Emma, Olivia and Prudence are wallflowers and though they started their first season with high hopes, they’ve come to accept their position. Until it’s their fourth season and their finishing school’s annual reunion approaches. No one in their school has arrived at their fourth season and unmarried in a 100 years! They certainly don’t want to ruin their school’s reputation so these three unlikely wallflowers end up in a mad romp across countryside, stables and barns to find a marriage of convenience. . . Only to find a marriage of love. This trilogy relates to Rodale’s contemporary Bad Boy Billionaire trilogy so it’s an interesting mix of regency with modern anachronism and thoughts so you are forewarned. Also there is computer talk. Okay, Difference Engine talk.

1. Wildflower Gone Wild: Olivia is society’s Least Likely to Cause a Scandal or Prissy Missy. An unfortunate moniker as Olivia is chafing against the rules of ladylike etiquette drilled into her head. When her parents give their permission to Phinn Cole aka the Mad Baron, Olivia is determined to rebel. If she was to have a marriage of convenience, she doesn’t wish it to be with a man suspected of murdering his first wife! And only wants her because she’s docile! So the wallflower goes about in the most rdiculous ways of proving she’s wanton, drunk, and utterly untamable. Not very well but it does serve to intrigue Phinn who is reeling from that volatile first marriage. He thought he wanted a docile wife, but Olivia’s spark makes him reconsider. I really enjoyed how Olivia’s clumsy attempts at being wild actually reveal her internal crisis in she doesn’t want to be a lady who embroiders and does watercolor, but if she doesn’t obey rules, she doesn’t know what she really wants? She’s not the obedient miss but being the extreme wanton mistress isn’t her either. And Phinn may have a temper and a dark past, but own struggles with balancing the two extremes lead them to have a really romantic midnight rescue that just made it all click. “Make your own rules,” is a new way to flirt and I loved it. Yes, a lot of this requires some ridiculous conclusion-jumping and suspension of disbelief but the whole trilogy is like that.
2. What a Wallflower Wants: Are you there, God? It’s me, Prudence. A nice twist on a classic line and reveals the darker subject matter of the book as Prudence no longer believes that God is good. There are no princes who rush to the rescue. Men are terrible in general. After being raped in her first season, Prudence has given up on the idea of true love and happily ever afters. However, she hadn’t expected her marriage of convenice, Cecil to push her out of the carriage at the first threat of a highwayman! She manages to escape to a local inn but her small hope of having a content future of sham marriage are shattered. Luckily for her, the same inn is the current lodging of one Lord John Castleton who is immediately smitten by rain-drenched miss with a guarded heart. I’m first to admit that insta-love (in just John’s side) isn’t my cup of tea but I was willing to let that go because John is really the perfect man for Prudence to start feeling again. Honestly, he’s too good to be true and while Rodale gives him some depth it’s in the third act of the book where it feels too late to add all this character backstory. But I’m willing to let go of the fairytale vibe of this because Prudence is the star of the story and it’s wish fufillment where her assault is depicted with sensitivity and respect to her growth as she struggles to fight the fear that has haunted her since that night and the feeling of shame and brokenness that no one will love her or believe her if they knew the truth. Especially in that time period. Many regency romance books play with the threat but here Rodale goes through it and its aftermath so I respect her for that. However, she does give a bit too much page time to the assaulter in my opinion. Not to justify him but to break between Prudence/Castleton to show his scheming ways felt too cliche villain for me and unnecessary after he set the third act conflict in motion. We don’t need more of his thoughts thank you.
3. The Wicked Wallflower: The first book in the trilogy sets the tone of the series as modern meets regency which felt a bit disconcerting as I more used to historical accurate regency but it reminded me of Eva Leigh’s The Union of Rakes which was a 80s-regency rom-com mash-up so I learned to roll with it. Here, it’s a sham marriage where Emma gets the Duke of Ashcliff to pretend to woo her in order to kick a fire under her long-time courter, Benedict. If he gets jealous, maybe he’ll finally propose to her despite not being rich enough for his father. Emma posing as his fiance may give Ashcliff an air of respectibility so his great-aunt will keep him in the will. But as with most fake relationships, you know real sparks will fly and they do generate some steamy scenes. However, the constant back and forth between the two of whether their feelings are real grow tiresome and puts this in last place.

Honestly, the women are the real stars of the show as only Phinn remains in my memory compared to the other heroes but I do applaud Rodale’s ambition with What a Wallflower Wants so it’s worth a look.