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Stephanie's Reviews > When the Duke Was Wicked
When the Duke Was Wicked (Scandalous Gentlemen of St. James, #1)
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HOW WILL YOU KNOW WHEN HE REALLY LOVES YOU?
Finished copy provided by publisher for review. No remuneration was exchanged and all opinions presented herein are my own except as noted.
How do you know someone loves you? All of you — not just your boobs, your ability to do long division while singing the Star-Spangled Banner, your bank account, or any of the many parts that make up the entirety of the appearing-in-this-universe-one-time-only you? And how can you free yourself of your past hurts to love someone else? These are the questions posed throughout this heartwarming book where a man filled with grief and misplaced guilt denies that he can ever love again and a young woman with a difficult secret wishes he could.
You will see right away what will happen; it’s a romance novel so you know he’s not going to fix her up with someone else, right? We KNOW this going into the majority of romance novels we read.
What charms in this story is Grace and her larger-than-Victorian sensibilities and her personality that displays bravery and thoughtfulness despite the big, dark secret that has not been shared outside her family; Heath doesn’t really share all of it with the reader in one go either. It helps that she comes from an unconventional family with great wealth and greater generosity. She’s been exposed to all kinds of experiences most ladies of the Ton will never see.
Lovingdon, is a more typical character who is pretty much the noble scoundrel wracked by grief burying himself in scandalous activities to numb himself.
The story is well written with good continuity. It’s sexy and very romantic, but the sex is more ethereal than graphic. For example, Lovingdon counsels Grace that if a swain really loves her, he will know her favorite flower.
There’s also a tendency toward repetition: one example is Drake, a young man from the streets her family took in. Grace’s mother was a child from the slums too. I lost count of the times we’re told about his present and past. Grace’s friends and her father have some importance in the story, but the really developed characters are Grave and Lovingdon.
It is really hard to imagine there was a time when love was not the most important factor in deciding who to marry; at least not in the upper classes. We’re told that Victoria and Albert really loved each other, so perhaps that is one reason that the concept seems to take off in the latter half of the 19th century. My point is that Grace wants to hold out for love, and has a reason to, but she recognizes that she could have a perfectly normal, correct and reasonable marriage to any of a number of young men. But she wants the real thing, a man like Lovingdon who would truly mourn her forever were she to die. We see the emotions blossoming, of course, before they do. And we know without a doubt that they really love each other even without a sign.
This is a heartwarming romance; the epilogue is fantastic and worth the read on its on, but the rest is a treat too. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this one.
©2014 Stephanie Takes-Desbiens
HOW WILL YOU KNOW WHEN HE REALLY LOVES YOU?
Finished copy provided by publisher for review. No remuneration was exchanged and all opinions presented herein are my own except as noted.
How do you know someone loves you? All of you — not just your boobs, your ability to do long division while singing the Star-Spangled Banner, your bank account, or any of the many parts that make up the entirety of the appearing-in-this-universe-one-time-only you? And how can you free yourself of your past hurts to love someone else? These are the questions posed throughout this heartwarming book where a man filled with grief and misplaced guilt denies that he can ever love again and a young woman with a difficult secret wishes he could.
You will see right away what will happen; it’s a romance novel so you know he’s not going to fix her up with someone else, right? We KNOW this going into the majority of romance novels we read.
What charms in this story is Grace and her larger-than-Victorian sensibilities and her personality that displays bravery and thoughtfulness despite the big, dark secret that has not been shared outside her family; Heath doesn’t really share all of it with the reader in one go either. It helps that she comes from an unconventional family with great wealth and greater generosity. She’s been exposed to all kinds of experiences most ladies of the Ton will never see.
Lovingdon, is a more typical character who is pretty much the noble scoundrel wracked by grief burying himself in scandalous activities to numb himself.
The story is well written with good continuity. It’s sexy and very romantic, but the sex is more ethereal than graphic. For example, Lovingdon counsels Grace that if a swain really loves her, he will know her favorite flower.
There’s also a tendency toward repetition: one example is Drake, a young man from the streets her family took in. Grace’s mother was a child from the slums too. I lost count of the times we’re told about his present and past. Grace’s friends and her father have some importance in the story, but the really developed characters are Grave and Lovingdon.
It is really hard to imagine there was a time when love was not the most important factor in deciding who to marry; at least not in the upper classes. We’re told that Victoria and Albert really loved each other, so perhaps that is one reason that the concept seems to take off in the latter half of the 19th century. My point is that Grace wants to hold out for love, and has a reason to, but she recognizes that she could have a perfectly normal, correct and reasonable marriage to any of a number of young men. But she wants the real thing, a man like Lovingdon who would truly mourn her forever were she to die. We see the emotions blossoming, of course, before they do. And we know without a doubt that they really love each other even without a sign.
This is a heartwarming romance; the epilogue is fantastic and worth the read on its on, but the rest is a treat too. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this one.
©2014 Stephanie Takes-Desbiens
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
May 19, 2014
–
Finished Reading
May 24, 2014
– Shelved
June 15, 2014
– Shelved as:
historical-romance-challenge-2014
