A Duke in Time
The Widow Rules
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4,5 • 2 notes
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- 7,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
"If...looking for something new with Austen’s spirit, humor, and dashing heroes, they can’t do better than MacGregor." - Entertainment Weekly
A Duke in Time is the first book in a three-story arc that will have you rooting for leading heroines, searching for lost dowries, and falling for swoon-worthy heroes.
Katherine Vareck is in for the shock of her life when she learns upon her husband Meri's accidental death that he had married two other women. Her entire business, along with a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a royal supplier, is everything she's been working for and now could be destroyed if word leaks about the three wives.
Meri's far more upstanding brother, Christian, Duke of Randford has no earthly clue how to be of assistance. He spent the better part of his adult years avoiding Meri and the rest of his good-for-nothing family, so to be dragged back into the fold is…problematic. Even more so is the intrepid and beautiful Katherine, whom he cannot be falling for because she's Meri's widow. Or can he?
With a textile business to run and a strong friendship forming with Meri's two other wives, Katherine doesn't have time for much else. But there's something about the warm, but compellingly taciturn Christian that draws her to him. When an opportunity to partner in a business venture brings them even closer, they'll have to face their pasts if they want to share each other's hearts and futures.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
MacGregor (Wild, Wild Rake) packs this saucy Regency-era romp, the first in the Widow Rules series, with scandalous secrets and sordid affairs that threaten the welfare of a successful businesswoman. Boutique owner Katherine "Kat" Greer married her husband, Meriwether Varek, never suspecting that she was but one of Meriwether's three wives. His polygamy only comes to light after his death, when the three widows meet at the reading of his will. Christian Varek, the Duke of Randford, has never been close to his family, but he feels it's his duty to help the women who have been duped by his younger half brother. He teams up with Kat, the savviest of the trio, to protect their reputations, and is soon seduced by Kat's intelligence and humor, while she is drawn to his playful side. Meanwhile, Meriwether's widows find comfort in each other and band together to form a family of their own. But when Kat's toughest business competitor uncovers a secret from her past, he blackmails her into choosing between her business—upon which her employees' livelihoods depend—and her relationship with Christian. Throughout all the drama, the slow-burning love between Christian and Kat is the eye of the storm, and their convincing connection will melt readers' hearts. With powerful themes of acceptance, forgiveness, and second chances, this impassioned series launch promises more good things to come.
Avis d’utilisateurs
A good premise for a new series
Will they be able to reach all their goals without loosing themselves on the way ...
It was with much anticipation that I read this morning the related novella and soon after this upcoming novel.
But at a time it seems there is a discrepancy in the dates between the prequel and the novel, like the six months in the heroine’s mourning period in the novella and which change to three in the novel, but also in the starred couple’s characters.
The main protagonists offer both a different facade to the world in the opening scene, Christian is presented a cold fish, upset at his late brother’s antics and profligate spending, while he had a charming and caring persona when he meets people in need in the novella. He even turns his back to his sibling’s widows, upset at being one more time caught in his brother’s games.
So used to his late half-sibling turpitudes, he can not imagine others could have been abused like it was his case. To him, who navigated in the same muddy water, deserved whatever they got.
Why the change of character was unexpected if I had not read the novella.
Same is to be said about Katherine, she appears as a sweet woman quite sad for her husband passing even if she was not in love with him. In some way, she also much appreciated that even out of the picture she could use his name, as respectable as it was. Still when she learns they are three sharing the same patronym, she could have been angry, furious. She is just upset, because for the business woman she is, it unsettles her plans and jeopardizes her work to gain a crown license for her linen bedding affair.
And after her companion convinces her to lend a hand to those women in dire circumstances, like hers, they simply begin a new friendship. No rant about the unfaithful fellow, nor jealousy, nor ire for having been cheated of their money and having their reputation ruined ...
So as they quickly reversed to their empathizing personality, their relationship swiftly move to one of attraction and chemistry. Each helping the other, all the while lusting after one another.
Theirs is a cute second chance romance with a very modern woman for her era and a very progressivist hero.
The big heroine’s secret is quite deceiving, why it is so easily resolved, when her circumstances as one of the wives of a polygamist is much more scandalous than her birth circumstances and her “tainted” past. Yet, it seems to upset Katherine less than her “shameful” history.
It is a story with many many leads to follow, between the three women, their future suitors, the late brother’s will and his game plus the many “deliveries” result of his investments, the heroine’s quest and the hero’s many plans.
A little messy with all those paths to follow, yet I am curious about the next two stories.
3.5 stars rounded up.
Steam level : onscreen detailed lovemaking scenes.
I have been granted an advance copy by the publisher St Martin’s Paperbacks, here is my true and unbiased opinion.