Pedigree Press, $0.99, ISBN 978-1393706106
Historical Romance, 2020

Meet Gareth Rothwick, the hero of Victoria Oliveri’s One Seductive Summer. Rotwick is the fifth Earl of Mallory, and he is very bored.

You see, his parents were both virtuous people, so he rebelled, and he is still in his teen angst rebellion phase in spite of being… hmm, I don’t recall his age, but whatever it is, he’s really way too old to be like this.

At any rate, now that his parents are dead and his sister has popped out some brat that he can passed his title on later, he is completely free. We all know earls have no responsibilities to deal with, what with the magical elves leaving pots of money at the foot of their bed every morning and gold coins falling out of their rumps each time they have a episode of flatulence.

Unsurprisingly, he is bored. All that debauchery is boring him, so fortunately, our virtuous heroine Damaris Kenrick is here to admit him into that wonderful rehab center between her legs before our hero has to resort to unfortunate means to assuage his boredom like growing up, getting sober, discovering mindfulness, and other horrifying emasculating things.

She is forced to accept his hospitality when her carriage breaks down while he’s having his parties, and from that moment, they go horse riding (in an innocent way, of course) and do all those “Ooh, we’re so falling in love, but we won’t admit it!” stuff, until she is told that she has to marry him because of propriety and what not.

Naturally, she refuses to consider being his wife because while she may give him access to every inch of her body without any promise of marriage, she is a virtuous moral woman so she will never try to force a man to do anything that he doesn’t want to, even if it would mean her utter ruination, exile from polite society, and likely 17 different strains of virulent STIs.

It’s a good thing, therefore, that Rotwick has magically discovered maturity, accountability, and penicillin after checking himself inside her rehab center, so he does the right thing with her, instead of saying “Alright! Free honey!” and leaving her to rot while happily moving on his next conquest. Dum dum dum dum, here comes the happily ever after.

Well, if the whole thing sounded like something that one may have read many times already, that’s because this is basically trope central, served without much of a warming up first. It’s very predictable from start to finish.

The only good thing about this one is that the author’s style is polished enough to make it a readable, well-paced, and even well-structured story.

Well, that and it’s only $0.99 when it’s actually longer than a typical story that comes with that price. This makes it a pretty good value for money should one wants a comfortable trip down a very familiar path to happily ever after.

Oh, and please don’t tell me I call the hero Rotwick instead of Rothwick. I know.