Review: The Wallflower Manifesto (Ladies' Revenge Club #2) by Ava Devlin

                                                                    

Print Length: 334 pages

Publisher: Ava Devlin (June 30, 2025)

From Goodreads.com:  Millie Yardley has never fit the mold.

Older than her newly married sister, curvier than society deems fashionable, and perfectly aware that no one expects her to do much beyond fade quietly into spinsterhood, Millie decides to try something new.

When she accepts the position of lady’s companion to the formidable Dowager Countess Bentley, Millie returns to a London that looks very different than the one she remembers. Suddenly, there seem to be many ways to be a woman. Bold ways. Complicated ways. Ways no one ever told her were allowed. Her pen can hardly keep up with every stunning new thing she sees, all of it a revelation for girls like the wildflowers in a sea of English roses.

Abe Murphy isn’t stalking anyone! He’s investigating.

Former Bow Street Runner turned private agent, Abe is looking into a case on behalf of his irritating housemate, London’s most notorious reformed scoundrel. The last thing he expects is to get caught by a sharp-eyed wallflower with a devastating mind and no patience for nonsense.

To distract her, he ropes her into an old jewel theft investigation he long ago gave up on. But Millie doesn’t give up. Not on a mystery, and not on a challenge like Abe Murphy. As their reluctant partnership turns into something far more intimate, Millie’s private writing takes on a life of its own. When her manifesto is published without her consent, it sets off a chain of events that could destroy reputations—or save lives. And Abe may be the only man willing to stand beside her when it matters most.

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My Rating: 3 stars out of 5

This was another case of a romance being so slow-burn that it almost forgot to actually be a romance. Which is a shame, because the banter between Abe and Millie was genuinely top tier. Watching them simultaneously amuse and irritate each other was easily the highlight of the book. But when Millie confidently defends Abe near the end by insisting she knows him, I found myself wondering… does she though? She didn’t know who he was living with, didn’t know basic details about his family, and overall it felt like the emotional leap happened without enough groundwork for it to be believable.

As for Abe, I have questions about his investigative skills. Considering he’s a former Bow Street Runner, it surprised me that Millie was the one to figure out an obvious lead in his ongoing jewelry thief investigation. The idea that he overlooked something so straightforward felt a little puzzling to put it mildly. And his methods at times bordered on unintentionally funny, especially when he seemed to think spying involved lurking dramatically outside ballrooms and trailing people through the streets like he expected the answers to fall from the sky.

One pleasant surprise, however, was the Dowager Countess of Bentley. Given what we knew of Freddy, I expected someone entirely different, but instead she was delightful to read about; an older widow fully embracing freedoms long denied to her both as a debutante and as a married woman. Honestly, I would happily read more of her adventures in London society.

Freddy himself was another unexpected highlight. He’s still flawed, still battling his demons, but he is also a far cry from the man introduced in the first book, and it was satisfying to see him face consequences and show real growth (though I know my sister is still cursing his name over the infamous iron skillet incident). 

And of course, Queen Mab remains the true star of the series. Her ongoing mission to antagonize Abe, particularly her perfectly timed interruption during his first kiss with Millie,  never failed to make me smile, especially when you consider that she is after all, a cat. 

The secondary plot involving the manifesto, however, didn’t quite land for me. We’re told it’s important and controversial, but without actually seeing excerpts of Millie’s writing and what exactly it entailed, it was hard to fully grasp why it caused such a stir. We're told a debutante ran away because of what was written, we're told a group of servants went all in and bought a boarding house together, but we are never given something to make us understand why they did those things. From the way it sounded, the manifesto told them that life could be different; could be more than they thought, but it didn't give explicit instructions on anything life-altering. Or maybe it did, again we don't get to read any of it, just hear about it secondhand. 

However, all things considered, I did enjoy this installment more than the first and plan to continue the series for at least the next two books (after a short break). Slow burn aside, the characters and humor are enough to keep me invested, for now at least.