A review by lassarina
Not Quite A Duke by Eva Devon
2.0
This book was a mess—a fairly enjoyable mess, to be sure, but a mess nonetheless. It's plagued by errors that closer editing would have resolved (misplaced commas, use of the wrong homophone, sentences missing words and not in an intentional stylistic way). It also suffers from being a late book in a series, in that there are all these people around that I'm clearly supposed to care about, but are given no depth in this book and so they just annoy me because their antics aren't adorable (the way they might be had I read those people's books) but instead just get in the way. Okay, fine, my fault for picking up a book in the middle of a series, but I've done that with other authors (such as Caroline Linden and Katharine Ashe) and been intrigued rather than annoyed by the other characters.
The other issue I have with the book is that the main conflict is a scandal, namely the reveal of Patience's identity as a ~scandalous writer~ which should ruin her altogether, is brushed aside because the ducal family likes artists. Look, dukes get to do more or less as they please, that's a feature of the title, but it's more difficult to extend that immunity to younger sons. Basically, I didn't buy the resolution of the conflict, and that made the entire book fall flat.
I did enjoy Patience and I was amused rather than infuriated by Charles's efforts to make her a published writer, but overall, the book didn't encourage me to seek out anything else by this author.
The other issue I have with the book is that the main conflict is a scandal, namely the reveal of Patience's identity as a ~scandalous writer~ which should ruin her altogether, is brushed aside because the ducal family likes artists. Look, dukes get to do more or less as they please, that's a feature of the title, but it's more difficult to extend that immunity to younger sons. Basically, I didn't buy the resolution of the conflict, and that made the entire book fall flat.
I did enjoy Patience and I was amused rather than infuriated by Charles's efforts to make her a published writer, but overall, the book didn't encourage me to seek out anything else by this author.