The Wicked Ways of a Duke by Laura Lee Guhrke
(2008, Victorian) 1/5/09
Grade: 2
Seamstress Prudence Bosworth is dazzled when she meets the indebted Duke of St. Cyres, but she never imagined it would go further – until she inherits a fortune from a father she never knew. Suddenly she’s the heiress that everyone wants, but the Duke is pure of heart and loves her for herself… doesn’t he?
This book had an interesting premise, but it was doomed by a heroine who was so naive, she came across as too stupid to live. For more than three quarters of the book, she is convinced that the hero never knew she was an heiress – even though she knows he’s in debt, and it’s been in all the newspapers. There’s naive and then there’s dumb. Maybe the book would have been more believable if the heroine had been a 17 year old sheltered debutante, but the heroine supposedly had lived on her own for years and supported herself. I had to wonder how she survived. I found Rhys slightly more appealing, especially as he found himself warming to the heroine and dreaming of a life with her – but even that was pretty much dropped at the end. By the end of the book, I just wanted it to be over.
I rarely write reviews of books that I rate this low, mostly because I don’t bother finishing them. There are lots of books that hit the trade pile by page 100 – probably many that were better than this one! But I kept reading because (1) I kept hoping the author would turn it around somehow and (2) I had a glimmer of interest in the hero. But by the end, I was wishing I’d tossed it. I will continue on to book three in the series, and hope it’s an improvement!
Karen Wheless
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