Waiting for a Scot Like You by Eva Leigh

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Title: Waiting for a Scot Like You
Author: Eva Leigh
Series: Union of the Rakes #3
Published by: HarperAudio
Release Date: February 23, 2021
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Zara Hampton-Brown
Length: 8 hours and 26 minutes
Genres: Historical Romance
Source: Libby
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2023 Audiobook Challenge, Lenoreo's 2023 COYER Chapter 2
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iTunes ✩ Libro.FM ✩ Chirp
My rating:

Blurb:

For a merry widow and a stoic major, it’s a bumpy road to love…

Adjusting to life in peacetime isn’t easy for Major Duncan McCameron. Escorting a lady on her journey north seems like the perfect chance to give him some much-needed purpose. That is, until he learns the woman in question is the beautiful, bold, reckless Lady Farris. She makes his head spin and being alone together will surely end in disaster.

Beatrice, the Dowager Countess of Farris, is finally free of a stifling marriage and she has no plans to shackle herself to any other man. Ready to live life to the fullest, she’s headed to a week-long bacchanal and the journey should be half the fun. Except she’s confined to a carriage with a young, rule-abiding, irritatingly handsome Scottish soldier who wouldn’t know a good time if it landed in his lap. But maybe a madcap escapade will loosen him up...

Between carriage crashes, secret barn dances, robbers, and an inn with only one bed, their initial tension dissolves into a passion that neither expected. But is there a future for an adventure-loving lady and a duty-bound soldier, or will their differences tear them apart?

My Review:

4 stars — While I definitely enjoyed this one, there were moments where I felt like the conflict drew out too long and I was impatience for growth or change…and probably on a personal note, I had a harder time remembering the issues of the times and Beatrice’s very valid avoidance of remarrying.  Maybe because I just love my own marriage so much, sometimes it’s hard to see the resistance.

The narrator for this one was different from book 2 (though looks to be the same as book 1, which I haven’t read yet), and I definitely enjoyed her…but something about her voice for Duncan, especially during steamy scenes, didn’t always work for me.  Again, just a personal taste thing, nothing to do with her capabilities.  Her pacing was good, her emotion fantastic, and her voices quite clear and different.

These two could not have been more opposite on so many levels — from their desires for the future, the way in which they embraced life, lived experiences, just so much.  But it was the perfect opposites attract in that they grew and changed because of the other person.

Duncan was so rigid in his life’s expectations, and it was a combination of the way he grew up and what he was taught to value, as well as the training from his time as a soldier.  It was wonderful to see him lose some of that rigidity, and learn that taking chances could be very rewarding.  And he could be so sweet and caring.

Beatrice, on the other hand, was looking to embrace as much freedom as she possibly could, and balked at any expectations placed on her.  The lessons she had learned from her previous marriage and her life up until that point had her vehemently opposed to strictures and rules.  It was great to see her understand that her experiences weren’t always the norm, and there was room to compromise.

I loved seeing the push and pull between them as they encountered disaster after disaster.  And hoo boy, the steamy scenes were STEAMY.  But I will admit that they frustrated me as a couple too, b/c they were both so strict on what they wanted, and they couldn’t see that compromise.  Duncan made me roll my eyes at one point when he pushed the issue, b/c it felt like he hadn’t been listening, but Beatrice also frustrated me with not trying to look for compromises and communicate her feelings to Duncan.  It just took them both longer than I would have liked.

While I’ve enjoyed the very loose Breakfast Club vibe to the Union of the Rakes, there were a few other homages to 80s movies in this one, and one of them felt more ham fisted and forced instead of natural and fun.  But maybe that was just me.

I was so glad that we got to see bits of Rowe and Curtis’s story in the background, though they really deserve at least a novella of their own.

I’m excited to go back to the start and read Sebastian’s story, I’ve definitely enjoyed the series so far!