Look Before You Leap

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

Miss P had seen something in her to handpick her. Her! Lottie Travers! Tomboy extraordinaire.

Look Before You Leap is second in the Miss Prentice's Protegees series but you could start here easily, like I did. Lottie was the tomboy who was raised on a farm with four brothers and lost her mother at a young age, young woman trying to smother her wild streak in order to make it as a governess. She has a leg up by having been trained at the lofty Miss Prentice's but after two failed governess jobs, she was busted sneaking out and riding horses in the morning, along with kneeing a bent on assault heir, her marketability is lessening. She winds up getting placed as a companion to an older “dragon” lady, who also winds up being the aunt to a man she accidentally unhorsed when she ran into him during one of her wild gallops.

Except the sea was now poisoned and he had learned his lesson well that love was for fools.

Lord Guy Harrowby is a Viscount who much prefers to remain isolated on his farm in Kent, where Lottie is originally from. He made a fool of himself when he was twenty-one over a woman who was only using him to attract a duke and has let the shame fester in him over the years. He lost his father when he was younger and now his mother is guilt tripping him hard to let her throw him a thirtieth birthday party because she wants grandkids. It's all shenanigans as Guy's mother and aunt conspire to throw a house party, instead of the one dinner party he agreed to, and rope Lottie into it all. Guy's still angry at Lottie for the unhorsing incident and how she reprimanding him for it but by 40% they've both made their apologies to each other and you can see their friendship start to develop.

He had been engaged in a full-scale war between what his sensible, battle-scarred head and his clearly still reckless but equally battle-scarred heart wanted.

There's physical attraction to go along with that building friendship, a lot of bonding over horses, and some steamy, but interrupted, foreplay (there's an open door scene later on). I was not a fan of how much it was iterated how shallow, dumb, and annoying all the other woman were that were invited to the house party. It becomes very tiring that a chunk of the way you lift your main female character up is to constantly put down the majority of the other woman characters. The series seems to be tied together by a group of friends Lottie had at Miss Prentice's but we don't see a ton of them together, which I missed.

The menace hadn’t just seduced him, she’d thoroughly bewitched him because nothing would shift her from his mind.

The third act breakup had Guy going completely off the rails with how mean he is verbally to Lottie and ended up feeling forced to me. I know he's still dealing with his issues of betrayal from his first love but Lottie so clearly didn't deserve the harsh blame. It had been built and layered that Guy was this man of the little people, had visited her father's farm and had her talking to him about how she sent money back home for them, so readers have been reading about a character that by all accounts understood Lottie couldn't lose her job and would feel compelled to do what her employer told her to do. Instead we get a forced to disregard those building blocks in favor of a snapping Guy. It caused drama but the scene and his actions just didn't feel true to me.

She grabbed a fistful of his cravat. “Just shut up and kiss me.” Lottie dragged his mouth to hers as she simultaneously yanked him inside.

The ending has Guy making that public move he never would have been able to in the beginning but since we've seen him fall in love, doesn't think twice of it for Lottie. Lottie had charm in her stubbornness and I liked Guy until I really didn't when he blew up on Lottie, and with a very abrupt ending, they got their HEA.