4.5 out of 5 stars!

The heroine was raised by a doting guardian after being left an orphan when she was younger. The hero arrived at Carlyle Castle as the new steward, and there was instant connection between the two. The hero is at the estate under auspicious reasons but ends up falling in love with the place and the heroine. Yet the hero is keeping secrets that may change the future of Carlyle Castle, which may be detrimental to the burgeoning romantic relationship.

This is the third book in the Desperately Seeking Duke series. It features a beloved companion of a duchess falling in love with a "steward" that came with secrets of his own. I enjoyed the main couple as individuals and together. I also liked the secondary characters, though the duchess took a while to become likable in my eyes. It needed more details for a better transition in certain areas of the story when I read it. Overall, I enjoyed the vibe of the story and will read more Caroline Linden books in the future.

**Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. All opinions and thoughts in the review are my own.** ( )

I received an ARC of this book to read through NetGalley. All the Duke I Need by Caroline Linden is the third book in her engaging Desperately Seeking a Duke Series. I think you would enjoy this book more if you have read the first two books in the series (both are excellent). William Montclair has travelled from the United States to England with his brother to set up an English branch of their family's shipping company. Bored and seeking adventure, he takes on the job of steward for the duchy of Carlyle. The Duchess has done her best to maintain the estate, but the previous steward was elderly, and many tasks were left undone, so William has his work cut out for him, as long as he doesn't offend the duchess again and get booted from the position. Philippa Kirkpatrick is the ward of the Duchess of Carlyle. Her love for the estate means that she and William frequently butt heads but as they spend time together, the mistrust she feels turns into friendship and then something more. William only has the one year as steward because of promises he made and secrets he is keeping, as well the Duchess has plans to find a husband for Phillipa so that her future is secure dooming their budding relationship. I enjoyed this book immensely and highly recommend reading it. Steam Level: Medium. Publishing Date: April 26, 2022. #AllTheDukeINeed #CarolineLinden #HarperCollinsCanada #AvonRomance #HarperVoyager #HistoricalRomance #HistoricalRomanceSeries #HistoricalRomanceReader #Bookstagram #Bookstagrammer #RomanceReader #BookReview ( )

Will and Jack Montclair have been sent from Montreal to London to establish a branch of their family’s shipping business. Will is mostly bored by the business and Jack adores it. It’s not going that well and they are short on funds, so Will decides to take the position of Steward at Carlyle Castle for one year to bring in enough cash to buy Jack more time to make contacts in the business world of London.

This is the same family that has been the subject of Caroline Linden’s two most recent Desperately Seeking Duke novels. The St. Jameses are in crisis as the elderly Duke suffered a brain injury as a young man and never married or sired an heir. Two distant relations (heroes of the former two books in the series) are now in line for the position, but both have established themselves elsewhere and are not resident at Carlyle. There is one outstanding line of inquiry to find a nearer heir, a son of one of the former Dukes who went to France and whose children may have immigrated to America somewhere.

Will arrives to find the place in extreme disrepair as basically nothing has been done for nearly 30 years since the Duke’s injury. But at first he’s not aware of this fact. He only knows he can only speak to the Duke through his mother, the Dowager Duchess, or his adopted niece, Miss Phillipa Kirkpatrick.

On his first day surveying the Estate he is late to a meeting with the Duchess as he has stopped to help one of the farm families with a collapsed bridge. He makes quite a negative impression on both Phillipa and the Duchess, but soon impresses them with his knowledge of the land and also his extensive list of what needs to be fixed.

Sparks fly between him and Phillipa and they both warm to each other as Will leans into repairing things at the estate and generally making himself useful to everyone. An accidental encounter with the Duke, himself, begins a friendship between the frail older man and the young steward and Will begins to cheer everyone up with his humor and good sportsmanship. The Duke even begins to venture out of the house on small expeditions with Will, to ride in the carriage or go fishing. As the Duke warms to Will, so does Phillipa and it is soon clear even to the Duchess that something is going on between her adopted granddaughter and the young Steward. So she sends Phillipa off to London to find a husband.

Will’s year is nearly up when Jack calls him back urgently to help him land a very lucrative contract with a French businessman. While in London, Will realizes all he wants to be doing is taking care of Carlyle and that he hates the shipping business even more than he thought. But he has made promises to his father and to Jack. So he has to decide between his love for Phillipa and Carlyle and his family business.

That’s not all there is to it, of course. There’s far, far more to Will than he’s letting on, and a great deal of agency and choosing on Phillipa’s part as well. But those would be immense spoilers and you need to read this for yourself.
This romance absolutely grows with Will’s involvement with the estate and the family. The people of Carlyle fall in love with this hard-working and admirable hero along with the reader. Every bit of this story feels entirely satisfying and earned, so much so that you find yourself wishing it went on just a bit longer and that the ending wasn’t quite so truncated. It feels almost like it needed a few more chapters. The story is all there, but you wish it went on, and maybe that’s the best recommendation for any book. ( )

*** UPDATE: I just learned the author will be writing "A Giant Series Epilogue" (her words) that will release within a couple of weeks of the publication of this book. The author is currently taking questions and suggestions for what to include in that epilogue. So, while that doesn't make the conclusion of this book any more satisfying, it does give us the opportunity to see what happens and get the answers we are craving. I'm leaving my review as I originally published it because this new book doesn't change what I thought of the book. However, it does offer us the opportunity to get our grand wrap-up in another book. *****

Well – what can I say? I absolutely loved the romance between Will and Philippa and would have rated it 5-stars, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a more dissatisfying series ending. The wrap-up was just suddenly there and then it was just as suddenly gone and left me wanting more information, more interactions, more completion. For me, that wrap-up was a 2-star at best. I think the book either needed at least two more chapters OR a super-long epilogue.

The Prologue was the polar opposite of the Epilogue. It was a wonderfully heartwarming story of the meeting between the Duchess of Carlyle and 3-year-old Philippa Noor un-nisa Kirkpatrick. I hadn’t previously been a fan of the Duchess, but as I read that scene – and then learned more of the family’s history throughout the book, I did warm up to her a bit.

Philippa’s mother was Indian and her father, a Colonel, was English. Her parents met, fell in love, and defied everyone so they could marry. After the death of her mother, Philippa’s father meets, falls in love with, and marries the daughter of the Duchess of Carlyle. After the deaths of her stepmother and her father, Philippa is raised as the beloved granddaughter at Carlyle Castle. Philippa is everything you could want in a heroine – she’s sweet, considerate, caring, intelligent, realistic, wise – and a bit sly at managing the Duchess.

William (Will) Montclair and his brother Jack have arrived in London at the behest of their father, to set up a branch of Montclair and Sons (a merchant shipping company). Will was in charge of getting the business going, but he really didn’t want to be. Will really wanted to be out of the business because he didn’t enjoy it – and his brother Jack did, so why not let Jack be the one in charge. After all, their father was all the way across the ocean in Boston. When an opportunity presents itself, he takes it. Jack is in charge of setting up a London branch for their shipping company and Will is off on a new adventure as a steward for a large estate. What can go wrong with that scenario?

Everyone at the estate quickly falls in love with Will – well, everyone except the Duchess. She takes an instant dislike to him and would gladly dismiss him. How dare he challenge her, argue with her, tell her she was wrong? But, her son finds him delightfully entertaining and thoroughly enjoys Will’s company. Since the duchess will do absolutely anything for her son, Will stays employed.

The growth in the relationship between Will and Philippa is delightful to see and I could thoroughly believe the attraction and the relationship. I also loved that it was all pretty much angst-free. So – kudos for the delightful romance.

However, the romance isn’t the entire book and the rest of it left much to be desired. I had more questions at the end than I did at the beginning. For instance – two mysterious French characters are introduced and then they just disappear. They aren’t mentioned again, so what happened to them and their scheme? Do we really have a new heir for the duchy? How about the new heir's relationship with the duchess? In my humble opinion, the secret should have been revealed a bit earlier and then the subsequent chapters could have dealt with the aftermath, re-establishing relationships, etc. – OR – add a couple of additional chapters. At any rate – the end was just too abrupt, too incomplete, and I just felt a bit cheated.

I do recommend the read because the romance is lovely, but don’t expect to end the series feeling good about the whole thing.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. ( )