As with the previous book I really liked the characters.
Helena and Roan work so well together, despite the walls they have around themselves. I was really rooting for these two.

I do wish there had been a little more to the backstory of when Helena and Roan first met and their initial disagreement, and as always I would have liked a little more of the ending. I tend to crave more of a look into how things have settled.

I did also enjoy the small glimpse into what the next book will be about. It shows that Sumner is really growing this universe, and that just makes me more invested.

A really enjoyable read, and once again something I thought would end up being a tropey plot point wasn't so another point to Sumner on that one.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. ( )

Tropes
Regency Era, historical romance, House Party, Titled hero, Beta hero, Spinster Wallflower heroine, Working Heroine, Unrequited love, Second Chance romance, Enemies to Lovers, Fake Relationship, Married in Scandal, Class Difference, Rake Hero, Sudden Nobility

The Hero
Roan Darlington, Duke of Leighton was handed the dukedom at the age of 21, suddenly and out of the blue. He was not happy about the inheritance, but came to recognize his duty. He and his sister Pippa were forced out of their simple life, to one they were I’ll prepared for.

The Heroine
Helena Astley is the only daughter of a shipping giant, who gave her the company when he died, making her an instant outcast in society but incredibly wealthy! She is smart, witty and an amazing business woman. Her mother having died when she was little, she is lonely and has no friends outside of work relationships.

The Plot
Roan has been pining after Helena for over a decade. He would watch her by the seashore and try to gather the nerve to speak to her. When he finally did, he botched the whole thing and ruined any chance he had with her.

Now, it’s 10 years later and, although they still harbor strong feelings for each other, they are rude to each other and bicker every time they meet. But, when the opportunity presents itself, Roan invites Helena, and her newly discovered half sister, to his country house for the Christmastide so that her sister and his sister can get lessons from the Duchess Society. He offers to pretend a courtship with Helena so that he can help put aside rumors he accidentally when he punched a man for insulting her and save her from scandal.

Helena and her sister arrive at Roan’s house and she starts to see a side of him that she didn’t expect, a caring and responsible side. But when he dares her to a kiss, that simple kiss leads to more and they are caught in a compromising position. Thrust into a world she is I’ll prepared for, Roan must convince Helena that he wants and loves her and the rest will fall into place. And she needs to let her guard down and open her heart to the possibility of love and a family.

The Steam
A couple of very steamy scenes and lots of swooning! One particularly steamy scene on a pianoforte that leads to a compromising situation!

Final Thoughts
Once again, Ms. Sumner’s book gives me all the feels! Such a good book and, since, all three storylines in this series are so different, I know it is Tracy’s writing that can pull me into any romance she can put to paper! ( )

2.5 rounded up to 3 stars. This was a bit tedious to get through. There wasn't anything offensive to me about it, there just didn't feel like there was much substance really. (Many people enjoy a bit of fluff more than I do though). But not a lot happens. Usually I enjoy lots of inner dialogue, but it seemed like they just went around and around in the same meandering thought patterns for most of the book. And there really wasn't much keeping them apart to begin with! A previous slight, a class difference between a title and an heiress... *eyebrow raise* Ten years of heart flutters and attraction and verbal sparring, 'really, what are you even waiting for??' lol. So all the pondering and feet dragging just seemed unnecessary. And even very late in the story, way after it's too late to go another route, one of them still hasn't entirely committed to the relationship. It felt like they were just making things harder on themselves without merit, and at a certain point I start to wonder if maybe they don't even deserve a happily ever after. lol. Silly characters.

Things I did like about it- it was nice to see the previous couples still being cute together. =) And the level of steam was higher than average, which is a plus with me, and there was nice variety to it. (The scenes are done well, but it is heavily weighted to the second half, so it felt a little bit like 'not much, not much, every other scene!' *shrug*) It was also nice to have the slightly self made/blue-collar character be the heroine, when it's more often the reverse. ( )

Wouldn’t you just think that a tale that puts together a leading lady with the nickname Lady Hell (Lady Helena Astley) and the savagely suave Roan Darlington, Duke of Leighton who’s admired Hell for years, to be sensational. All Helena wants to do is run her father’s shipping business. The road to that desire has boulders strewn across her path.
Their confrontation is unexpected, a sham engagement is called for … and yet will this give them both the desires of their hearts? Can both their needs be met, and then some?
A lively romance and quick read but nowhere near as electrifying as I’d hoped.

A Wolf Pub. ARC via NetGalley ( )

I read this as an ARC through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Book Two in this new series The Duchess Society is really only peripheral to it. It centers around Helena Astley, the heiress to the Astley Shipping company, a rival of Tobias Streeter, the Hero of the previous novel in the series. She runs the company on her own after inheriting it from her father, along with a younger half-sister. She is common-born, but a very wealthy heiress, but is not a member of the ton, or even really accepted by them despite running in some of the same monied circles around horse racing and the like.

When she was a girl, she took a trip to the seaside and was there seen by Roan, Duke of Leighton, who is a close friend of the heroes of the previous novels. He is an avid amateur archaeologist and was at the shore looking for fossils but found a girl instead and immediately and accidentally insulted her over her birth. They have been rivals ever since, with her deliberately snatching up archaeological finds before he can acquire them out of spite.

Because they were both madly attracted to one another then, and remain so to this day.

While this is a cross-class romance, and Helena keenly feels the slights given to her by ton members, there’s really little impediment on that front. Pots of money smooth the way to nearly everything, and Roan and his actual friends, the husbands of the founders of the Duchess Society, don’t care about birth at all.

The real negotiations in their relationship come from first admitting how much they are attracted to each other and then letting their guard down fully with one another and that is handled very well and with a great deal of skill. This is also the book in this series with the most sex in it and there is a lot. It almost becomes tedious but it’s understandable, because that’s the way they allow themselves to connect with each other first.

The Duchess Society is barely in this book, though Roan’s younger sister Pippa and Helena’s younger sister Theo are both put into its care to find them suitable husbands. It’s very much focused on the central relationship, and you like these two, especially Helena.

As usual, the various side characters in the book add greatly to the pleasure of reading it. There are a couple of housemaids and a stable boy who are integral to the plot and who seem like real people, not caricature. It’s refreshing. You don’t see the “low” characters in a lot of stories and when you do, they are just window dressing and Sumner gives hers real personalities and feelings and points of view. It seems to be a trademark in her work and I’m very glad of it.

There’s nothing surprising here, but it is a solid romance and has a satisfying HEA where everyone’s ambitions and personalities are accommodated. You can see the hero and heroine belong together. ( )