've started it, but I'm nearly a third of the way in and it's just too preposterous to be at all enjoyable to me. I especially like books with female writers, and I was willing to go along with the premise that she's interested in the Duke as inspiration for a book character. But putting aside that you don't really need to know a Duke personally in order to write about one (her sister even says something like 'you've never met a highwayman but you still wrote about one of those', when she finally comes in contact with a Duke (because no other title could possibly work apparently), she nearly disregards him completely because he's blonde and she pictured her character with dark hair. !? No one is *that* stupid. And it's not like there's a plethora of young Dukes that she could possibly speak with as a nobody from the country. She's also in quite a precarious position in life and yet she's rude and entitled. I could honestly write at least a dozen other absurd aspects (the hero questions if she's a daughter of the host, because she's rooting through his desk (even though she already has paper and pencil so there's really no need...) and no decent stranger would do such a thing, she then asks him if he's the host's son, which is either equating merely standing in the room with being as bad as rifling through someone's personal things, or she doesn't realize that a son of the house wouldn't need to ask if she's their sister, lol, and honestly I can't tell which it is.) But it's not worth the additional time to enumerate them. I quite enjoyed the first book in this series, but the following books have been 3,2,1,3, and this DNF. I'll still likely give Caldwell another shot some other time, but I'm not nearly as enthusiastic as I was just after the first book! ( )

So we begin our story with Hermione and Elizabeth, two young ladies, devoted sisters whose biggest concern in life was whether or not young ladies paint or their evil governess. But in one blink of an eye everything is changed and for one of those sisters, their idyllic childhood has gone. Fast forward 11 years and now Hermione has to sacrifice everything to keep her family safe and in the process destroys the one thing that she wants so much.
Sebastian, Duke of Mallen is not a normal Duke; he doesn’t lie about and do nothing with his life. He is an honorable man who cares about his family and their happiness. Content remaining a bachelor, then a young lady catches his eye and everything changes.
And there we start Sebastian and Heromine’s rough and tumble relationship, until Hermione betrays Sebastian and damages his love for her. Their lives are forever tied but their relationship tumbles downwards at great speed…can anything save it???
The writing is flawless, the story is enchanting and there was not a plot hole to be found. I LOVE Hugh and Addie, but would quite happily throttle Aunt Agatha (the old bat).
Again I am blown away by the sheer talent and imagination of Christi Caldwell! Every book of hers that I read makes me think I have been born in the wrong time period and I end up wishing that I was a part of the book. So I give Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love a very well deserved 10 out of 10.
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