*Sigh* I had such high hopes for this book, mainly because of the gorgeous cover.
I got almost exactly halfway through The Duke is Mine before finally calling it quits. In the interests of simplicity and laziness, I’m going to bullet the reasons…
- Olivia, the heroine, is betrothed to a young duke-to-be who very clearly has some mental / developmental problems, and she makes fun of him a lot. I know that back then they didn’t really treat mental illness with much respect, but it rubbed me the wrong way.
- The romance of the story is between Olivia and Tarquin*, the duke that her younger sister is pinning her hopes on. So right off the bat, we learn that in order for the romance story to work out, she’d have to break her betrothal to another man AND screw over her sister. Nothing sexy about that.
- Olivia is apparently a curvy girl (which for this time-era probably means she was all of a size 8 or so – not fat by any means really), and that’s great. But she constantly bemoans the fact that she’s fat and no one could possibly think she’s attractive, especially next to her graceful, thin younger sister.
- Between Olivia’s whining that she’s fat and her constant regret that she’s engaged to someone so undesirable, I was pretty bored.
OK, these might be a little spoiler-ish, so skip to the end in case you still want to read this book…
- Tarquin is kind of a cool duke – he’s a mathematician and all interested in math and equations and stuff. I like smart people in my romance. But Olivia makes no secret of how boring she finds that sort of thing, while her younger sister is totally into it and can even hold a conversation with Tarquin about it. Which means that while the younger sister is perfect for him, the lust factor alone makes him want to be with Olivia. Fine if this was more of an “erotica” book, but not cool for a romance. Personality counts too, dammit.
- Also, Tarquin’s been screwed over by lust before, so you’d think he’s value compatibility more than lust, but nope.
- For those of you interested in the sexy bits more, I flipped ahead, and the one scene that I read sucked. Too much talking, and something else annoying that I don’t really want to go into.
- When I realized that I just really wasn’t enjoying this book, I went online and read some other reviews. Apparently it barely resembles the princess and the pea story, and apparently the ending is really weird.
So, there we have it. You wouldn’t think I’d have so much to complain about for just half a book, but there you have it. I’m quitting this and moving on to something else.
~Sarah
* Tarquin is a great name though.
