Wicked and the Wallflower
by Sarah MacLean
3 stars
Sarah MacLean begins her new Bareknuckle Bastards (what a name!) series with Wicked and the Wallflower This Regency romance brings us Lady Felicity Faircloth, a shunned daughter of the nobility, and Devin (AKA Devil), the illegitimate son of a duke. Devin’s father, who never had a legitimate heir, gathered his bastard sons during their childhood and pitted them against each other to be picked has his heir. The sons came to an agreement that one of them, Ewan, could inherit the dukedom…but only if he never married. They didn’t want their abusive father’s genes to be carried on. When, years later, Ewan enters the scene announcing his intent to marry, Felicity is thrown in his path. Devin steps in to put the kibosh on the engagement by ruining Felicity. Of course, as the reader might expect, Felicity turns the table on him. While the ending is a given from the beginning, MacLean has written engaging characters that grow delightfully throughout the novel. Their love story is a great adventure. I look forward to the next book in the series.
Read-alikes:
Scandal in Spring by Lisa Kleypas
Then Comes Seduction by Mary Balogh
Whitney, My Love by Judith McNaught
Especially with the onset of full day kindergarten our preschools have been pressured to restructure their curriculum to focus more and more on academics. Now teachers and therapists are noticing an alarming trend: Children are not emotionally or physically prepared for school! Children are falling out of their chairs, they don’t know how to share, and they are exhibiting anxiety and sensory issues. The cause for these maladies the experts say is that children are not allowed to simply play anymore. With the emphasis on academics we have misguidedly neglected the skills that children naturally developed when allowed to have unrestricted play.
