Review: An Unusal Wager (The Mismatched Lovers #4) by Fil Reid

                                                                 

Print Length: 288 pages

Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing (March 8, 2026)

From Goodreads.com:  One night, Verity Farrington’s father, an inveterate gambler down on his luck, stakes the only thing he has left to wager on a last hand of cards, and loses. What he’s lost is far more valuable than mere money – it’s his daughter. He’s lost her to one of the worst rakes in London, a man known as the Black Earl for his dissipate soul.

But Verity, the veteran of a life spent roaming Europe with some dangerous escapes from angry creditors, is made of stern stuff. Mindful of debtors’ prison threatening her dear papa, on the morning after that fateful card game, she turns up on the doorstep of Jonathan Wintringham, Earl of Dunster. He’s more than a little taken aback: he was so drunk, he’s forgotten all about winning that final wager. Things only get worse when his best friend, Walter, turns up and recognizes Verity as his long-lost cousin.

Jonnie Wintringham is tall, dark, and devastatingly handsome. He’s been Earl of Dunster since he was only sixteen, and from an early age has led the sort of life of indulgence Verity can only imagine. Until he realizes he’s compromised Walter’s cousin, he’s harbored no intention to get leg shackled in the near future. Thanks to Walter’s horror-stricken reaction, Jonnie decides marrying her could be quite fun, and if it gets him an heir, it will shut up his bothersome family for good.

They agree to a marriage in name only, and he sends Verity to his country estate, Luxborough. Once there, she discovers he has an estranged mother, an illegitimate half-sister, and a very dark secret he’s shared with no one. Not an auspicious start to a marriage.

But when Jonnie is attacked by supposed random footpads and is taken to Luxborough to recuperate, things could well take a turn for the better when Verity has to nurse him back to health.

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My Rating: 2 stars out of 5

Right off the bat I can tell that this novel is not going to be for everyone for one simple reason; your average reader does not want to have to consistently look up the meaning of the words the author has chosen to use. I consider myself both well-read and well-educated and there were a couple that I had to look up myself. Some examples of the words used are: lugubrious, efficacious, interlocutor, pedantic, obdurate, impecunious, and chatelaine just to name just a few. 

Now moving on to my review; I spent most of this novel wanting to strangle both of our main characters.

Jonathan is, quite frankly, an egotistical jerk. At one point he actually positions himself dramatically by a window so Verity can admire him, and when she doesn’t react the way he expects, he concludes that she must either have a “heart of stone” or be short-sighted. As if that weren’t enough, he becomes offended at the mere possibility that she might not be a virgin, despite the fact that he openly boasts about the numerous women he himself has slept with. The hypocrisy alone was enough to make me roll my eyes more than once.

Verity, unfortunately, wasn’t much easier to like. She spends nearly the entire book offended by the fact that Jonathan assumes she isn’t a virgin after winning her in a game of cards and then having her show up the next morning to “pay the debt.” Yes, it was insulting, but given the way her father behaved and the situation she walked into, it wasn’t exactly a shocking conclusion for him to reach. The fact that she clung to that insult for most of the story made her eventual feelings for him feel forced rather than natural.

Speaking of the couple themselves, they spend so much time apart, without even exchanging so much as a single letter, that by the time they’re reunited, I honestly didn’t care anymore. I understood her empathy toward him after his injury. Yes, he told her some of his past and that was great, yes she told him she thought originally he needed to be “taught a lesson”, but again, the deeper interaction that needed to be there to make this believable just wasn’t there for me.

In fact I would go so far as to say that their reconciliation felt less like the culmination of a growing connection and more like the story deciding it was time for them to end up together.

Sadly, there was also quite a bit of unrealized potential in the various subplots as well. 

For example, Verity’s aunt takes her in after learning she’s engaged to Jonathan, yet despite the fact that Verity is about to become a countess, there is virtually no effort made to teach her the etiquette or expectations of society. I would have loved to see scenes of Verity learning how to navigate that world, perhaps learning to dance with her cousin Walter, or having her aunt explain the ins and outs of society. I mean, for heaven's sake, who ever heard of a Countess who was overwhelmed by the thought of a formal dinner? 

Jonathan’s family dynamics also felt underdeveloped. His mother despises both Jonathan and Kitty for what she believes were their roles in the accident that killed her husband. I couldn’t help wondering whether her feelings might have changed if she had known the full truth. As it stands, she claims to hate Jonathan’s uncle, yet seems oddly unconcerned that the same man is plotting Jonathan’s death in order to inherit. And speaking of the uncle, his entire storyline simply… stops. After the attempted assassination, he essentially disappears from the story with no real resolution.

On the flip side of things, there was one plot device that immediately gave me the ick. When Jonathan reflects on his past, he mentions that his womanizing began before he inherited his title. But he inherited that title when he was around fifteen years old. The implication that a fifteen-year-old boy was already deeply involved in that kind of lifestyle was unsettling and completely unnecessary. It didn’t add anything meaningful to the story and instead came across as a bizarre attempt to emphasize his supposed reputation.

And then there’s the ending. Yes, technically the story gives us a happily-ever-after, but there’s very little emotional payoff after everything it took to get there. It essentially boils down to, “We have feelings for each other now, so we’re going to stay together at his country estate for a while.” And… that’s it. What happens after that? Do they bring Kitty to London? If so, how do they explain her connection to Jonathan's family? Does Jonathan ever tell his mother the truth about what really happened? Do they have children? Considering people in society know about her father's reputation, is Verity accepted in society? Does she learn how to navigate it? These are all things I would have liked to have seen, even briefly if not in the story, but at least in an epilogue. 

Because this is the fourth book in the series, I may eventually pick up one of the earlier installments to see if perhaps there’s something I missed, or if this particular book simply isn’t one of the author’s stronger ones.

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