Dawn Brower, $0.99, ISBN 978-1393456681
Historical Romance, 2019

Lady Evelina Davenport, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Livingstone, is a wallpaper.

I suppose there has to be an excess of hot heiresses with huge dowries in England at that time, as Dawn Brower wants me to believe that the heroine of Love and Mistletoe is singularly incapable of attracting the attention of any suitor for three seasons in a row. It’s not like Evelina is malformed in any way, and she doesn’t have any diseases that make her inherently unsuitable for wedding and bedding.

Then again, what’s a historical romance without some faux modesty on the heroine’s part, eh? The whole “Oh, someone actually finds my big breasts, narrow waist, and willowy tresses the hottest ever? I can’t believe it, to win the love of the hottest man in the world without doing anything on my part, but if y’all insist that I am the hottest women ever in existence, I suppose I must modestly believe y’all and humbly take my place as the most perfect woman in existence…” act is always so adorable… at least, if you ask these authors.

Naturally, Evelina can’t believe it, she really can’t, when Prince Luca, the Crown Prince of Dacia, seems interested in her.

He was oh, so handsome with his dark wavy locks and sea-green eyes. His tanned skin only added to his appeal.

Naturally, Evelina is humbled and dazed when he thinks that she’s hot stuff.

All the ladies were smitten with him and verbally attacked her without actually speaking to her. There were harsh whispers and rumors spoken about her. Many questioned her parentage. They started to wonder if she was really a duke’s daughter or if her mother had had an affair. They were nasty and mean, and Evelina hated them all. Their jealousy had turned them all into shrews.

I can smell the smugness radiating off our heroine.

That’s the whole story in a nutshell. Evelina spends her time fluttering like a disingenuous snowflake constantly doubting Luca’s desire for her. She desperately needs validation that she is indeed the hottest woman ever, that the hottest man in the world wants her despite being an ugly buxom hag of a model-esque troll.

Occasionally some of her friends from previous stories pop up, and yikes, they are of the same mold. They too can’t believe how they managed to score hot husbands with their hideous ugliness, blah blah blah.

The whole story seems designed to give momentary reprieve for people that know that they are hot crap but at the same time want to imagine that they are modest and humble and so UwU. Hence, instead of shoving their hotness to everyone’s faces, these twits like Evelina will instead create all kinds of dramatic episodes of insecurities and self-doubt, because they love hearing other people assure them that, yes, they are indeed hot and even better, they are hot and humble and hence mega awesome.

All this nonsense gets really tiresome and juvenile fast.