The Dastardly Duke (Signet Regency Romance) [Paperback]

Eileen Putman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1998 | Series: Signet Regency Romance

When a reformed rake wagers a friend that he can transform any pretty woman into a well-mannered lady, he never realizes just how beautiful a common woman could be. This charade could cause a scandal, especially if the two forget that this is merely a masquerade. A Regency romance original.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A highly talented writer of daring originality, Ms. Putman brilliantly crafts a remarkable romance featuring one of the most memorable rakes Regency fans will ever encounter. Yummy, yummy, yummy. -- Romantic Times, Jan. 98

From the Author

A contemptible, conniving, depraved peer of the realm who takes advantage of a destitute young deaf woman is nothing if not dastardly.

Julian LeFevre was the perfect villain--cold, cruel, an inveterate seducer. He deserved to lose, and lose he did--his woman, his self-respect, and very nearly his life--in my October `97 release, The Perfect Bride. Making this dangerous rake into the hero of The Dastardly Duke was the kind of challenge that keeps a writer up at night.

In love, the darkest heroes fall the hardest. They take us with them, for there is something compelling about watching a man who believes in nothing discover that life's greatest gift is waiting for him to take it, if he can.

Tormented by his secret belief that he was a bastard, Julian knew he was not entitled to his wealth and title. He was living a lie, and it was killing him. With the dukedom and perhaps his very soul hanging in the balance, he vows to mend his ways but cannot resist a wicked wager to fool the ton by making a trollop pass for a lady. Would the woman be his salvation--or his downfall?

Both, of course.

Far from the biddable miss he thought he hired for the job, Hannah Gregory possesses a sharp tongue, rebellious ways, and the most wondrous gray eyes. She is deaf, the result of an accident that occurred when she had the temerity to climb a tree at the ripe old age of seventeen.

In those times, the deaf faced great pressures to develop oral skills like speech and lipreading. Because she was not born deaf, Hannah had little difficulty making her way in a hearing world. But she had not yet come to terms with the silence in her life and, especially, the loss of her beloved music. Reduced to desperate circumstances, Hannah needs money to pay for an operation that may restore her hearing. She certainly doesn't need this disturbing duke with the devil's own eyes.

There are all kinds of music in this world, from the music of Beethoven to the music of the heart. As Julian and Hannah struggled to find their own special song of love, I swear I heard the angels sing. I hope you do too.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Signet (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451191560
• ISBN-13: 978-0451191564
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,519,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, sometimes touching, but contains flaws, August 8, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Dastardly Duke (Signet Regency Romance) (Paperback)

Eileen Putman has written a book in which, while there are some large plot-holes, certainly indicates a talent both for writing and for the Regency genre. Her writing style is a welcome relief from that of a couple of other authors I read recently, whose style and vocabulary are, at best, immature. Putman has an impressive command of language, sentence structure and overall novel structure, and that alone made the book immensely readable.

She also has a skill in drawing readers into her characters, earning our sympathy for them; and unlike some other writers she does not neglect her secondary characters. They too have their stories, which in many ways become as important as those of the hero and heroine. She also, bit by bit, allows us to find out about the past of her characters, which then reveals some of the reasons for their present state. This is especially well done in the case of Claridge's Aunt Eleanor.

Putman gives us a heroine who has been deaf since the age of seventeen, and shows how despite that disability Hannah copes with life and manages to win the respect and love of those around her. The intriguing twist which makes this story out of the ordinary for a Regency is that Hannah at first appears to be no lady - the Duke finds her in a hospital for sick prostitutes.

Questions Putman fails to answer satisfactorily include just how Claridge and his friend Sir Charles fail to realise that Hannah cannot possible be low-born. They simply assume that her speech and intonation are assumed; but in that case, how come she never drops the facade and speaks roughly? She also 'learns' to be a lady too quickly: it must be apparent to Claridge that she knows the rules and habits of polite society. No common woman from the streets, unless she was a very high-class whore indeed, would know how to behave.

And when the truth about Hannah's background emerges, that she is not the orphaned daughter of Sir Charles' uncle, how on earth was that kept from the ton? There was no explanation of any attempt to convince Charles' uncle to keep quiet, and certainly Hannah's real relatives would have boasted of their connection with her and denied any suggestion that she was related to anyone else.

It is unfortunate that these gaps exist in the plot, since otherwise this is a very entertaining and extremely well-written book. However, if readers can suspend disbelief over those aspects of the plot, it is well worth reading.

Incidentally, why 'Dastardly' Duke? He is hardly that; the title seems to have been chosen for effect rather than for its suitability.

Just one further nit-pick: not only is the construction 'the both of us/you' grammatically incorrect, but it is also completely wrong for the location and would never have been used by Regency aristocracy. It would not even be used in contemporary Britain.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An oft-told tale written with a fresh voice, February 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Dastardly Duke (Signet Regency Romance) (Paperback)

The Dastardly Duke is easily one of the most touching regency romance novels on the market. The Duke of Claridge is as jaded and bitter a hero as they come, but his realization of his love for the heroine is sweet and honest and tender and written in a fresh way. This book features the absolute most moving love scene I have ever read. No purple prose, no explicitness; just simple honesty and raw emotions that make for a very believable and emotional read.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, although requires suspension of disbelief, May 25, 2000

By 

Dr W. Richards "wmr-uk" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Dastardly Duke (Signet Regency Romance) (Paperback)

This is a very readable book, from a writer with great talent and who understand the Regency era. I certainly enjoyed it very much and will keep it to read again. However, it does suffer from a lot of credibility issues, and had the book not been so well written I would have been seriously jolted out of the story and would have stopped reading.

The review below makes all the points I wanted to make about this book, and more. It is just not credible, in the circumstances, that Jared and Charles could possibly have thought Hannah was a common prostitute from the stews of London; there was far too much evidence to the contrary, and in any case no woman from that background could have learned to behave as an aristocrat in a couple of days.

There were later issues which were just glossed over, such as the aftermath of Hannah's real background being discovered; and the elopement seemed a little too incredible for words.

Having said all that, this book does have the advantage of being well written, in an entertaining style, and it contains some wonderfully romantic and erotic scenes which I enjoy re-reading.