Of all the dukes in all the world, why does it have to be him?
Lady Alice Ancaster needs a husband, and fast, because her reckless brother is going to get himself killed, leaving the dukedom—and her future—in their repellent cousin’s clutches.
The Duke of Blackwood has known Alice since childhood, and they’ve always had a special connection. But years ago he broke it, when he chose a riotous life with his two best friends instead of a reasonable one with her.
The trouble is, the tall, dark, sardonic rogue keeps turning up exactly when needed, and ready—though he sometimes needs a push—to play the hero, if only for as long as it takes.
Being irresistibly drawn to the Wrong Man is not convenient, but when events come to a crisis, Alice has to make a choice. The question is, can she live with it?
Release Date: Jan 21, 2025
Series: Difficult Dukes
Book: 3
Heat Level: Warm
Publisher: HarperCollins
Imprint: Avon
Price: $5.99
“He was not in the least prepared for the smile, and for a moment the world went away. He’d known her since she was a ten-year-old hoyden. He’d seen her up close, her face mere inches from his only a month ago. But that morning drifted in a haze that the passing days and riotous living had only thickened. Before that, when? Two years earlier? Had it been so long as that since Lord Charles Ancaster’s funeral. He, Ashmont, and Ripley had drowned their grief in drink that day and in the days following, a process that had turned her into a dim, elusive figure in the clouded landscape of his mind. And so the reality of Alice, here and now and smiling up at him, struck him very much like a hard punch in the head.”
Loretta Chase wrote one of my favorite historical romance books of all time, Lord of Scoundrels, and so I went into this expecting greatness, but it fell flat for me. I read the previous two books, but the last book was published in 2020, so my memories of it are fuzzy. However, the timeline of this book runs concurrently with book one, so it was difficult to follow.
I think needed to reread the previous two books before this one, maybe I wouldn’t have gotten so lost. I was definitely curious about the Duke of Blackwood from the previous books, and I do love when the hero has been pining for the heroine for years, but there was negative chemistry between these two. Which is shocking to me if he has loved her from afar for years. Their conversations were so forced, and they went in circles, never getting to the point. The focus was not on their romance, but the side plots in the story, and that definitely caused their relationship to suffer.
The first half had promise, but by the second half, the pacing had gotten completely off track, and add in that unnecessary third act breakup, the end could not come quickly enough for me. Unfortunately, this one just was not my cup of tea.
If you’re a fan of Loretta Chase’s earlier books or Ella Quinn, then give this a try. It may work better for you than for me, but I would suggest rereading books one and two before diving in.
~ Michelle
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