Only a Duke Will Do (School for Heiresses Series #2) Book

3/5 Stars.

At the base of it, this book is about two extremely flawed characters who use tools such as seduction, manipulation, backroom deals, lies and deceit to get what they want from each other. The fact that they love each other, or even have feelings for each other takes a backseat. The feeling of owning of the other and having power over them seems to precede a healthy, loving relationship. And while this may be true of many real life relationships, it's definitely not what I want to read in a romance. Which is my basic problem with this book.

I've spent close to 3 days trying to decide how I feel about this book, and the conclusion I've reached is that it's nothing great but nothing terrible to make my blood boil either. And yet, too many aspects of the book didn't sit right with me, so I'll simply state what worked for me and what didnt.

More than half a decade ago, Simon the Duke of Foxmoor was asked by the King to court or pretend to court his illegitmate daughter Louisa. They shared a connection, albeit one neither expected but were quick to supress the same when it was learnt that Simon acted only on the King's orders. In her anger, 17 year old Louisa had him banished to India and Simon chose to leave rather than marrying her. 7 years later, Simon is back - and hailed as a great war hero, and the greatest Governor General of India and within the first 10% of the book the King has once again convinced Simon to get Louisa to marry him, simply to put her political actions down.

We spend some considerable time on his accomplisments in the "rural, backward and desparately divided" India and I swear to god it made me want to whack someone. The greatest angst of Simon's life comes from a Maratha revolution that occured in Poona (incidently where I currently live lol) and how innocent lives were lost and he wasn't able to do anything. While I get this as a trope and it's been done before many times, I'm Indian, and I know all about the colonialism and Maratha Uprising to know what the Britisher's weren't no innocent standby's who tried to intervene. They used their proven trick of divide and rule and ensured the only ones to come out of the situation profitable were them. So ugh, I'm going to keep aside the British sided description of Colonialism here because that's not the point of the book - but it definitely made me wish people treated history with a bit more tact.

Back to the story. We see that both Simon and Louisa desire each other a lot, but that's about it. Simon wishes to never desire a woman so much so that she has power over him, and Louisa is worried that she's a wanton just like her mother. These tropes while perhaps overused seemed okay to me, because there was enough backstory to make it believable. What made it difficult for me to invest in the relationship was the tools that Simon used to get her to marry him, or what it really seemed - to own her.

Seduction is how he gets her to give in to him, to the point where he comprimises her knowing full well that her brother will see them. That's just disgusting. And while all this is happening, all the inner monologues for Simon show us that he wants to continue supressing all emotions for her, keep her to the woman who he will bed and will bear his child. And he has plans to quash her policital plans to put up her own candidate for house. It was some underhanded macho shit if I've ever seen one.

Louisa is better, but still not enough. Her reasoning for half the things falls flat and I couldn't see anything beyond her lust for him. Love comes into the picture way way way too late. Conflicts between them are dealt with within a minute, and they're back to using sex against each other to get their way. She continues to lie to him about her greatest fear, and uses sponges to stop a pregnancy and I'd just had enough.

Flawed characters are my favorite, but these weren't flawed characters - they were manipulative, back handed and deceptive characters. Who basically seem to deserve one another.

The still higher rating is because I liked the writing style and will give this author another go. But this was a fail.