Tabetha Waite, $0.99, ISBN 979-8201614690
Historical Romance, 2022

Tabetha Waite starts off A Jolly Little Scandal with the heroine Lady Araminta Bevelstroke and her sisters talking about stuff they already know to one another because… hmm, maybe they are aware that the reader is observing them and they don’t want the poor fellow to feel left out, I guess.

“We are the latest novelty, Minty.” Isadora’s dry voice came from next to her. She was the eldest of the Bevelstroke sisters at eight and twenty. “Four sisters with different mothers who have found means in which to live independently without the ties of marriage? Why, the drawing rooms are a veritable beehive of activity that we should prefer this sort of meaningless existence.” Her lips lifted at the corners. “We will be creating a stir for some time, I imagine.”

Hmm, maybe one of those sisters can’t count, so the number of romance heroines in this series need to be pointed out in case that sister fails to show up for her own story?

“I agree with Isa,” Calliope tossed her red hair and added to the conversation from where she sat behind her two elder siblings. “Since this is our first public outing, we’ll likely be in the papers tomorrow, even though we moved in just yesterday afternoon.” She turned to the quiet blond woman at her side who had yet to voice an opinion. Olivia was the youngest of the Bevelstroke women. At only eighteen years of age, she was barely out of the schoolroom. “Surely you have an opinion, Livy?”

Isn’t there a more elegant way to dump exposition onto the reader? May as well just put up the characters’ profiles on some website and place a QR code or link for people to go there and catch up.

Anyway, these desperately showy “LOOK AT ME-EE-EE! I AM SO DARING AND UNCONVENTIONAL WHEE-EE-EE!” sisters are out in town after the death of their father, and Araminta catches the eye of Greyson Hartfield, the Earl of Somers. After all, there is nothing so unconventional like a romance heroine marrying a nobleman!

He spots her because she is all in red—LOOK AT ME-EE-EE! I AM SO DARING AND UNCONVENTIONAL WHEE-EE-E!—but our heroine is too busy fighting off the jealous hisses of bitter women trapped in their conventional existences and resenting her ability to go out to parties and what not all dressed in red. Naturally, one of them is Greyson’s ex because it is so unconventional to get into cat fights with mean girls.

When she realizes that he wants her, she’s like nope, marriage is not for her because, remember, she’s all EE-EE-EEE and UNCONVENTIONAL WHEE-EE-EE. 

She laughed, the delightful sound going straight to his groin. “I don’t know why people find that so difficult to believe. I am a woman, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make my own way. Several women in history have done just that. Look at Jane Austen.”

You know, I’ve loved to see these romance heroines spend a week in Jane Austen’s shoes and live the life she had. They would probably wilt in two days, having to actually spend hours writing and hustling and worrying about money and what not!

Anyway, the rest of the story is as predictable as can be when one has read enough of these faux-unconventional heroines and their dreary conventional stories.

In the end, she marries well, continues to live the life of an idle dilettante while trying so hard to convince people that she’s so LOOK AT MEE-EE-EE, SO UNCONVENTIONAL BAY-BEE-EE-EEE like she’s trying to convince herself more than anything else. 

Is this story bad? Well, it may be a tough one to swallow if the reader quickly tires of the constant I AM SO UNCONVENTIONAL WHEE-EE-EE proclamations on every other page, or they just want a story that is a little bit different from the stuff available out there. 

Personally, I’m unimpressed by this thing, but I can’t say it’s particularly bad in any way aside from its lack of originality… well, and the annoying WHEE-EE UNCONVENTIONAL ME-EE-EE nonsense that just won’t quit. My god, that last one is really grating on my nerves after a while.

You know what they say: if you have to keep bashing it into people’s head to make them believe, it probably isn’t true in the first place!