Review: What a Widow Wants (The Widows' Club #3) by Jenna Jaxon

Print Length: 352 pages

Publisher: Lyrical Press (December 18, 2018)

From Goodreads.com: Fanny, the widowed Lady Tarkington, has finished mourning her cad of a husband and is ready to enjoy her freedom. The kind of freedom neither a gently bred miss nor a close-watched wife is permitted: dressing up as Aphrodite for a masquerade, drawing gentlemen away from the party, and hinting at late-night assignations with her dance partners. All is going pleasurably according to plan—until the Roman warrior Fanny kisses during a masque turns out to be Matthew, Lord Lathbury, whose proposal she refused years ago.

Lathbury is charming, passionate, inventive, everything Fanny wants in a lover—but unfortunately, he's on the hunt for a wife. He's more than willing to use all his wicked skills to persuade her back to the altar, but he can't wait forever. And now Fanny's position is more precarious than she once thought. If the tongues of the ton set to wagging, it's possible no offer in the world will save her from ruin. But does she want to be saved?

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My Rating: 2 stars out of 5

The good news is that although this is book number three in this series, all of the books take place during the same time-frame (with some events overlapping to the point they take place during the same exact time). This means that while this story focuses mainly on Matthew and Fanny, you learn enough about the others to make you want to go back and read their stories (if you haven't already). Thankfully, if you haven't read them, it won't decrease your enjoyment of this story.

The bad news? I feel like the book that I read was a completely different one from the one listed in the synopsis. Fanny and Matthew reconnect at the start of the book - so there is very little to be had in regards to her being "a wicked widow". Perhaps I would overlook that if their entire relationship wasn't tedious and predictable. He loves her. He proposes to her, she turns him down, but continues to string him along while she "gets to know him" or whatever.

They finally decide perhaps since they are constantly in each others beds they should get married. But first! Insert what I'm sure the author was hoping to be a shocking surprise, but has become so commonplace that I saw it coming from a mile away secondary story which leaves them at odds. 

Insert some random filler here, a couple of twists, and low and behold they realize they truly cannot live without each other and they marry. All the while leaving people like myself wondering why Matthew waited for so long and continued to wait when all she did was spurn him, how Fanny's "methods" could work one minute and fail the next, and just how either of them expected to make a good match this time around when they only chemistry they seemed to have was in the bedroom (or wherever they happened to be when they became over set with their lust for one another). 

I am sure this novel will appeal to fans of this author and this series. Just as I'm sure there will be people who pick this story up and immediately fall in love with it. But at the end of the day, it just was not for me. I would read more from this author however, as I have read other stories by her and enjoyed them much more than this one.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

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                         What a Widow Wants is available from Amazon.com