I am completely flummoxed over this book. While reading this story I simply could not connect with it or the characters. The story seems a bit rushed as far as the reading aspect of it. For example reading the narrative the pace feels as though I’m racing through the wording. As a reader I did not have the opportunity to enjoy a particular scene, any particular scene actually with the characters and the plot. This was a hard book to review. Until next time my fellow readers. Read on!

I enjoyed the idea of a historical romance with an older heroine. It's rare to come across one of those. However, this heroine unfortunately didn't read as older. She still felt very immature. It also felt like the romance was rushed and a bit unbelievable. All in all, this was fine, but not great.

First, I’ll start with the things I liked. The female protagonist is 40! Love this! A lot of the historical romances I’ve read have a FMC who is in her 20s or maybe early 30s, so I enjoyed having a more mature character. There’s also an age gap, as Theo is 28, which is twelve years her junior. I also thought the story started off strong, and I loved when Alexandra cut her mourning clothes off. It was a wonderfully symbolic scene that shows her shedding the pain of her past and exemplifies the new, free woman she wants to be.

The conflict, however, was not my favorite. After a steamy one-night stand., Alexandra realizes that Theo is actually the man intended for her step-daughter, who has recently entered the marriage mart. This makes for a pretty sticky and uncomfortable situation, and it was a little odd. I also didn’t love Alexandra’s character, especially as the story progressed. She is so insistent that she is free to make her own choices, yet her stepson really had all the control. Also, I wanted a bit more depth and development with Thoe and Alexandra, as well as their romance. Some parts of their love story felt some parts, like the inner conflicts and monologues, felt repetitive.

Overall, this was a good read. It’s steamier than the first book in the series, and the spice starts pretty quickly. The messages and secondary characters are also strong. I just wanted a bit more development and backstory.

I didn't like this one quite as much as I did the first one. I'm not sure why though. I am interested to see what happens to the rest of the "brothers" however and have a feeling that a few of the story lines are overlapping without our being aware of it.

Gosh, is this the year of seasoned female protagonists? Because I'm here for this!

This is a lovely historical romance that I did ultimately enjoy, I just took a 4 month break in between starting and finishing this. Not the book's fault, but mine.

Alexandra is recently widowed and out of her mourning period. He dead husband was an extremely controlling and awful man, and her step son is determined to marry off her daughter/his stepsister to make money after squirreling away the family's money. After a really rough period, Alexandra decides to take her life into her own hands and goes to a pleasure club where she meets Theo a man 10+ years younger than her. They have chemistry and this book is extremely sexy. It fully embraces female pleasure and what a good man can look like. I enjoyed this immensely and would recommend to anyone who loves historicals!

I adored Alexandra and Theo's story! It was so much fun watching these two find their HEA! I can't wait for the next book in the series!

A fun and steamy historical romance with memorable motif and lovely dialogue and description. Eager to read more from Megan!

So this is a hard one for me to review…I don’t enjoy the ‘I’m in love with my daughter’s intended’ trope. I’ve read it once or trice already this year and it just never sits well with me. Another thing I don’t really enjoy in my books are rudely independent women. I understand Alexandra was in a very smothering first marriage and is thrilled to be able to have an opinion and ‘relative’ freedom as a woman in Victorian society, but, she clearly loves Theo and he treats her a thousand times better than her husband ever did, she refuses to marry him! She was a jerk to him several times in the story and that broke my heart for the poor, orphan that just wanted a family! Theo would have (and did!) do anything for Alex and she just walked right over him. Again, it might just be my personality and personal opinions, but I couldn’t see pat those factors to truly enjoy the book. I felt sorry for Theo and I really hoped Alexandra would get it together, but she didn’t give in to a relationship with Theo until she was backed into a corner!

Not as good as the first, but not terrible. Interesting twist with who he courts. It’s nice to see an older heroine.

This was pretty good. I love a good age gap romance and it's even better when it's the herione who's older. I did feel that it got a bit repetitive with Alexandra always lamenting about wanting to have choices and make her own decisions. I get it, I just didn't want to read it every page or two.

DNF.. I was just not vibing with the writing and nothing engaged me at all in the first 20% - not something for me unfortunately which is a shame since I absolutely loved book 1's plot/couple dynamic.

This book was fantastic, in particular I loved the characters and the romance. It was a really fun read, however, the dynamic between the main characters was a bit contrived at times. Aside from that I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

This one felt like a historical romance I had already read before, so I didn't find it as compelling as other Megan Frampton books I have read. I also felt the relationship was too insta-love-y without giving enough of a compelling reason why the two could not be together. I did like the age gap trope (because she was older) and I think that was the main unique twist this book had.

Megan Frampton's new series "A School for Scoundrels" will follow the exploits in love of 5 London gentlemen. "His Study in Scandal" tells the engaging story of Alexandra and Theo. Alexandra is a widow who is done with mourning her deceased husband. Theo is the chosen groom for her stepdaughter. While resolving this complicated scenario, the two fall madly love.

What does a Duchess do when she finds herself falling for one of her stepdaughter’s suitor. She fights it at first then gives into Theo’s insistence. A great read!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book disappointing. It just didn't capture my interest.

Now widowed and the Dowager Duchess of Chelmsworth, Alexandra is determined to shed her mourning for the husband who wasted her dowry and ignored her when he wasn’t belittling her. Encouraged by her outrageous stepdaughter to try something new, Alexandra visits the notorious Garden of Hedon where she quickly finds herself in the arms of a mysterious man. They don’t exchange names, but she drinks in the pleasure he offers her, with neither of them ever expecting to cross paths again.

So, Alex is shocked when she learns her mystery man is Theo Osborne, the wealthy businessman her stepson is trying to convince to marry his half-sister, none other than Alex’s daughter, Harriet. Thanks to her stepson’s financial ineptitude, the estate needs the money this deal would bring, but Theo makes it clear he’s only interested in Alexandra. She, however, is determined never to enter anything permanent with a man ever again, although it rapidly becomes obvious that whatever is going on between herself and Theo is much more serious than an anonymous night of passion.

I was so excited for this book, especially when it jumped into a very steamy scene early on and had a large age gap with an older heroine. Unfortunately, my interest began to wane around the 30% mark when Alex was so upset and bitter that no one had ever stood up for her, but then she immediately bristled when Theo wanted to do so. She just seemed to keep spiting herself and I actually put this down for over a month before returning to it and getting it finished.

When I picked this book up again, I was quickly reminded of why I put it down. Alex was determined to never marry and place herself under a man’s control again, and yet she was very much under a man’s control even in her widowed state since her stepson controlled all her resources. It was very frustrating to me that she didn’t seem to want to admit this since that would mean admitting to herself that she truly would be better off with Theo.

Also, as seems to happen so often with the feminist themes that are so on trend in HR at the moment, we’re inundated with Alex’s repetitive inner monologues about her repression at the hands of the men in her life and she makes very little distinction for Theo, which I found very unfair and smacking of misandry. I get it. Women are oppressed. I live that every day and don’t need to be reminded of it in my escapist romance reads and this heroine just beat that topic into the ground.

Theo’s utter obsession with pleasing Alex was adorable but, quite frankly, I was left feeling like she didn’t really deserve him. He certainly didn’t deserve her erratic treatment of him. For instance, she was adamant in her refusal to give him any kind of commitment or to allow him to commit to her, yet she stressed over the thought of him with anyone else, even as she toyed with him and kept him at arm’s length. The whole thing just had me puzzled and hating how unequal their relationship was. It was super unfair that Alex forbade Theo from speaking to her of his feelings, then turned around and used the fact that he hadn’t spoken of his feelings as a way to convince herself that he saw their relationship as nothing but temporary. It was like she was continually setting up these weird, manipulative tests for Theo that he was always going to fail, enabling her to justify her warped views and gaslight him.

I think Alex was supposed to seem noble and self-sacrificing, but for me she just came off as stupid and immature. She was way too wishy-washy and willfully ignorant of all logic. Theo did everything he could to support her choices, but all she could do was rail about her independence. Even when she did actually need rescuing, she was too blinded by her own stubbornness to see or admit it. For me, she ruined the whole romance of the relationship and the deliciousness of the age gap. She was so determined to be independent that she spent the whole story keeping herself from what she actually wanted, all the while continually forgetting that her independence was nothing but an illusion. She never could seem to recognize that Theo wanted to give her more freedom, not take it away, so it really seemed like she had no concept of anything.

I’ll try not to be spoilery, but you do run that risk from here. Y’all know I hate the third act breakup anyway, but most especially the faux noble ‘I love him so I can’t marry him’ line. What a load of hogwash. In the end I wanted it to be her who went to him and her who groveled, though of course we were never going to get that. She persisted in criticizing how he loved her and thinking he needed to change when he was the one deferring to her whims the entire time. I also loathed the plot device deployed in the last chapter. It was wholly unnecessary and kind of ruined the age gap allure for me a bit.

To me, misandry isn’t sexy or romantic, so the mood of this book was pretty much brought down. Love is precious and rare, and Alex didn’t give it nearly enough respect or cherishing. Especially after how much I adored the first book and how highly I’ve been anticipating the stories of this adorable guy group, this one wasn’t really what I was hoping for.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Alexandra, the Dowager Duchess of Chelmswich , 40 years old has been doing what she has been told to do most of her life. Her parents told her who to marry, and her much older husband told her what to eat, what to wear, who to talk to….you get the picture. She had a terrible marriage to an unfeeling man. Now that her morning period is over she’s ready to bust out and she is never going to let a yo e run her life again. I loved the first half of this book. We see Alexandra literally cutting “her widow weeds” dress from her body at the dress makers and be fitted for a new wardrobe. You see she has her daughter, Harriet’s season to manage. But before that all starts she has one thing she needs to do. She wants to have some good, anonymous sex with someone at the Garden of Hedon. Theo Oswald, 28 is a self made man, orphaned but raised by a kind businessman man he has come up in the world and enjoys life to the fullest. But there’s one wish of his adopted father he has yet to fulfill: Marry into society. Well wouldn’t you know that Theo has made an arrangement with the new Duke of Chelmswich, Alexandra’s son-in-law, to marry her daughter. He goes off to the garden to have one last hurrah before meeting his intended. He happens to meets Alexandra right away and they have a good old time. Alex goes back to planing her daughter’s come-out now sexually enlightened. Well you can imagine when they meet again, that this is going to be interesting, but Theo’s a good guy and there’s no way he will marry the daughter of the woman he just banged and let’s Alex know that. Unfortunately the new Duke needs Theo’s $$ in exchange for some parliamentary privileges for Theo’s business so the Dukes having none of this. And Alex is pissed because here’s Duke Jr. forcing her daughter into a marriage just like she was. I want to say that I was pretty engaged with this book for about 60% of it. I like that there is a reversed age gap and that the author doesn’t harp on it and make that the central issue to the MMCs not being able to get together. I also enjoyed a few of the side characters. But after 60% I started to loose interest, I just wasn’t really feeling any chemistry between the two, and by 80% I just skimmed to the end. The author threw a few plot twist here and there but they just seemed forced and then the ending was just so predictable that it was disappointing that it was used. It’s too bad as I really enjoyed the first book in the series and like the other side characters enough to continue reading this series, but this book was just meh.
I was kindly given this book as an ARC by NetGallery for my unbiased review.

All that I can say is, holy hotness!! Megan Frampton’s 'His Study in Scandal' from the School for Scoundrels series brought me to life and gave me all the feels. Our heroine Alexandra, the Duchess of Chelmsworth is middle aged and right out of morning from her piece of garbage husband who left much to be desired and certainly was nothing to brag about in the bedroom. Enter our hero Theo Osborne the hot, virile younger man who has no qualms about showing Alexandra what she had been missing for a wild night of passion at the Hedon garden. But oops, Theo turns out to be the gentleman who is presented as a suitor for her daughter Harriet, what dilemma, what spice! Frampton strikes again is all I can say.

VERDICT Frampton follows up the first “School for Scoundrels” book, Her Lessons in Persuasion, with another scorching pairing. Recommended for romance fans who like it hot, hot, hot.