Reviewer: Tracy Ten Things I Hate About the Duke by Loretta Chase
Series: Difficult Dukes #2
Also in this series: A Duke in Shining Armor, A Duke in Shining Armor, Ten Things I Hate About the Duke
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: December 1, 2020
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Point-of-View: Third
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 400
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Series Rating:
USA Today bestselling author Loretta Chase continues her Difficult Dukes series with this delightful spin on Shakespeare's classic, The Taming of the Shrew.
Cassandra Pomfret holds strong opinions she isn’t shy about voicing. But her extremely plain speaking has caused an uproar, and her exasperated father, hoping a husband will rein her in, has ruled that her beloved sister can’t marry until Cassandra does.
Now, thanks to a certain wild-living nobleman, the last shreds of Cassandra’s reputation are about to disintegrate, taking her sister’s future and her family’s good name along with them.
The Duke of Ashmont’s looks make women swoon. His character flaws are beyond counting. He’s lost a perfectly good bride through his own carelessness. He nearly killed one of his two best friends. Still, troublemaker that he is, he knows that damaging a lady’s good name isn’t sporting.
The only way to right the wrong is to marry her…and hope she doesn’t smother him in his sleep on their wedding night.
The second book in the Chase’s Difficult Dukes series has us seeing the man who almost married in book one. The Duke of Ashmont, drunk at his own wedding hardly blinked in the first book when his bride took off on him and then eventually married one of his best friends. He then duels with said friend and gets even drunker. This is, of course, when he meets his heroine. Of course it is!
Cassandra is an opinionated woman and does not keep her thoughts to herself. If she thinks your being an idiot, she doesn’t hesitate to tell you so. When she meets Ashmont he causes an accident that hurts one of her friends. The whole village is poised to see what happens with Ashmont and Cassandra, but money talks, and Ashmont leaves without a trace.
The problem arises when Ashmont can’t get Cassandra out of his head. He decides to woo her but he needs to change his spots before he can even think about that, and he’s not sure it can be done.
The story was a good one. I didn’t like it quite as much as I liked book one in the series, probably because I didn’t like Ashmont and Cassandra as much as I liked Ripley and Olympia. Despite that, I did like them and their independent thinking.
Cassandra was a bit brash about how she put things, but I really liked how she said what she meant and didn’t beat around the bush. I also liked Ashmont and his dedication to winning Cassandra. When the man put his mind to it, he was a force to be reckoned with.
I’m looking forward to book three in this series as we got a bit of a taste of it in this book. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait another three years to get it.
Rating: 3.75/4 out of 5
Difficult Dukes
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