Duke of My Heart by Kelly Bowen
Series: Season for Scandal,
Published by Hachette, Forever on January 26th 2016
Genres: Historical, Romance
Point of View:Alternating Third Person
Pages: 368
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Add It: Goodreads
Scandal can be handled...
Captain Maximus Harcourt, the unconventional tenth Duke of Alderidge, can deal with tropical storms, raging seas, and the fiercest of pirates. But he's returned home from his latest voyage to find a naked earl—quite inconveniently deceased—tied to his missing sister's bed. And he has only one place to turn. Now he's at the mercy of the captivating Miss Ivory Moore of Chegarre & Associates, known throughout London for smoothing over the most dire of scandals.
Miss Moore treats the crisis as though it were no more serious than a cup of spilt tea on an expensive rug. As though this sort of thing happened on the job every day. Max has never in all his life met a woman with such nerve. Her dark eyes are too wide, her mouth is too full, her cheekbones too sharp. Yet together, she's somehow...flawless. It's just like his love for her, imperfect, unexpected—yet absolutely true.
Rowena: September’s buddy review book went to Duke of My Heart (Season for Scandal #1) by Kelly Bowen and it was a book that I had high hopes for. You see, our heroine, Ivory Moore, is the Olivia Pope of her time.
She works for Chegarre & Associates and they specialize in making your scandals go away. They kill scandals and rumors and plant stories to put out there instead and everyone who needs a scandal killed, hire her, because she’s the best at what she does. Ivory’s latest case brings Maximus Harcourt, the Duke of Alderidge into her life. He also brings a mystery surrounding the disappearance of his sister and a bond that she wasn’t expecting or ready for.
Max has come home to find his sister gone, his Aunt panicking and a strange but beautiful woman acting like she’s in charge. To say that he’s a bit panicked himself, is putting things mildly but for someone who has never had anyone in charge of him, he’s hesitant to give up the control that his family needs him to give up. His sister needs him but he has to give over the finding of her to a stranger? Not bloody likely…though the farther his sister seems out of reach, the more he finds himself leaning on the stranger that is starting to become so much more than a stranger.
Alright, Ames….what are your immediate thoughts on this book? Did you like or not like it?
Ames: Great recap Wena!
Okay, to be completely honest, I enjoyed the book but wasn’t blown away by it. It didn’t ‘grab’ me right off the hop and it took to about 25% into the story before I was like ‘I can work with this.’ I don’t know if it was the book or the fact that I’ve been on a contemporary binge lately so just wasn’t feeling a historical? I am a big fan of Scandal so I liked that Ivory was a fixer.
Wow. That was rambling. LOL And you Wena, what did you think?
Rowena: Same. The book was really slow to pick up for me and because of that, I didn’t connect with either Ivory or Max for a long time. Not to mention, Lady Beatrice. So in the end, while I did enjoy it, I didn’t love it.
As far as romance goes, the chemistry between Ivory and Max was completely believable. The attraction, the interest, and all of that was done well but for some reason, I couldn’t completely connect with the characters or the book. I was a bit bored in the beginning which is weird, considering the book literally starts with a bang. A really big bang that goes south.
I feel like I’m rambling too but I can’t help it. Like you, the book didn’t grab me right from the jump and because I didn’t absolutely love everything that was going on, I kept reading just so that I can finish. Had I not been reading this book for this review, I probably would have DNF’d it.
Ames: I am just going to chalk this one up to me not being in the mood for a historical. I did like the relationship that developed between Ivory and Max. Max was a captain and was used to men following his orders. So when he deals with Ivory, who is also used to giving orders and not taking them, it was fun to see how he was the one who had to learn how to bend and make himself vulnerable to someone else for a change. Ivory knew things that he didn’t know and he had to trust her judgement.
Another thing I liked about Ivory was how different people were loyal to her. And she could take care of herself. She was a good strong heroine. I am usually all about heroes in my romances but in this book I was all about the heroine. She was good stuff!
Rowena: Haha, yes…I was half expecting Max to bend the knee to Ivory. I enjoyed getting to know them and I should probably chalk this one up to not being in the mood for historicals but that can’t be the case since I was reading hella Julie Garwood historicals at the same time. So…I’m thinking it wasn’t wasn’t that. Oh well, sometimes it just happens like that for me. I enjoyed this book but I didn’t love it.
I did enjoy that Ivory took care of others and in turn, they took care of her. They all lived by a code, those street workers and yet they all respected and were respected by Ivory. That was great.
Who are the other books about? I’m sure Alex and Miss DeVries will get a book, huh? Do you have plans to read the other books?
Ames: LMAO I love how you made a GoT reference in our review. 😛
I do have plans to read the rest of the series. I liked the characters Kelly Bowen brought to life in this story.
All right Wena, I’m going to grade this book a B-. Slow to start but the characters were great and the story did pick up.
Rowena: I give it a C (3 out of 5) because while it ended up being good, the slow beginning and my lukewarm connection to the story and characters just didn’t tip this one over into the B category.
Final Grades:
Ames: 4 out of 5
Rowena: 3 out of 5
We’re almost done with the year, and we’ve done a buddy review every single month. Woot! I don’t think that has ever happened. Anyway, we’ll be reading On a Tuesday by Whitney G. for next month’s buddy review so if anyone is interested in reading along with us, feel free. Everyone is welcome because the more the merrier!
Happy reading everyone!
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