TO THE DUKE, WITH LOVE

A duke looking for a husband for his younger sister never expects to find his own ideal mate in the process.

Loretta Quick has resigned herself to being banished to a remote country house for years on end, a punishment cooked up by her guardian for refusing to marry the man he selected for her. But her contentment is shattered by the arrival of Sloane Knox, the Duke of Hawksthorn. Along with the rest of society, Hawk has forgotten Loretta even exists. He’s looking for Loretta’s brother Paxton, hoping to convince him to enter into a betrothal with Hawk’s younger sister, Adele, before she makes her debut in society. Hawk’s reputation as a rascal has earned him a lot of enemies, and he’s afraid someone will try to seduce Adele to get revenge for his own misdeeds. Being engaged before the season starts will protect her. But Loretta has her heart set on Paxton marrying for love and doesn’t approve of her brother's entering into an arranged marriage with a woman he doesn’t even know. Sparks fly, and Hawk and Loretta find themselves battling not only over their siblings’ fates, but over their own attraction to each other. In the second book of Grey's (Last Night with the Duke, 2017, etc.) Rakes of St. James trilogy, the plot is inventive but the characters themselves lack originality, and the prose is painfully overblown: why should Loretta simply turn away from the duke when she could whirl or even swirl away? Both Adele and Paxton are also disappointingly ditzy, although Paxton has his moments.

Sometimes the right partner appears where we least expect them.