Tracy’s review of The Geek Girl and the Scandalous Earl by Gina Lamm
An avid gamer, Jamie Marten loves to escape into online adventure. But when she falls through an antique mirror into a lavish bedchamber—200 years in the past!—she realizes she may have escaped a little too far.
Micah Axelby, Earl of Dunnington, has just kicked one mistress out of his bed, and isn’t looking to fill it with another—least of all this sassy, nearly naked girl who claims to be from the future. Yet something about her is undeniably enticing…
Jamie and Micah are worlds apart. He’s a peer of the realm. She can barely make rent. She’s wi-fi. He’s horse-drawn. But soon the pair will do anything to avoid a Game Over.
Jamie Marten is helping a friend with antiques in a storage unit when she touches the glass of an armoire and gets sucked into it and into 1816. There she meets Micah Axelby, the Earl of Dunnington. He wants to ship her off to somewhere besides his home but is talked into letting her stay. As the days go by Jamie gets more and more chances to get Mike (as she calls him) to believe her story.
Jamie stays in 1816 (I’m not sure exactly how long it was) and is taught how to be a countess by Mike’s housekeeper, Mrs. Knightsbridge. Mrs. K. tells Jamie that it was her sister Wilhelmina who is a witch and is the one who had brought Jamie to her time as she saw that Jamie was the one for Mike while doing her scrying. Days pass with Jamie having to deal with no running water, baths instead of showers, heavy clothing and all the other changes from 2012 to 1816. On top of that the more time she spends with Mike the more she likes him and sooner rather than later she’s in love. We find out that Mike is in love with Jamie as well but there’s someone who is out to harm Jamie and when they almost succeed Mike pulls back from Jamie as he can’t deal with his failure of not keeping her safe. It all comes down to trusting each other and then figuring out how they can make it all work.
This story was pretty funny – not slapstick but at times laugh out loud funny. It was also incredibly sad at times and my heart ached for the characters in so many different ways. I liked how the author gave us a myriad of of emotions in the story and didn’t try to make it ALL funny or ALL heart wrenching.
Jamie’s reaction to being thrust 200 years in the past was…well, what I would think of as accurate. While she got used to some things while she was there I loved that the author didn’t try to make her become someone she wasn’t. Mike was pretty much a stick in the mud for the most part but I could see his impish side come out a bit at times.
I thought that the pair fell in love way too fast but then the author gave us a chance to see the couple in action, so to speak, and it went a long way to having me believe their love was true. While I think I was left with a ton of questions at the end of the book I was still happy they got their HEA and was satisfied with the ending.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5
You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place
This book is available from Sourcebooks Casablanca. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.
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