A review by ladyofspringdreams
The Portrait of a Duchess by Scarlett Peckham

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

3.0

This was an interesting one for me.

I love and have read all of Scarlett Peckhams’ books so buying this was a no brainer.

Firstly, I always enjoy
a second chance romance and older protagonists. Our female lead is late 30’s and the male lead is early to mid 50s.
The problem is
I hate age gap romance (though our leads are fully grown adults during the bulk of this book, there are flashbacks to an 18 fmc and 32 mmc including an on page sex scene) and when the book takes place in the real world, I generally don’t enjoy open relationships (there’s an on page MMF threesome and talk of taking other partners.)


And yet, I still liked this. I didn’t LOVE it, but I liked it.

This is a 3 star read because the romance didn’t move me. Usually I enjoy an opposites attract, but for most of the novel I felt like these two were fundamentally different and couldn’t *see* the love they kept *saying* they felt for one another. 

The ending goes a long way towards fixing that
I really like that Cornelia stepped out of her comfort zone for Rafe and Peckham didn’t give us a married with babies ending
, but it came a bit too late to change my rating.