4.25/5. Releases 4/25/2023.

For when you're vibing with... Second chance romance, capital g Groveling, big men who just don't feel like they're good enough, and some seriously hot sex scenes.

Dom and Will were seemingly perfect for each other--until he left her at the altar. A year later, the two haven't even spoken, despite Dom's sister marrying Willa's brother. But at a house party on a secluded island, Willa and Dom have been unexpectedly thrown together by their friends--and are forced to confront not only their feelings for each other, but why Dom really left.

Holy shit. This is a hot book, especially by traditionally published romance standards. But it's also a fun and very emotionally soft love story. They go hard between the sheets but then you're like "awww", which is really something that I personally love.

Quick Takes:

--Eva Leigh's Last Chance Scoundrels series is uniformly good. I'd recommend each book, and they're all hot, too. But it's done a great thing: it's gotten better with each book, and it's gotten hotter with each book. It started with Dom leaving Willa on their wedding day, and it ends with their romance. That's how you fucking do it. Well done.

--There's a challenge to this story. Dom did a really shitty thing, and you have to believe in this romance taking place over the course of several days, but also over the course of all this time and courtship we really don't see. This isn't a book with true flashbacks. Yet, Eva Leigh sells it because Dom and Will have such real, pain-laced chemistry, and because they're both so lovable as individuals. He's a big guy who's had all the training and money he needs to hide his lower class origins, but still can't (and doesn't really want to) conceal who he actually is. She's an English rose on the surface, with a dirty streak and a desire to be known and loved for her true self. They clearly deeply love and value each other, not just on a romantic level but as friends--they just need to get to the point where he feels worthy and she believes in and trusts him again.

--If you like a big guy/firebrand girl who has him wrapped around her finger dynamic... this is it. Willa is so fucking strong and bold and outspoken, without ever giving way to NLOG syndrome, due to her real pain and vulnerability. Dom is like... a fucking mess of a man. Hulking and dominant one minute, and my fucking cinnamon apple the next. There's a moment towards the end where he is just so precious I.... couldn't handle it. However, another aspect I loved of this book is that it very explicitly calls out that Dom has put Willa on a pedestal, and she'd very much like to be touched and treated like a real woman. What a great thing to see confronted in romance.

--This is a pretty quick and straightforward story, and I think that it is done in that respect, almost perfectly. But I will say that, though I'm not surprised about The Thing... I do think it could've been a bit twistier. That being said, it's not a big deal and doesn't detract from the story in a big way at all. The point here is really not plot (and not every romance novel should have a huge plot beyond the love story) it's feelings.

--I will say that I also absolutely love a house party historical, and this is a great one. They're on an island, they can't escape, there are all these lush people doing sexy things and getting up to mischief. I'm fucking for it. More of this! The setting also allows Leigh to really lean into the Parent Trap vibes of it all. Oh no, we need two people to do this sexy thing together. Who could possibly do it???

The Sex Stuff:

Uh. Yeah. This is hot. Dom and Willa are both switches, and Leigh uses that to full effect, with some light bondage, a little bit of dominance and submission on both sides, blindfolds, riding crops, that one thing you practically NEVER see in (het, trad) historicals. And it's all done in a way that totally serves their relationship. I loved how unabashedly, unashamedly horny Willa was, and I loved how much Dom loved that side of her. This is a book wherein two people who have been wanting to rip each other's clothes off since they met finally get to do that, and you feel it.

One of the things I really loved in terms of "sex as character" in this was a moment in which Dom has Done An Act and realizes that he could potentially have visible physical scars left over later. And he wants that. Because he got those scars serving her, they're a remnant of her pleasure, her ownership of him. That.... is some good fucking shit right there.

This is a great finish to the series, and perhaps my favorite Eva Leigh book yet. I feel like she put a lot of work and creativity into this, and it was immensely satisfying to see her do her thing.

Thanks to Netgalley and Avon for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Now that I’ve finished up this series, the first that I’ve read from this author, I’m going to be going all in on her books. I loved this book and loved this series as a whole. I appreciate the backbone and grit of all the MFCs and the support and open-mindedness of the MMCs. I really hope her other stories are as progressive.

This book had me all in even before it started. One, because I’ve been itching to know what happened between Dom and Willa. Two, because the author had a heartfelt acknowledgment to start things off.

What I didn’t expect from this book was one of my favorite things. Turns out, Willa and Dom didn’t know each other that well. Being the little sister of his best friends, I assumed they knew each other quite intimately. Not so. These two weren’t so much in love as in love with an idea when they got engaged. Willa enjoyed sticking it to her uptight parents by dating someone outside the nobility, even if his family is now respectable and rich. Dom was proud someone as beautiful and elegant and who was “properly” bred was willing to be courted by him. It wasn’t such a bad thing their marriage didn’t happen. It gave them both time to appreciate what they had been building. Both needed to reach certain realizations about their relationship and their role in that relationship for it to work.

Watching Willa and Dom grow as characters and grow into a couple was everything. The way Dom’s nickname for Willa changed as he got to know the true person beneath the dresses and manners. He had always known she was fierce and headstrong, but he never dove into the reasons or how her personality shaped her interactions with her parents. Willa understood on a surface level that Dom worked his way up in the world through labor and good luck, she didn’t understand what that meant and the sacrifices he made along the way for his family.

I love that this is a forced proximity inside a forced proximity. The couple is on an island at a house party with all of our favorite characters from the previous two books. There’s no getting off this island until a boat from the mainland comes to resupply the house. They are thrown together over and over by their meddlesome siblings and they sure didn’t hate it, no matter how they tried to act as though they did. Dom does the sweetest things; not trying to win Willa over but trying to make the awkward situation more comfortable for her. That man had me swooning!

This story was the perfect ending to this amazing series. I’m going to close this out with a quote from the book that sums things up perfectly.

“The scoundrels had all found their perfect, “respectable” brides, but no one knew that the appearance of respectability was merely that – a veneer that barely concealed the strength and power and rebelliousness of women who would always follow their hearts, with men beside them doing all they could to support their wives’ journey to greatness."