REVIEW: What a Wallflower Wants by Maya Rodale

What a Wallflower Wants by Maya Rodale is a lovely book, the newest addition in Maya Rodale’s “Bad Boys & Wallflowers” series. It also deals with dark subjects, and in a tasteful manner that doesn’t either turn maudlin or is treated too lightly.

Prudence Merryweather Payton is a graduate for Lady Penelope’s Finish School for Young Ladies of Fine Families, and she has been invited to the one-hundredth anniversary fete. There is a problem… Prudence is not married, and is in her 4th season after graduation, and the only graduate to have not married after such a long time. Prudence doesn’t actually intend to marry, since in her first season she was sexually assaulted during a ball, and this has quietly devastated her life. However, Prudence has decided to take her fate into her hands, and has found a man not physically interested in her to marry: Cecil, Lord Nanson, who would like his mother to stop nagging him. However, Cecil turns out to be a terrible coward, and pushes her out of a carriage when threaten by a highwayman. Prudence is resourceful, and finding that she is on the side of the carriage away from the highwayman, she flees into the forest. As she is getting away, Prudence comes to the rather sad conclusion that men were altogether no good.

Cecil ought to have protected her; instead he’d abandoned her. The vicar hadn’t shown her any mercy. It proved to her, once again, that regretful truth: men never came to save the day. A girl was on her own. She’d do well to remember that.

While trudging along, a handsome man in a carriage comes alongside her and offers Prudence a ride. She refuses, not wanting to be alone with a man she doesn’t know. Finally he moves along, but later waits for her at the first inn at the town. He is John Roark, Viscount Castleton, and he cannot resist a damsel in distress. He arranges a room and a bath for her, and Prudence, bedraggled, exhausted and soaked through, gratefully accepts. John is on a winning streak, and is headed to the Great Exhibition in London, so he can speak to the builders of the Difference Engine about manufacturing it. He’s in a hurry, the Great Exhibition starts in only seven days, but is held back by terrible weather—Prudence, John, and a family of five, and the town drunk are basically held captive by unrelenting rain—giving Prudence and John a chance to get to know each other outside the constraints of society. It is all going rather pleasantly, until Lord Dudley, the man who assaulted her, and who Prudence thinks of as “The Beast,” also become trapped in the inn with John and her. Obviously, a confrontation is brewing.

And there is so much more. This book is a little bit like those presents you get where you open one box… to find another… and then another! This book has a plot that doesn’t flag, and does keep the reader’s interest. The characters are delightful, with John Roark possibility being one of the most swoon-worthy heroes of this year: noble, intelligent, sensitive, and defender of the helpless. He has many faults, but his good parts definitely out weigh the bad. Prudence is a wonder; while the assault could have completely destroyed her, and it certainly did suppress her life, it didn’t take away her inner spunk and spirit. I know this review doesn’t say much about what the book is really about, but take my word for it, it’s a great finale for a fine series, and worth the read.

Book Info:

Published September 30th 2014 by Avon

Miss Prudence Merryweather Payton has a secret.

Everyone knows that she’s the only graduate from her finishing school to remain unwed on her fourth season—but no one knows why. With her romantic illusions shattered after being compromised against her will, Prudence accepts a proposal even though her betrothed is not exactly a knight in shining armor. When he cowardly pushes her out of their stagecoach to divert a highwayman, she vows never to trust another man again.

John Roark, Viscount Castleton, is nobody’s hero.

He’s a blue-eyed charmer with a mysterious past and ambitious plans for his future—that do not include a wife. When he finds himself stranded at a country inn with a captivating young woman, a delicate dance of seduction ensues. He knows he should keep his distance. And he definitely shouldn’t start falling in love with her.

When Prudence’s dark past comes back to haunt her, John must protect her—even though he risks revealing his own secrets that could destroy his future.