The narrative really turned me off from both POV. Eleonora quickly takes the narrative of not like Luke other girls which is my least fav for women. She doesn’t want to marry, she doesn’t like things such as novels, she likes history! She turns men down when they ask for her hand, not like other girls! Then at the very beginning he was comparing her to his mistress and said of course she was better looking cause she was 10 years younger…. Dude your older than both of them… I tried let this introduction go as I read but I couldn’t I just kept thinking back to these things. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Really not a fan. The only thing I appreciated about this was that the main character’s autism was depicted well with respect to her not wanting to be touched. An age gap of 19 (her) and 38 (him)? Gross. The insta love? Absolutely not. And the author referring to autism as “Asperger’s” is grossly outdated, having autism myself. Wouldn’t recommend.

A mistaken compromise leads to a sham engagement between Jack, a wealthy older (38) rake, and an autistic but brilliant, kind, and straightforward lady, Ellie. She throws him off his game, his flirtatious do not work on her, she does not like touch, and she is blatantly curious and undiplomatic. Jack swore never to marry. He already had an illegitimate son and was in love with an actress, only for it to later be revealed that the actress was a charlatan taking him for a ride. There is an ow scene that's unnecessary, a villainous plot with kidnapping, and of course, the romance.

Overall, this is a solid 3 in my mind. The characters themselves were compelling enough, but I felt the author threw in too many tropes that were not necessary.

#netgalley #AShamEngagement