The Trouble With Being A Duke (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
I actually picked up this book because I had read the third one in the series and I wanted to read the other two. At first, I was skeptical. I didn't think that I would be able to get into the story. I was wrong. From the beginning I was sucked into the lives of Isabella, and Anthony and I thought their love story was charming. There are a few things that I liked about the book.1. The woman didn't fall over the hero and say yes to a proposal right away. I am always looking for strong female characters in the books that I plan on reading. Isabella has a strong sense of family and wanting to do what is right, although she falls for Anthony quickly, she fights the relationship because she feels the pull of her family more.2. I liked the thought of a man falling in love at first sight. I'm a romantic and I thought it was sweet that even at a masquerade Anthony already feels the pull of the young woman who is like no other. 3. I liked the take on a Cinderella theme. It didn't fit to a tee like the fairy tale, but I thought it was nice to give it a theme. A poor girl falls in love with a rich Prince and he does everything he can to find her, woo her, and marry her. There are a lot of things though that I thought were lacking.1. At times the actions of Anthony and Isabella are unbelievable. I'm sorry, but I don't buy into the fact that Anthony would have found her so quickly when he didn't even know her name. I like things to be prolonged in my romance novels, and I felt from the get go that there wasn't much of the mystery or anything like that. 2. There weren't any steamy scenes. I don't mean that there needed to be sex scenes, but there needed to be more than 3 scenes in the whole book that the heroine and hero are together and sparks are flying. Some of it just felt routine for me and I found myself skimming through some of it just to get to the real problem.Overall, I think it's a cute read. If you are a patient person who likes more action than romance this may be the book for you. I have read the third one in the Kingsborough Ball series and I I think it's a really cool idea to have books that all start at the same place, but have different characters and outcomes. I read this novel in a day and I loved every minute of it. The characters were vivid and complex, the storyline was captivating, and the prose was very well-written. I read a lot of regency romances and what I liked about this one was the element of mystery that was written into the plot. The author did a wonderful job of creating a suspenseful atmosphere in which you were kept guessing as to what would happen next. It was definitely not a run-of-the-mill storyline.Both Isabella and Anthony, the male and female protagonists of the novel, were drawn to each other from the start. However that is not to say that their relationship was written in a cloying, sycophantic kind of way, but rather they are inexplicabley drawn to each other only to find that they are compatible in both physicality and personality. Knowing what we do about Isabella's social status this seems a bit hard to believe, leading the reader to second guess what we think we know about Isabella's parents. How can a low-born girl converse with a duke so intelligently?Once the story begins to unravel I found myself liking the lead characters even more, as they deal with their scandalous problems so efficiently-especially Anthony. His practical minded and slightly eccentric way of dealing with things is just the kind of attributes that I love to see in the duke of a regency novel. Not to mention his nonchalance when it comes to his view of society's opinion of him. The perfect hero in my book!I look forward to reading the next in the series by Sophie Barnes.
What do You think about The Trouble With Being A Duke (2013)?
this is a no-no for me. romance seems forced and very cinderellie in a bad way...
—ENigma
Loved this book. Going off to look for then next in the series....
—aly1100
