A review by marylinaris
One Season with the Duke by Addy Du Lac

emotional medium-paced

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

5.0

Ultimate Regency friends to marriage of convenience to lovers. 

Childhood friends Hattie and Finn haven’t seen each other in several years and nearly miss their chance at happiness when Hattie’s cousin blackmails her into accepting his proposal. But when Finn comes along and convinces Hattie to run away to Scotland to get married - out of pure friendly, platonic reasons, of course - they are faced with new challenges as they try and build a life and marriage together. 

Out main characters had an amazing relationship, that showcased their long friendship. I loved them both as individual characters and together, who made for great leads in a story with a lot of romance and intrigue. 

I loved the third act break up. This is such a rarity for me but DuLac did incredibly well building up the reason for the break up throughout the book. It’s not over and forgotten within pages and the characters really have to emotionally work through the reasons it got to this point, reflect and learn to properly communicate with each other to get their HEA. 

I’ve spend so much of the book going to the author’s profile on Goodreads to see if they have written something -anything- else because so many of the side characters felt like cameo appearances from characters of previous books in a series and I was disappointed that their love stories don’t exist in full length book formats. 

I was provided an ARC by the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.