Smitten by Books

How To Dance With a Duke
Author: Manda Collins
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Pub. Date: January 31, 2012
ISBN-13: 978-0312549244
Pages: 352
Digital Price: $7.99
Print Retail Price: $7.99
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What’s a wallflower to do when she’s suddenly in need of a husband? Use all the pluck and moxie she can muster to get what she wants…

Miss Cecily Hurston would much rather explore the antiquities of Egypt than the uncharted territory of marriage. But the rules of her father’s exclusive academic society forbid her entrance unless she weds one of its members. To clear her ailing father’s name of a scandalous rumor, Cecily needs to gain admission into the Egyptian Club—and is willing to marry any old dullard to do it.

Lucas Dalton, Duke of Winterson, is anything but dull. He’s a dashing and decorated war hero determined to help Cecily—even if that means looking the other way when she claims the dance card of Amelia Snow, this season’s most sought-after beauty. But Lucas has a reason for wanting Cecily to join the Egyptian Club: His brother went missing during one of Lord Hurston’s expeditions to Egypt. An alliance with the explorer’s bluestocking daughter could bring Lucas closer to the truth about what happened…or it could lead him to a more dangerous love than either he or Cecily could have imagined….

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REVIEW

Manda Collins has provided a delightful read in her debut regency romance, How to Dance with a Duke that’s packed with Egyptian scholars, intrigue, treachery and love set against the backdrop of the vicious ton of fashionable London.

Collins has created a kaleidoscope of characters, motives, plots and sub plots in How to Dance with a Duke with the sexy allure of Egypt, antiquities, eligible bachelors and the scheming winding around it all that centers on Cecily Hurston’s father, Lord Hurston and the brother (Will) of Lucas Dalton, Duke of Winterson. But it’s Cecily and Lucas who become the talk of the ton as they begin spending more time together – she after a transformation from ugly duckling to sought-after beauty and he, as the returning war hero and newly named, Duke of Winterson.

Their meeting is one for the books – he is heading into the Egyptian Club from which she is being thrown out and neither able to gain entry or answers to their pressing questions: he wants to find out what happened to his missing brother Will since the last Egyptian dig and she wanting to clear her father’s name over suspicion that he had anything to do with Will’s disappearance.

Eager to secure her future and that of her father’s good name, the feisty Cecily sets about ‘debuting’ in society at twenty-five to marry a club member; certain her antiquities scholar status will allow her to find and decode her father’s journals. Lucas is a man on his own mission – to continue his quest to find his brother. But in order for them to do either, they must access the club and decide to join forces to do so. If she can read the meticulous journals her father coded (that are now presumed locked away) by marrying one its members, she can begin to decipher what happened to cause her father’s condition and possibly learn about Will’s disappearance. While the men flock to her, wading through their motives and offers proves too much for Lucas with whom she has developed a strong attachment.

But, he’s equally determined to have answers and is intrigued by the scholarly, attractive woman whom he now dreads marrying anyone else. A decorated and eligible duke himself, Lucas and Cecily now work as a team piecing together the puzzle that surrounds this most recent Egyptian dig and the unfolding issue of antiquities and their rightful owners.

As the plot and sub-plots thicken, so does the desire between the duo. But Cecily unconvinced of her good looks thanks to a broken heart and spinsterhood of twenty-five, is wary of Lucas’s true reasons. Until one night they sneak into the Egyptian Club which comprises Cecily and prompts their wedding.

This fairly complex plot was very capably spun and revealed, much like the love Lucas offers Cecily. But forces at work keep the clues to the mystery they are eager to solve unfolding much like Cecily’s feelings for her new husband. Along the way, other forces at work within the Egyptian Club and British Museum are determined to protect their nefarious arrangement and the chase is on. From warehouses rich with treasures to secret chambers and ducal households, the mystery not only deepens, it becomes dangerous for this headstrong couple getting closer to answers that may ultimately destroy them both.

Collins provides good depth of character, emotional range and truth to the time period and English fascination with all things Egyptian. I enjoyed the read very much but noted a few things that slightly unbalanced the book for me: some very long dialogue, descriptions and narratives. Still, this book was a winner with a depth not always seen in debuts.

The secondary characters were well-developed and helped move the story in the directions to bring the plot full circle and I particularly enjoyed Cecily’s step-mother Violet, cousins Juliet and Madeline and thought Cecily’s pitiful ex-fiancée, David was well cast. Lucas’ best friend Christian Monteith emerges to keep things interesting as a swashbuckling bachelor about town.

Manda Collins is to be commended on her debut that is a compelling novel well-worth the read.

Rating: 4 (Very Good – Highly Recommended)

Heat-Level: 4 (Hot)

Reviewed by Helena