Evie Dunmore - The Gentleman's Gambit

Bookish suffragist Catriona Campbell is busy: An ailing estate, academic writer's block, a tense time for England's women's rights campaign--the last thing she needs is to be stuck playing host to her father's distractingly attractive young colleague.
Deeply introverted Catriona lives for her work at Oxford and her fight for women's suffrage. She dreams of romance, too, but since all her attempts at love have ended badly, she now keeps her desires firmly locked inside her head--until she climbs out of a Scottish loch after a good swim and finds herself rather exposed to her new colleague.
Elias Khoury has wheedled his way into Professor Campbell's circle under false pretenses: he did not come to Oxford to classify ancient artefacts, he is determined to take them back to his homeland in the Middle East. Winning Catriona's favor could be the key to his success. Unfortunately, seducing the coolly intense lady scholar quickly becomes a mission in itself and his well-laid plans are in danger of derailing...
Forced into close proximity in Oxford's hallowed halls, two very different people have to face the fact that they might just be a perfect match. Soon, a risky new game begins that asks Catriona one more time to put her heart and wildest dreams at stake.

Comment: This is the fourth installment in the League of Extraordinary Women series, whose first books I read in the beginning of 2022 Now, two years later, the quartet is finally finished and I must say that while this was a good addition to the series, it wasn't as fascinating to me as the first book, which I loved. Nevertheless, I like this feeling of having finished another series.

Catriona is the last heroine of the group of suffragist friends but she isn't certain she would be as happy, as they are now, if she were to marry. She likes her solitude moments and she already has a lot to do, between her academic work and her suffragist campaigns, which means she isn't interested in romance. However, while at her family's estate in Scotland, she is swimming naked and as she leaves she sees a man looking at her. Although flustred, she goeas home to find the stranger again, as a guest of her father.

Elias Khoury knows his different culture and origin doesn't make it easy to accomplish his goal, but being sponsored by Wester Ross is half way to find the artifacts stolen from his country, which he plans to recover in any way possible. He can't help being interested in his daughter Catriona, though, not only because she intrigues him, but because she is someone he could love... but between duty and love, what will prevail between these two?

As I expected, this was a good follow-up to the previous stories, featuring this group of rebel women who want rights for women to be approved. The story, as a whole, made sense and I liked reading it, but in my personal experience, the time between the release of the third book and this one (why is now irrelevant) kind of cooled down my dedication, and I feel the urgency to read just wasn't there, as it had been when I was reading the other books.

That aside, I've also seen some negative reviews and even though I have not read them fully, just seeing the grades in some sites did influence me. Therefore, I feel positively surprised I still enjoyed this book, but I'd put it at the same level with the third, which I liked too, but the second was so much better, and the first did win me over. I can only infer if there were more books,perhaps they would gradually become less captivating...

Well, Catriona is a heroine I could sympathize with because of her being rather introverted. I found myself nodding at some of her thoughts, and I think I'd behave in a similar way in regards to her views on being around large groups of people, for instance. I think she is a quiet but interesting person and some of her reckless choices here and there did seem to be caused by emotions which one can relate to. In terms of the romance, I can understand why some readers found her to be too slow, too cautious, but I kind of liked this side of her, since it matched her personality.

Elias Khoury is a more complicated character to read, he did seem more aloof and when he was describing his ideas or when we could know his thoughts, even the ones about love and a possible relationship with Catriona, made him look not as easily approachable. I suppose the different origin (he is from Beirut) and culture and way of living in relation to the British and Scottish were ways to place barriers between them and why they couldn't simply give in to their feelings, but... the romance to me was good enough I'd say, but along with the plot moves, not as devastatingly compelling as the romance of the first book was.

The plot isn't difficult, basically Elias wants to recover artifacts which were taken without consent, and a big part of the conflicts, of the conversations between several characters is somehow related to this. Clearly, the author had an intention, which one can see as a good one, but the execution can feel different to different readers. There's also the issue of how they could be a couple, taking culture and geography into consideration. In this aspect, I think the solution was one we can accept but I can't really say if I feel it was the best one...

In general, I liked reading the book and I think it wasn't as bad as some people say, but yes, it didn't amaze as much as the others. The HEA between Elias and Catriona also had some little details that perhaps could have been done differently... then, there's the epilogue, several years in the future, with the main characters of the series at an older age. I mean, it was obvious why (especially thinking about the moment the author used to set the final scene) but I'll be honest and say I'd have preferred it to not exist. I think a simpler epilogue, or a slightly different ending scene without epilogue at all, would have been a better choice, in my opinion.

Grade: 7/10