The Gentleman's Gambit

October 2, 2023
Dunmore gives her Victorian-era League of Extraordinary Women series a worthy finale (after Portrait of a Scotsman), this time turning the focus on budding author Catriona Campbell, the timid but opinionated daughter of a Scottish earl turned Oxford professor. Catriona is suffering writer’s block at Applecross, her father’s crumbling Scottish estate, when her father, stuck in Scotland on business, tasks her with accompanying his handsome colleague, Elias Khoury, to Oxford to catalogue ancient artifacts. There’s just one problem: Elias doesn’t actually plan on cataloguing the artifacts—he wants to reclaim and return them to his native Beirut. When Catriona learns of the scheme, she’s in total agreement with Elias’s goals and even offers to help—so long as it does not take time away from her and her suffragist friends’ plans to persuade members of Parliament to their way of thinking. This subplot offers a welcome chance to check in with the series’ previous leads as, all the while, Catriona and Elias inevitably grow closer. Catriona is wary of love, but Elias is determined to convince her of his sincerity. The protagonists are as sharp and forward thinking as series fans will expect, and there’s plenty of sensuality to keep the pages turning. It’s a top-notch series ender. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary.

October 1, 2023

Dunmore concludes her marvelous "League of Extraordinary Women" series with Catriona's story. Along with her friends, she is fighting for women's suffrage, largely based out of Oxford, where she is a scholar in a world that doubts her ability. Prickly, brilliant, worn out, Catriona has resigned herself to watching her friends fall for men who adore and support them, pushing out of mind the several occasions when those in her own life have cruelly let her down. When she meets Lebanese businessman Elias Khoury, she discovers that he is another man with a hidden agenda--using her family as an entry into Oxford, with the intent of somehow returning pilfered artifacts back to the Middle East. Set against the background of cultural theft, colonialism, and women's rights, Dunmore keeps her finger on the raging pulse of Victorian England. Not since the aching story of Bringing Down the Duke (and Annabelle and Sebastian get great cameos here) has this strong series been as emotional. Its raw edge is less sweeping romance than inch by inch battle for progress and hope. The redemptive yet reflective epilogue serves as a series capstone. VERDICT A notable ending to a beloved quartet.--Neal Wyatt

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Starred review from October 15, 2023
A suffragist meets her match in a handsome scholar who's more than he seems. Bookworm and intellectual Lady Catriona Campbell has always felt that her mind works differently than most people's; an introvert, she seeks retreat in the idylls of her family's remote Scottish home rather than enduring the restrictions of proper society. It doesn't help that all her past attempts at romance have ended poorly, but it certainly doesn't mean that finding a new relationship is a priority for her. All that changes when she encounters an intriguing stranger--or, more accurately, he encounters her while she's swimming naked in the nearby loch, starting their relationship off on a memorable note. The catch is that the gentleman in question, Mr. Elias Khoury, isn't just handsome; he's her scholarly father's young colleague at Oxford, which means he's certainly not for romancing. When Catriona's father asks her to escort Elias to Oxford so he can examine some ancient Middle Eastern artifacts, she's forced into close quarters with a man with whom she needs to remain unmistakably professional. Meanwhile, Elias has a hidden agenda for getting close to Catriona--he's actually planning to steal back the artifacts so they can be restored to their rightful place of origin in the Levant. Seducing her isn't necessarily part of that plan, but their attraction to one another, as well as their growing connection, is undeniable. Dunmore has written an exceptional conclusion to her League of Extraordinary Women series. Not only does this story revolve around redefining the types of characters who receive a romance--Catriona seems to be neurodivergent and Elias is more of an outsider than most heroes--but it also refreshingly tackles the question of who gets to be the custodians of history, and the answer to both topics is well worth the journey. A bold, illuminating finale to a feminist romance series.

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Starred review from November 1, 2023
Elias Khoury arrives at Applecross Castle in Scotland intent on charming Professor Alistair Campbell, earl of Wester Ross. Instead, Elias finds himself charmed by Alistair's scholarly daughter, Catriona. Initially, Elias planned to use Alistair as a way into Oxford's Ashmolean Museum as the opening move in Elias' gambit to repatriate some ill-gotten Middle Eastern artifacts from a British collector. But that plan takes an unexpected turn when Alistair is called away on business. The question now becomes, can Elias trust Catriona? Or will Catriona call checkmate on Elias' plan, while at the same time becoming the queen of Elias' heart? The fourth dazzling entry in Dunmore's inventive League of Extraordinary Women series delivers everything historical romance fans crave, including superbly nuanced characters, sizzling sexual chemistry, and a fascinating plot that gracefully pivots from Middle Eastern antiquities and linguistics to the British women's suffrage movement in late Victorian England, and chess as a means of flirtation. Effortlessly erudite and endlessly entertaining in equal measures, this is a romance worth cherishing.

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