Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - A Lady for a Duke

This was fun and sweet and heartfelt and successful at being a book with a trans heroine where the main conflict is not about her being trans. But it is very much a book about gender, in which Viola learns to embody her womanhood while rejecting the gendered expectations that don't suit her, and Gracewood learns to redefine what it means to be a man in a way that integrates his past traumas without being confined or dictated by them.

I wish we'd gotten a better picture of their friendship pre-Waterloo and how that affects their present relationship. Especially after the first 150 or so pages, it often felt that little would change about the story if they were complete strangers before meeting at Morgancald post-war.

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wildatheart1339's review against another edition

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3.75

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shae_purcell's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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singsandreads's review against another edition

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emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes

3.0

Slow and brooding. Childhood friends to lovers, but she faked her death while fighting in the war. This book just didn’t do it for me. Great trans rep, but I’m not super into historical books. We also went on far too long about his substance abuse problems. 100 pages could have easily been cut in my opinion.

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rmkf17's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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madlysoph's review against another edition

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hopeful tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Overall a good, well-written book with very lovely prose and tender love confessions. This was a bit too slow paced for me, the pacing makes sense for the necessary exposition, but again, didn’t work for me. The secondary characters are amazing, Lady Marleigh is hysterical and Miranda is a delight. Honorable mention to little Bartholomew, a darling and hilarious child. Gracewood and Viola are a charming couple who balance one another perfectly. This unique take on friends to lovers was wonderfully done. I am cis so I cannot say how good the trans representation is, but it felt like it was done respectfully and realistically. There is no explicit transphobia, the only negative reaction to her coming out was because of completely separate reasons, not because Viola was trans. My favorite parts were the multiple love confessions and the absolutely darling epilogue. I would genuinely read a novella of them living out their happy ending. Wasn’t bad, just didn’t totally work for me.

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

In the two years since Normandy, Viola's best friend, Gracewood, has thought she was dead. In reality, Viola was figuring out how to be herself rather than the boy she was raised to be, and assumed that her best friend would move on with his life when she was no longer in it. Instead, she discovered that in his grief he had turned to drink and laudanum, terrifying his sister and staff with the depths of his despair.

When Gracewood finally learns that Viola and his best friend are the same being, a new set of complications arise, as the social pressures on the lives of a duke and a lady's companion are deeply felt, and seem inescapable. As a trans person, it's tough to read what seems like transphobia coming from the love interest, even briefly, but the way it's handled and how both characters react to that moment serves to make the story stronger overall.

I like the care paid to developing Gracewood's relationship with his sister, dealing with the trouble has in relating to a teenage girl when he is a man who was raised to give orders rather than to listen. Viola and Gracewood were both changed by the war, but Gracewood's experiences left him visibly scarred and mentally shaken in ways that affect him on a daily basis. This is handled variously throughout, as Gracewood gradually becomes confident to not accept casual ableism from others, but it takes a while.

I love how Gracewood slowly notices more and more of Viola's wardrobe, appreciate that she designs and sews/embroiders it herself. It's made clear that Viola hasn't had previous sexual experiences because she would have either had to have them as a man (which she was uncomfortable doing, even before figuring out her gender), or would need a partner who was not scared off by her body after meeting her as a woman. The eventual sex scenes with Gracewood are careful and intimate, treading the line between being specific about the logistics involved involved and giving Viola space to be feminine and sexual without triggering dysphoria. More than that, with Gracewood's support as a partner she gets to feel good about her body in a sexual context, that it is a woman's body because it is hers, and not based on whether it aligns with some standard of gender presentation.

Things I love, in no particular order: Viola's sister-in-law, and her interactions with her nephew; the audiobook narrator's excellent performance; the way the b-plot gradually becomes more important as the initial tension from the social difficulties of Viola and Gracewood's relationship fade in the face of their care for each other.

A LADY FOR A DUKE is self-contained and ends very satisfactorily, but it does appear that a sequel is planned (which I will eagerly await). Everything I could want handled is covered either in detail, or implicitly by the epilogue, which is set several years after the events of the main story. It seems that future books would be unlikely to feature Viola and Gracewood as main characters, but, based on the title of the sequel I think it will involve one of their relatives (which would be great, I'd love to have them play a role again after they were so wonderful here).

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