Reviews for The Secret Duke

The average rating for The Secret Duke based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-09-12 00:00:00 Surinder Rakhra 12/9 - What a strange collection of side plots this story has! From Thorn's adoptive Manx cat and her kittens to Bella's quest for women's rights with many (many) secret identities thrown in to make things even more complicated. The relationship between Bella and Thorn felt like a total afterthought to me. I think Beverley was way more interested in her labyrinthine plotting than developing the chemistry between her main characters, luckily the ludicrously far-fetched plot kept me reading all day today anyway. Now, talking about the Manx cat and the way it's portrayed in the story compared to what was known when the story is set (1764), I don't understand how Beverley came to write that side plot the way she did. After a quick Google search I came up with the website as well as the Wikipedia page, both of which talk about the Manx only becoming known away from the Isle of Man in the 1820s and at that time they were not known as a 'Manx' cat. On the island, in the local language, they were called a 'Stubbin' and in English a 'Rumpy' (both obviously referring to their taillessness). It took me about five minutes to type in 'Manx cat history', scan the top results, pick the above websites as the most edifying, and read the relevant paragraphs - it wasn't hard or time consuming, so why wasn't the research done more thoroughly for this book. This was published in 2010, it's not like it was the pre-Internet days, so Beverley has no excuse for shoddy researching. All the secret identities - four for Thorn (Duke of Ithorne, goatherd, secretary, and Captain Rose) and four for Bella (Bella Barstowe, Kelana the nymph, Bellona Flint, and Mistress Rose) - made the story way too convoluted and near farcical. I think the whole story would have had more of an impact and told a better story if there had been just one secondary plotline - Bella's quest for women's rights and social reform. It was very apparent that this book was near the end of a long running series, previous couples were popping up everywhere with half-told backstories that mostly just confused me - especially the rift between Thorn and Rothgar. This was completely devoid of humour or banter between the couple and I barely felt a flicker of passion from the two of them (two features I really look for in a romance), but I would definitely read more in the series as it definitely held my interest for 24 hours. Originally, I requested my library buy a copy of this (I don't actually remember doing that, but the library's website has a record of all the requests I've made and this was on the list), I'm not sure exactly what enticed me into ordering a copy, but I'm glad I did as it made for an enjoyable day of reading.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-06-14 00:00:00 Robert M. Barger [Bella has a freak out when she learns he's the Duke, but that's perfectly reasonable and Beverley doesn't drive that beyond reason (hide spoiler)]