How the Lady Was Won

Their second chance

After years apart, can a man repressing every sensation get a second chance with his estranged lively wife ... I have discovered this series with the Claiming of The Shrew, Colin’s former commander’s story. So I slowly meet the various survivors along my few reads. I do not think I liked Colin until quite later in the book, I resented him as a coward of the emotions, running away from any feeling that might unsettle or wound him. He is in fact a cripple of the senses. I can comprehend a bad experience or a trauma leave scars but to the point to shut everyone down, to keep even your dear ones at bay. It is extreme. All his life, Colin was wary to display his feelings, so scared to feel. Which makes him aloof and awkward when around people, and worst with his own wife. Yet, when she requires his assistance, he will do anything for her, using his own talent and those of his friends to find a way out of her plight. I do not liked Daphne much more when she was introduced, the picture she presents to the ton and her ill placed vanity put herself right in her predicament. Still, she had to built a facade with few other choices when she was left as barely a girl out of the schoolroom by her husband of one day. It was that or being eaten alive by the Society’s jackals. She makes mistakes and takes not always well advised decisions, but she finally accepts help, even if it is when she finds herself coerced. She is proud, and feels like she had been betrayed by her ghost of a husband, still she understands if she wants to extricate herself from her pickle, she need his assistance but she won’t stay behind pacing her room. She is his Yin to her Yang, his other half, together they complete each other as she is the spirited answer to his restraint. But will he be able for once to let slip his walls and defenses until it is too late and she loses her ability to trust him. I love a good redeeming tale, because outside the villain, Colin has a long way stretching before him, he failed his wife on their wedding day, and each one of their encounters causes her more hurt and pain after another, Daphne will need more than his help and few words to win back her belief. 5 stars for the saving of the pretender, Mrs Shana Galen gifts us an emotional read with these two wounded souls who will have to see past their leaking scars for a future together. I was granted an advance copy by the author, and prior to it I preordered my own. Here is my true and unbiased opinion.