How to Train Your Earl
Series: First Comes Love #3
Author: Amelia Grey
Published April 27th 2021 by St. Martin's Press

Goodreads Synopsis
A roguish earl must fight using his honor and not his sword to win his lady’s hand in How To Train Your Earl, the third book in the First Comes Love trilogy from bestseller Amelia Grey.

Brina Feld has settled into a life devoted to helping others since the sinking of the Salty Dove left her widowed. She has no need for a man in her contented life. But when the notorious and handsome Lord Blacknight returns and awakens her desires, her peace and serenity vanish. If she agrees to an alliance with him, she knows she will have to battle her heart to keep from being snared under his spell.

Zane, the Earl of Blacknight, was never supposed to inherit the earldom, so he didn’t much care to lead a respectable life before then. Fistfights, card games, and drinking are the order of the day. Now he’s determined to change his rakish ways and he knows the proper lady who can help him. There’s just one problem: He's already bet he’ll win her hand before the Season is over. With her resolve to out-scheme him, how can he show her that his love is true?
Goodreads

Review
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way impacted on my view.

For Brina Feld, she felt the loss of her husband especially hard. Widowed at 18, after being married only 3 months, she relied on the support of her parents, and her friends, Adeline and Julia. She is still in love with her late husband, and can never imagine wanting to remarry - rather she thought to join the Sisters of Pilwillow Crossings and help those less fortunate than herself. Now moved into the home nearby the school she, Julia, and Adeline set up, she is more than happy to occupy herself with her volunteer work, and teaching the girls to paint. However, she lately spent time in Paris with an aunt, and met a handsome stranger while hiding in a bedroom. Her stranger was masked, and tied to a chair, but she released him and let him flee to stop his young cousin from marrying. But he didn't leave without stopping to give her a spine tingling kiss, one she hasn't yet forgot about. And her handsome stranger isn't a stranger any more. It was Zane, the new Earl of Blacknight, and he's already put down a wager at White's that they will become engaged by the end of the Season. Zane never expected to become the Earl, but when three of his family members are killed in a carriage accident, he has to take up the mantle of head of family, and all the responsibility the title brings. He knows he's the black sheep of the family, and needs a bride to help support him, and start his family, but he wants no one other than the respected, and beautiful widowed Mrs Feld. Brina is furious to find herself the topic of a wager, and the subsequent gossip, but she proposes a counter wager: if Zane can withhold from drinking, gambling, and women until the last ball of the Season, she will accept. She never expects him to last a day, let alone a few weeks, what with his reputation as a card shark, but the season is drawing to a close, and Brina must consider whether she can face remarrying, and to someone she is falling for too.

I just loved this book. After reading the other two in the series, I knew I couldn't wait to see Brina find happiness, but I wasn't expecting to fall for her and Zane's story so much. As soon as I started the book, I couldn't put it down, and was finished in just a couple of hours. Brina was young, and in love, when her husband died, and heard the stories of how he saved half a dozen of his fellow passengers before he was unable to save himself. She only has her friends, Julia and Adeline, and their new husbands, for support, but occupies her time in her volunteering. She has never felt an attraction like that to Zane, and fights his seduction at all turns, but it's a hard fought battle that even she can't win, and I just felt that the chemistry between them was perfect. Zane knew his way around a card table, but he never expected to have any sort of responsibility on his shoulders, so finding himself at the helm of the extended Blacknight family, overseeing all of their requests and allowances, as well as the expanse of properties he inherited was a big shock. Two of his uncles offer their support, but it soon becomes clear they want to control him, and force him to fit into the mould of what they expect an Earl to be. The wager between Zane and Brina was hilarious, and it was nice to see how Zane was willing to improve himself for love, though not becoming someone completely different. The ending of the book killed me, and I was dreading that they wouldn't have their happy ending, but all in all, everyone was happy. Seeing the other couples again, in their own romances was a joy too, and I know this won't be my last series by Grey.

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