This is the first book that I've read from this author. It is the second book in a series. It does stand alone but I do wish that I had read the previous book first. Octavia is an unusual female in that she owns a gambling establishment. It would have been interesting to read the first book which features Octavia's older sister and shows more of their backstory.
Gabriel is an interesting man. He has a sad back story but he is not as emotionally damaged as some characters are. He went to university and is an expect on Mythology. I was concerned that his course of study did not lead him into any sort of career. He wasn't even working as a professor! He probably had a good inheritance from his father.
This book has lots of enjoyable dialog and many interesting supporting characters. There is no violence and quite a bit of steam. Gabriel and Octavia are friends with benefits throughout much of the book.

Octavia's character matures during the course of the story but Gabriel liked her despite the fact that she would sometimes act impulsively. Gabriel has a very stabilizing influence on Octavia.

This book was an enjoyable enemies to lovers romance. Thanks to NetGalley for a free digital copy of this book.

Immediate Reaction: I always love Megan Frampton’s book too much. After reading so many books this week I knew this one was going to be a perfect ending point. It did NOT disappoint.

The spoiler-free summary: After taking a loan from a less than reputable source Octavia Holton arrives in the village she grew up in to sell her childhood home. She desperately needs the money to save her legs and her sisters. Unfortunately, when she arrives Gabriel is naked and lounging claiming his father won their property.

All the things I loved:

This book is so funny and delightful! It is light and wonderful.
The chemistry: I love how Gabriel was so into her from the very beginning. They fall in love in such a natural way I was giddy just reading it. The spice was just right for the type of story it is.
The side characters are THE BEST.
The bonding regarding their difficult childhoods.

The things I didn't love:

It took some time for Octavia to grow on me.

This did not work for me. The only part I really enjoyed was the fact that the LI was a mythologist, that was a great addition and the ending of the book with the Persephone bargain worked really well even though you could see it coming. The rest of the book was simply not inviting. I didn’t see a lot of chemistry btn the 2 LIs and their drama about the house and it’s inheritance was far fetched and dull. In particular the female character Ophelia was not compelling. It seemed that she was supposed to know nothing about all the myths that her LI was telling her and yet her dog was named Cerberus, which made no sense. Her sisters involvement was shrewish and dull and I just didn’t buy any of it.

I have been waiting for Octavia's story since Never Kiss a Duke. I was expecting a story a bit edgy based on Octavia's moments of rebellion or expectation. What Frampton delivered was one of my favorite reads! I'm expecting this to be an instant hit in 2022!

Four Weeks of Scandal is part of a series by Frampton. It can certainly be read as a stand alone but pairs nicely with the first book in the series, Never Kiss a Duke. On an impulse, Octavia leaves behind her sister and gambling club to claim her father's estate. Not thinking it through she brings her dog but nothing else for the journey. There is no doubt that the estate wouldn't belong to her and she is desperate for the money. What she finds is a very handsome gentleman emerging from the water (like Mr. Darcy played by Colin Firth).

What follows is witty banter, mystery, humor, so much heart and some steamy romance. Octavia meets Gabriel and they have an instant connection over their troubled childhoods with their fathers' extreme gambling. What I love most about Gabriel is his patience, love for found family and his scholarly mastery of greek mythology.

I loved this book so much and I'm sure historical romance readers will agree! #MeganFrampton #FourWeeksofScandal #NetGalley

There were many things I loved about this novel and nothing that I didn’t enjoy. It was a treat from start to finish. The highlights were a relationship that developed in a realistic fashion, the inclusion of created family and the rural setting.

Gabriel and Octavia are the children of two men who both compulsively gambled. Neither of them have much money but both have a belief that they can lay claim to a house.

Gabriel and Octavia only have a month’s acquaintance but their proximity to each other and their common purpose in turning the house into a home work to make their love believable. They are around each other constantly and with a common purpose, even if their eventual goal is at odds, and adding to their believable love story is the addition of physical intimacy.

Gabriel and Octavia have to pretend to be engaged. This necessitates hiring a chaperone who brings with her a cook and a maid and a young stable hand. These are all people with no where else to go just like Octavia and Gabriel. They are people with no or few people and they slowly become each other’s people. They form a family. They make the house a home.

I also liked the rural setting. So many books are set in the haute ton of London that it was refreshing to read a romance novel set among struggling working people. There are only so many scenes of a woman buying out a modiste shop that one can read before a change is needed. This book provided a refreshing change of pace.

In conclusion, this book was excellent and I highly recommend it.

I've been looking forward to Octavia's books since I first read, Never Kiss a Duke! Octavia has been a headstrong character since first introduced in her sister's book. She was in need of money to revamp her gambling club and took out a loan from a loan shark. She received notice that her father died and she's looking to sell the house to pay off her debt. Octavia meets Gabriel (a man she was once almost gambled away to) in a sexy meet cute. Gabriel is thankfully nothing like his terrible father but also claims that we owns the house. A partnership ensues for one month to prove once and for all who owns the home.

This book is better understood if you read the first book in the series (Octavia's sisters book.) It offers a lot of insight into how Octavia and Ivy grew up and got to own the gaming hall. I really loved the chemistry between Octavia and Gabriel. Gabriel knew early on that he was head over heels for Octavia. Their banter and attraction made me love them as a couple. The secondary characters made Octavia's character soften a lot and provided a sense of family.

Tropes included: fake engagement, hero falls first, working heroine, sex pact, instant attraction, found family, forced proximity

Thank you to Megan Frampton, NetGalley, and Avon Harper Voyager for this eARC. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I loved this! I knew I had wanted something light and easy to finish 2021 off with, and this fit that so well. It was the perfect read for the end of the year, and I loved it so much more than the last book from this series.

My favorite thing was definitely the main romance. I was a bit thrown off by the instalove, but that stopped bothering me as soon as these two actually got together. They were so sweet! I loved how much they cared about each other, you could feel it through the pages. And the smut definitely didn't hurt anything...

And this one did something that almost no historical romances do. It established a cast of super loveable side characters. The family Gabriel and Octavia built was so precious. Every single character was super loveable, and the way they all worked together was touching. I loved the extra depth it added to our main characters. It was a small detail, but made this so much better.

Id gone a little while without reading a historical romance, and I'm so happy that this is the first one I picked up. It was the perfect mix of angst and tension. I'll definitely be continuing with this series!

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

2021 was the year that I discovered I like reading historical romances and this book did not disappoint. When I saw in the description of this book that Tessa Dare fans would enjoy this book I immediately had to jump on that as she has become a solid author for me. I was intrigued by the description of this book, and some of my favorite tropes appear: forced proximity, found family, man falls first... I had a good time with this one.

I love how not only do we get to fall in love with Octavia and Gabriels characters, but also the other side characters in this book. So often in books when side characters are added (especially in romance books), they are sort of forced into the novel simply so that there aren't just two characters we're focusing on and they tend to just add unnecessary pages to a book, the side characters in this book do not do that. You end up really loving everyone you meet in this book.

I also really enjoyed getting to see Octavia grow into a better person, one who understands that she doesn't always have to do everything by herself. I genuinely like her character, she was funny and very relatable! Now the question you want answered: is it spicy??? Yes, I would give a solid 2.5/5 for spice, we're not talking extreme here but it is definitely there!

Overall, a really good, fast paced read and I would 100% recommend giving this one a shot!!

Part of me wants to go back and read the previous book in the series to see if Octavia Holton's character was as flighty and childish as she came off in this book. It was to the point that she came off as extremely self-obsessed.
My biggest annoyance in romance novels is when one character runs all over the other one for really no apparent reason other than they can.
Gabriel Fallon was a nice guy but too much of a pushover when it came to Octavia.
The side characters were enjoyable, but not enough to make up for the mismatch in the lead characters.

Not a bad book by any means, but if I'm going to recommend historical romance to someone, I don't think I would choose this one.

Though I don't know what level of spice Frampton was trying to achieve with the sexual scenes, overall I really liked this book. The main characters, Gabriel and Octavia, spend a month trying to prove ultimately who owns Octavia's father's house after both their fathers die. Gabriel wants to live in the house and make it q home and Octavia wants to sell it and use the money on improvements for the gambling "hell" she owns in London. They create a little family in the house, search for promissory notes, and fall in love, all while Gabriel teaches the group about Greek myths. The sexy side went from a censored X rating to a true X rating and it seemed a bit weird that the scenes weren't either much more PG rated, or were truly an X, but I could overlook that since I enjoyed the romance and the main characters.

3.5 stars

Gabriel Fallon travels to see the latest addition in his late father's gambling acquisitions-the former Holton manor, but he gets the surprise of his life when Octavia Holton shows up and claims the house is hers. Gabriel has the vowel that states Octavia's father gambled and lost the house to his father, but Octavia is positive that she is still the rightful owner. They make a deal--if Octavia can find proof she owns the house, Gabriel will leave. The deal ends in one month, but the more time they spend together, the more they wish the end of the deal would never come.

This was a different sort of romance with the heroine doing what most men would consider shocking-owning a gambling hell and making her own decisions about her life without relying on a man. I have mixed feelings about Octavia. She was rather rude and arrogant in the beginning, but there was definitely some growth in her character when she realizes there is no shame in asking for help. Gabriel on the other hand was so likeable and honorable that you couldn't help but fall in love with him. I loved the Greek mythology thrown into the mix and the secondary characters fleshed out the story nicely. Some parts of the story dragged a bit, but overall I was happy to see that Octavia and Gabriel finally found their HEA.

This was a nice, refreshing story. I felt so good after I read it, and I think that is an important point.
The heroine and her sister were the daughters of a gambler. Their mother had died when they were pre teens and they lived with their father as he spiraled out of control. The father actually lost the eldest daughter in a bet between their father and another man, Mr. Fallon. Mr. Fallon wanted the eldest daughter to marry his son, since they were of similar ages. The eldest daughter spoke with the heroine and then eldest daughter used the heroine as a stake in a card game where the eldest daughter won her freedom back and she promptly took her younger sister with her to London and they started a gaming hall. But their gaming hall was designed to make sure people did not over gamble. And the business took hold and made them money. The elder sister's story is one of a series and so is this story.
The heroine believed her father when he said he would always have a place for them to live. And since the father had passed away, she was going back to the village, clean up the cottage, sell it and use the funds to pay off the renovations she had done to the gaming hall. She had used a money lender and didn't tell her older sister. So she HAS to sell this house to pay off the debts. She has arrived at the house and her dog runs in the back garden, to the pond, and there is a naked man, bathing. He also has a dog. A pomeranian. The heroines dog is a mastiff. The naked man is very upset because he has a paper that says that his father, the same Mr. Fallon, won the house in a game of cards. His father went home to celebrate and burnt the house down with him in it, celebrating. So the man, the hero, has moved into the heroine's house. They agree, after fighting to look for proof. If there is proof after Mr. Fallon's father won the house, that he lost it back to heroine's father, then they had to find it. The fathers of the heroine and hero had been gambling buddies for years and would gamble and lose things to each other back and forth, the item going in and out of possession repeatedly.
Like I started with, I enjoyed this story very much. The characters acted like people in present day had time ported back to the Regency time period. The heroine was very independent and went around with no chaperones. The hero was used to seeing women without chaperones or servants. Even though the characters spoke and acted like contemporary people do, I still enjoyed the story. It is fiction and it never would have happened in the time period like it did, even though we are discussing the gentle working class, the heroine owns a gambling hall and hero is a scholar. I still enjoyed the whole book and highly recommend with 5 stars.

Megan Frampton's continuation of A Hazards of Dukes series gave us Octavia and Gabriel HEA which was adorable. The come together to claim an inheritance on opposing sides but end up working together. Octavia was extremely guarded with her feelings and emotions and Gabriel was able to show her love. I enjoy their story and how they worked together.

I've read a zillion such novels but this is a new author to me. And wow! Now I'm going to have to purchase all of her books to read! But great H/h especially H. And great, HOT sex scenes. We LIKE steamy scenes. If you want "sweet" there are plenty of those on amazon--find one you like and use the related books section to find more. But if you want steamy, well, start here! Well done, author!

Megan Frampton is back with another great duo in Four Weeks of Scandal!

Octavia + Liv flee their small country town as young women after their father uses them as a wager in his latest bet. They are able to provide for themselves by opening their own gambling hall but, unlike the ones their father frequents, they make sure that their clients are never staking more than they can afford to pay.

When their father dies, Octavia returns to the home to prepare it to sell to pay off a loan shark she borrowed money from to make improvements to the club. But when she arrives she finds the handsome son of a man her father frequently gambled against, who claims the house is his after his father won it in a bet shortly before his death. Gabriel is a scholar who longs for a stable place of his own to call home.

As the two clean the home and look for clues as to who the rightful owner of the home really is, they begin to find more than what they were looking for. As they bond over the their similar pasts, they also both find themselves longing for a future --- despite the fact that Octavia belongs in London with her business and Gabriel belongs in this quiet, provincial town. They settle on "The Pomegranate Compromise", which is a perfect compromise indeed.

Laced with charming secondary characters and many references to Greek mythology, this was a lovely read! I've only read one of the Hazards of Dukes books so far, and look forward to going back to the beginning to read the origin story of Liv + her husband Sebastian, who make a cameo in this book.

Sweet - ✓
Steamy - ✓
Swoony - ✓
Satisfying historical romance - ✓

I really did enjoy this one. This was my first title by the author and I'm going to read more of her work.

I loved this book!! It was fun and I read it in an afternoon. I would recommend this book to anyone who's a historical romance reader.

So this wasn’t what I expected and I’m still going back and forth with how I feel. I loved the juxtaposition of the myths but the pacing was just way off. It was sexy but had too much drama for my liking. All in all, this was pretty middle of the road.

I was already both a fan of this author and this series and this book did not disappoint! The juxtaposition of the myths with the main story was satisfying and creative. The character growth really brings the reader and and gives nuance to the story. I highly recommend!