A Duke Will Never Do
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4.2 • 19 Ratings
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
From the USA Today bestselling author of The Untouchables series comes your next Regency obsession: The Spitfire Society... Meet the smart, independent women who’ve decided they don’t need Society’s rules, their families’ expectations, or, most importantly, a husband. But just because they don’t need a man doesn’t mean they might not want one.
After failing on the Marriage Mart, Jane Pemberton has two choices: submit to her parents’ edict to marry their boring neighbor or become a self-declared spinster and take up residence in the official headquarters of the Spitfire Society. It’s really no choice at all, and Jane is eager to embrace her newfound independence. She soon finds an unconscious viscount on her doorstep and nurses him back to health. When he offers to compensate her, she requests payment in the form of private instruction of a scandalous and intimate kind.
Having spiraled into a self-destructive abyss following the murder of his parents, Anthony, Viscount Colton, physically recovers under the care of an alluring spitfire. But it is her charm and flirtatiousness that soothes his soul and arouses his desire—until an extortion scheme forces him to face the sins of his past. Now, to save the woman who’s given him everything he lost and more, he’ll have to pay the ultimate price: his heart.
Customer Reviews
Friends to Lovers
I received an ARC of this book to read through NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. A Duke Will Never Do is the second book in Darcy Burke’s The Spitfire Society series. I think it would be best to read the first book in the series prior to reading this one and, note that for those who don’t enjoy duke books, that there is no duke in this book. After five disappointing seasons without a match, Jane Pemberton has declared herself a spinster and moved into her friend Phoebe’s house to avoid an unwanted marriage that her parents were promoting. She discovers Anthony, Viscount Colton, unconscious, severely beaten, and quite drunk on her doorstep and takes him in to nurse back to health. Anthony is on a one-way trip to disaster, he blames himself for his parents' deaths and uses alcohol to numb his feelings of guilt. Jane helps him to dry out, and a friendship grows between them, leading to her ask him to teach her about passion. Secrets and lies, blackmail and last-minute rescues from villains make this a story that will have you avidly turning pages until way past your bedtime. Medium Steam. Publishing Date May 19, 2020. #ADukeWillNeverDo #DarcyBurke #HistoricalRomance #NetGalley #bookstagram
I liked the mystery
I’ve got to admit, I’m firmly on the fence about this book. I liked the mysteries that Anthony and Jane were each dealing with, but I’m not entirely convinced by the chemistry between the pair. I loved the opportunity to learn why Anthony had been drowning himself in alcohol every time we’d seen him previously. The quantity of guilt and self-loathing he carried hurt my heart to witness. I thought Jane’s parents were vile, reprehensible people. At first, I was rather proud of Jane for being willing to go after what she wanted until I stopped to think about how she went about getting some of what she wanted. If it were a man doing the same things to a woman, I think it would be obvious how rape-y it looks. As it was, with Jane being the aggressor, it still left me feeling more than a little icky. I didn’t find this story to be up to the same calibre as I usually find with this author, but I still found it quite entertaining.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author through NetGalley.