Ten Things I Hate About the Duke audiobook

The Taming of the Shrew!

This is second in a series and takes up events pretty closely after the first. Including some ramifications of how that ended. You could read these separately, really, but it's as well if you don't.This story starts with both protagonists in holes of their own making. Cassandra (who names their daughters after figures of tragedy? Seems like a bad idea, really) is under a pall for making public spectacles that splash back on her family. Her father isn't completely unreasonable, but asking her to toe the line seems like a huge thing to her because there are things she wants to accomplish and playing nice isn't one of them. Being the anachronistic feminist she is, this makes some sense and frankly, I kind of like how Chase has set up her anachronism because her actions actually make sense once translated into the period. That's a mash, isn't it? Put it this way: while her attitudes are pretty modern, how she goes about making change is reasonable and consists of things women of her period were actually actively trying to do. Just, not the young, single ones generally speaking.The hole Ashmont has dug himself, on the other hand, is nothing like admirable or sympathetic. He's mostly just a drunken waste of skin, though a popular one. Worse, Cassandra had a giant crush on him when they were young because he championed her a couple of times when it was important to her young heart and he did so out of an innate kindness and care. So she imagined that he'd turn into a great guy that she couldn't wait to encounter once they were of age. Only he didn't turn out that way at all. A couple of disappointments later and she's pretty done with him, really. So he's not only in the generic hole of his making, but one specifically deeper in relation to Cassandra due to her very disappointed expectations.It was great seeing his eyes open to her stellar qualities. It was even better that those weren't her physical attributes. Or not solely her physical attributes, I should say. They had some great banter and I kind of loved seeing Ashmont working so hard to earn a foundation of trust when he'd never had to try at all in his life before. And particular kudos for working Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman into the story in a way that went beyond a mere sop to Cassandra's feminist background. And extra kudos for making it a tool of seduction in a way that wasn't cloying or stupid.Parts of the plot bothered me more than a little. Sections of PoV from the villains' perspectives almost always irritate and this is not an exception here. Venal people being venal doesn't interest me at all and I wish that Chase had found a better way to convey the strong family dynamic inherent in Cassandra's family than through these machinations. That family dynamic was outstanding, particularly when Ashmont recognized it as something he very much wanted for himself. But did we really need all the incompetent sleaze to get there? That's an honest question because I don't want to forgo the illustration of Cassandra's excellent family and the scene where Cassandra (view spoiler)[responds to blackmail regarding her parents by going to her parents was the best thing ever! (hide spoiler)]So this is five stars, though a little wobbly due to the idiots being stupid taking forefront more than I liked. Still, I really liked seeing Ashmont rise to the challenge and win the woman who would be the making of him; the moreso that she wouldn't actually have to be the making of him as they became a true team who would work together in a foundation of love and trust.A note about Steamy: There are two explicit sex scenes putting this on the low end of my steam tolerance (because they were pretty constrained, really). Both were very well-integrated into the story, actually, and functioned perfectly in line with where both characters were in their relationship. So very well-done.

I really enjoyed Ten Things I Hate About the Duke by Loretta Chase, which was my first book by this author, if you can believe it. The novel really delivered with an interesting plotline and unique, exciting characters. Give me a repentant rake and an opinionated, strong woman and I'm a happy camper! How can you go wrong with a Taming of the Shrew retelling?Ten Things I Hate About the Duke is a bit of a convoluted, long-feeling story, but I really got into it as I went along. I hadn't read the first in the series, A Duke in Shining Armor, but I didn't need it to follow the plot at all. Some of the best parts of the story were the side characters. I really liked how they felt like more than plot devices and got their own stories as well. It felt extremely well-conceived. Also, Ashmont got to be fully shown in his drunken, screw-up self, and I love it when a male MC has to crawl his way up from the bottom. It's the best when authors make them work for their redemption, and the female MC didn't cut him any slack. At all. Yaaaassssss. Super strong historical romance. I think it's beyond time for me to crack open my paperback of Lord of Scoundrels, don't you agree?*Copy provided in exchange for an honest review*goodreads|instagram|twitter|blog

4☆☆☆☆This was such a beautiful book. Loved the heroine. She was so matter of fact and even if she was in love with the Hero since she was young, she didn't swoon in his arms just because. She told him how a good for nothing he is.Lucius on the other hand was my kind of hero, respectful and set up on winning Cassandra but not by using subterfuge. He reviewed his life and actions and wanted to be a better version of himself. That is what a healthy relationship should inspire in man.I loved their bantering and passion. It was kinda dragging sometimes, but nothing to undermine the beauty of the story.

3.5 starsI received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. A match made in Bedlam: the Gorgon and the prankster. Second in the Difficult Dukes series, this starts off about a week after the first in the series, A Duke in Shining Armor, ended. If you read the first, you'll remember Lucius, the Duke of Ashmont as the drunken jilted groom. Lucius did not recommend himself much and as this starts off, he continues with his drunken ways, causing a carriage accident that enmeshes our heroine. Lady Cassandra deGriffith has a reputation as a too opinionated woman and considered on the shelf. When a carriage accident caused by none other than the wastrel Duke of Ashmont and her childhood crush, has her groom and friend laid up with broken ribs, she is furious at him. “I like a lively girl,” Ashmont said. The first half of this felt a little slow and meandering but it comes together more in the second half as everything comes crashing together. The carriage accident causing Cassandra's friend to be laid up and her maid running away, sets up Lucius offering marriage to her to save her reputation and thus our marriage of convenience trope is born. Cassandra states and thinks the betrothal is fake and just for appearances sake but Lucius wants it to be real as by the second half, he's consciously enamored by Cassandra's backbone and wit and subconsciously in love with her. She was a force to be reckoned with, and he was ready to reckon. Cassandra for her part is extremely cautious about Lucius, she knew him in childhood as their circle of family and friends played together and had a childhood crush on him. Her childhood crush gets, well crushed, as they grow-up and Lucius becomes an obnoxious prankster and lush. Cassandra is scared to believe and trust in this “new” Lucius that is trying to act more mature and seems intrigued and attracted to her. Cassandra was mostly raised by her grandparents as her parents had eleven kids and seemed to want to focus on the boys more. This seemed an odd add-in as we never get scenes with Cassandra and her grandparents and there was some dancing around making her father a caring man for her but he didn't raise her? She has the added pressure to not cause drama because of her more feminist views and actions she takes in their favor have damaged her reputation and her father is trying to keep her in line by punishing Cassandra's younger sister, Hyacinth, by restricting what Hyacinth can do during her season. I'm team Cassandra, because how can you not be with this line: Coffee rooms, generally, were men’s domains. Cassandra usually observed such proprieties, because men became hysterical when women trespassed, and that was tedious. The word tedious is killer. So Cassandra is trying to protect her heart and not cross any lines, all while scandalous Lucius is saying he has mended his ways and truly wants her as a wife. This was the one who’d spun herself dizzy, gazing at the stars. This was the little rebel who wouldn’t be bullied. This was she, all grown up. Lucius grew up without a mother and his father definitely had a hand in creating the man who became one of the three 'Dis-Graces'. Again, for how much and important Lucius' uncle Frederick was, I was we could have gotten more scenes with the two together. I was not a fan, at all, of Lucius when the first book ended but I have to say, he did a pretty good job of redeeming himself in his own book. He pays attention to Casandra (her reads Wollstonecraft for her!) and begins to fall in love for who she is and he works to show her that. For people that are looking for more sex scenes, you only get one here, for others that want the depth of relationship to come from more tantalizing emotion bred from inner and mental connections, the second half delivers this with some sweet letter writing and other moments. The way she’d looked at him. He’d thought he’d died and come to life at the same time. Secondary characters from the first carry over and I find myself still strongly desiring Lucius' uncle Frederick and Julia's story and Lucius' friend Blackwood (another Dis-Grace) and his wife Alice clearly have some marriage angst that begs to be sorted out. I also really enjoyed the sense of time and place that the author managed to create, it helped make this feel like a solid historical instead of window dressed. This started off slow for me but with a hero that worked to bond with the heroine and managed to be dashing in Vauxhall and feel this while helping Cassandra stop a family from being evicted: They had nothing. He wanted to weep. She makes men cry, Morris had said. Maybe they ought to., well, how could you not soften towards him and cheer for him to sweep Cassandra off her feet. “Because you’re you,” he said softly.

3.5 starsCassandra Pomfret’s blunt plain-speaking has gotten her into hot water before, but now she’s gone a bit far and her father is exasperated. Not wanting to risk damage to his political career, Lord deGriffith issues an edict: Cassandra’s beloved younger sister must end her season and may not marry until Cassandra herself does. Now an encounter with a notoriously wild and rakish duke is sure to destroy what’s left of Cassandra’s reputation and take her sister, along with the rest of her family, down along with her.Lucius Beckingham, the Duke of Ashmont, has the good looks of Adonis, but his bad behavior has made him persona non grata in many of the elite circles of London High Society. He’s at a bit of a low point now, having been jilted by his fiancé and the resulting duel nearly caused the death of his best friend. But even Lucius has a code and he won’t allow damage to a respectable lady’s reputation to stand. The best solution is to marry her, if only he can convince her she doesn’t hate him quite as much as she thinks.I found this book to be charming, on the whole, but I do have some mixed feelings about it. The duke certainly needed a wakeup call and Cassandra was perfect for him in that regard. However, much of what she says to him is extremely rude and goes a long way towards making her unlikable. The fact that she treats him this way to protect her heart and because of her strong feelings for him is the only thing that made her tolerable for me and had me cheering for them as a couple. Lucius certainly had a lot of growing up to do and it was like he finally woke up when he noticed Cassandra and remembered her from their childhoods. He grew as a character by leaps and bounds and Cassandra did as well, in her own way. I loved the fact that, though it took a while, by the latter chapters of the book Cassandra and Lucius were confiding in each other and she was relying on him to be her partner. When they faced challenges, these two surprised me with their honesty with each other and reliance on each other to get through to the other side of the issue. That aspect made this story work for me, though I did lose some patience at times with the extremely slow pace. I would’ve liked to see a bit more comeuppance for our villain here, rather than this merely being an opportunity to show how Lucius had grown, but nonetheless the scene did still work here. This was my first read from this author and it did take a bit for me to get used to the writing style, especially the way the dialogue is written, but it made the banter a bit snappier and that worked here. My biggest issue is that for all of Cassandra’s self-described pining she did for the duke, I never really felt the depth of her feelings for him, even by the end really. Lucius’ falling for her made more sense and I just wish she hadn’t been so fickle and had given him more of a fair shake sooner. It took a long time for me to actually feel the connection between them and even by the end they still didn’t quite feel like they were on equal ground for me. By the end, Cassandra was a tolerable character I could root for and Lucius wound up being likable as well; I think he just needed someone to believe in him and expect more from him. The thing that most annoyed me in this reading was the near-constant reference to Greek mythology and the only issue I really had there was the use of, for instance, ‘Oh, Juno,” as an exclamatory. This just struck me as super awkward and annoying and pulled me out of the story a bit, but that’s probably just a personal idiosyncrasy of mine. I definitely think I would’ve enjoyed this more if I’d read the first book, which I plan to go back to, but I do look forward to Alice and Blackwood’s story.I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4.5 stars. So so so good!! Never thought reading about a himbo love interest who gets into feminist literature and starts reading to be a smarter, better man so he can woo his strong, intelligent, fiercely independent heroine could be something so personal. And yet here we are. I'm so completely enamored with this book and these characters. RTC when I stop fangirling over this and get my thoughts straight.

Well that was a delight!Here's the thing: Loretta Chase has written some of my all-time favorite HRs: Mr. Impossible, Lord Perfect, Silk is for Seduction, even Lord of Scoundrels. I shouldn't doubt her ability to write a really excellent book. However, the last few of hers I've read were...fine. (I've never read anything of hers that I really, truly did not like or think is bad.) But since they've been just fine, I went into this with not the highest of expectations. Shame on me! I will say, in my (partial) defense, that this starts out a bit slow. The first 30 percent or so is a LOT of inner monologue, dialogue about seemingly unimportant details of events, and a lot of remembering things that had happened far in the past. I liked Cassandra from the onset, but I didn't really think Lucius was all that special. (Maybe because blonde dudes don't usually do it for me?) Anyway, I was kind of just coasting along. (I won't go so far as to say I was bored...) Until suddenly, this got really good. The verbal banter between the MCs got wittier and more fun, and they started having more actual interaction with each other. It had been a hot minute since I read a historically-accurate, well-researched Regency (I know this is not actually "Regency" since it takes place in the 1830s, but I'm lumping it in that category due to the style and attention to period accuracy.), and I have been a bit tainted by less-accurate titles where the MCs are sneaking around-or not even sneaking- all over the place. This is not that. This is much more true to the period, and the MCs have to fall for each other and learn about each other fully within the constraints and the framework of the time and the society in which they live. Once I fully committed to reading a book where propriety and gossip and one's behavior can literally make or break someone (because it could and did), I found myself enjoying this immensely. It does a great job of staying true to "the rules" of the time and the unfortunate realities women had to deal with, yet it also shapes a strong, smart, independent-minded female character that is believable. I think this is a testament to LC's skill as an author. In this way, I kept thinking of Georgette Heyer, my gateway author into HR, and how this reads much more like that than say, Tessa Dare. (Which is not a knock- they're just very different. I've come around a lot to TD, and dare I say it....heh...I have really liked the last few of her books that I've read.)I can't say that Lucius is on my short-list of favorite HR heroes, but I found myself liking him a lot more by the end of the book. He does prove himself to be more than he was in the last title, and he has some great witty lines with Cassandra, especially in the second half of the book. I would consider him a rakehell successfully redeemed. He'll do.Overall, I was delightfully impressed with this one. I gave it 4 stars because truly, it does get off to a bit of a slow start, but it is very solid and enjoyable, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a fun, but also accurate and well-crafted HR with substance.ETA: I failed to mention how fantastic the scene is where Cassandra's mother so handily manages the verbal smackdown on Lady Bartham! This is worth reading just for that! And I loved the familial dynamics between Cassandra, her sister, and her parents. It was nice.