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The Duke I Once Knew Unlikely Duchesses Olivia Drake 9781250174376 Books

Download As PDF : The Duke I Once Knew Unlikely Duchesses Olivia Drake 9781250174376 Books

The Duke I Once Knew Unlikely Duchesses Olivia Drake 9781250174376 Books

So the premise for this story is pretty standard, boy and girl are childhood sweethearts, big misunderstanding happens and they feel betrayed etc till they meet again, snarl around and then make up. Yeah, it's a cliche, but cliches done well can be good-- this is why they are cliches in the first place. However.... This book does it all wrong.

First, they meet when they are fifteen for one summer and share a brief, but intense romance for the summer. Okay, yeah they are fifteen and only meet for like.. 3 or 4 months max but I'll suspend belief because it's a romance novel etc, they are in love.

Then, the whole misunderstanding happens and when they come back and meet 15 years later, they still carry a flame. But here's the problem: they don't really have a romance in the adult timeline. Sure they get over the Big Misunderstanding (which is SUPER anticlimactic) , but after all of that the only thing that really happens to further the romance is them kissing etc and lots of internal monologues about how they are falling in love with each other. There is BARELY any real heart to heart/intellectual conversation etc and a flourishing of an actual relationship afterward. They knew each other for like 4 months tops before too. They might have had young love, but the actual relationship development was lacking.

Also, where was the hero's personality?? The other does a bit of a better job with the heroine but like the hero's personality felt 2D and lacking beyond the general "I went wild because girl betrayed me oh woe"

Most of the high reviews for this book were ARCs too from what I can see... not bad when free but this book was EIGHT DOLLARS... Take it from me and save your money, I know I want my money back. There was a lot of things here that could have made a good story but the author didn't put enough into it to make it work


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The Duke I Once Knew Unlikely Duchesses Olivia Drake 9781250174376 Books Reviews

Though she loved her family dearly , she yearned for something more. Something of her own choosing.

First in the Unlikely Duchesses series, we have a heroine wanting to make a change. Abby was the surprise baby, her older siblings were already out of the house as she grew up. She ends up taking care of her older parents, missing a debut in London, and eventually landing into a role as caregiver for her nieces and nephews. It is when her family is arguing over who gets to have her that Abby decides she would like some control and freedom in her life. She decides to become a governess for the younger sister of the Duke of Rothwell, who just so happens to be her childhood love.

Her rapt gaze followed the dusting of black hair that narrowed to a line, trailing downward across his flat belly to disappear inside his breeches . He looked every inch the wicked rake that young ladies were warned to avoid.
Thirty-year-old spinsters ought to know better, too.

This story was filled with cliches and tropes that help make up the backbone of romance and while they provided the, somewhat, requisite sweet and romantic moments, it also gave this a been there and done that feel. You won't get a fresh take or be particularly inspired by this story but you will like the heroine, she saves this from getting the mediocre tag and raised the rating from two to three stars. Her family is not malicious in their selfishness or obliviousness to Abby possibly having her own wants and needs but they are still selfish and oblivious. The author did a wonderful job infusing and relaying Abby's emotions to the reader, her quiet determination and fear from stepping out on her own. There wasn't villainous family members or a one eighty change from Abby, she still wanted to be in her family's lives but didn't want theirs to be hers. I thought towards the later half we lost a little bit of Abby as the focus shifted to the hero, Max, and the tired “Don't love because it can weaken you”.

It was an unsettling thing for a man to question the state of his life. Especially when only a few days ago, he’d found it to be perfectly satisfactory.

The cliches I mentioned before, really hit hard on Max. He is the child of a marriage where his father loved his mother more than she loved him and he now feels he has to shun all love connections. There is a Misunderstanding that has him hardening his childhood heart against Abby but other than a quick plot trick, it is discussed (Thank-you!) and while not completely solved, figured out enough to not be a problem between them anymore in the first half. Abby does outshine him but he also doesn't ever break out of the duke, rake, and scared of love mold; he just isn't interesting or memorable. Their sex scenes do come in the second half but as there wasn't much emotional build up to them, they still ended up feeling abrupt. As a consequence, I can't say I was ever too invested in their romance or caught any sparks from them.

Along with the sweet, fun, and romantic cliches and tropes, there were some very tired ones. There is a “villainous” woman who wants Max and plays into the one dimensional social climbing, jealous other woman. This used to be a favorite of romance but it has been tending to move away from it and at this time, I much rather see female friendships or at least villainous women with some depth (in a time period where it was tough for women, this can be written as intelligent and powerful stratagem).

All in all, this had a sweet inspiriting heroine, Basic Ben hero, tired other woman character, and some possible interest in reading their stories secondary characters.

Oh, h*ll, why deny it? He was in love with Abby. And nothing in his life had ever shaken him so much.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I don't know how I was able to continue reading the book after the first 30%. The story begins with the heroine been treated horribly by her siblings. The whole vibe I was getting when I was reading that scene was that Abby was a burden and each sibling had his own life to live. Abby had some attitude and self esteem which was good, but she didn't get a guy who was good enough for her and made me think that he actually cared for her. Wanna know why? Because we are first introduced to Max when he is in the library kissing another woman whom he plans to have as his mistress. Isn't that the best way to introduce your "hero" in a historical romance novel? After that, we got reminded a few times that Max was busy sowing his oats while the heroine was living a boring, virginal life. The book got slightly better after that, but I didn't like how the wanna-be mistress was around the whole time. She is there for like 85% of the story.
This was a "light" story...nice change from some of the more recent books I have read. Thoroughly enjoyable story.
Thirty year old Abigail Linton leves her family for a position as a governess.
This trope is old and worn out, in in the Era of #metoo, I think it is time for it to retire.
I really enjoyed this book. I felt that the fact that they had some issues between them from a misunderstanding that happened years ago helped build up the sexual tension but it also made sense for their relationship to move so fast. This was just a great love story and just that, no mystery or second characters to draw the story out longer. Love a book that makes it so you can't wait to get back to reading it and when you aren't you are thinking of it.
I’m a sucker for enemies to lovers stories and this one definitely had me drawn in. The only gripe I really have is that there wasn’t a lot of dialogue between the two of them. It was pages of internal dialogue, but I will say when they did spar it was well written. I will say it was also a refreshing depitciton of her family. I won’t say too much, but there was a bit of a twist with how they treat her that doesn’t follow the usual storyline of most historical romances.
So the premise for this story is pretty standard, boy and girl are childhood sweethearts, big misunderstanding happens and they feel betrayed etc till they meet again, snarl around and then make up. Yeah, it's a cliche, but cliches done well can be good-- this is why they are cliches in the first place. However.... This book does it all wrong.

First, they meet when they are fifteen for one summer and share a brief, but intense romance for the summer. Okay, yeah they are fifteen and only meet for like.. 3 or 4 months max but I'll suspend belief because it's a romance novel etc, they are in love.

Then, the whole misunderstanding happens and when they come back and meet 15 years later, they still carry a flame. But here's the problem they don't really have a romance in the adult timeline. Sure they get over the Big Misunderstanding (which is SUPER anticlimactic) , but after all of that the only thing that really happens to further the romance is them kissing etc and lots of internal monologues about how they are falling in love with each other. There is BARELY any real heart to heart/intellectual conversation etc and a flourishing of an actual relationship afterward. They knew each other for like 4 months tops before too. They might have had young love, but the actual relationship development was lacking.

Also, where was the hero's personality?? The other does a bit of a better job with the heroine but like the hero's personality felt 2D and lacking beyond the general "I went wild because girl betrayed me oh woe"

Most of the high reviews for this book were ARCs too from what I can see... not bad when free but this book was EIGHT DOLLARS... Take it from me and save your money, I know I want my money back. There was a lot of things here that could have made a good story but the author didn't put enough into it to make it work