Customer Reviews

At the Duke's Pleasure

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was really looking forward to this book given that I loved Seduced By His Touch and liked Tempted By His Kiss. I read the first 2 out of of order but that wasn't a big problem.

This book definitely builds on the first 2 books and carries along some of the characters and plot lines so in the case of this book -- particularly from "Tempted By His Kiss". If you haven't read the other 2, the author does still give enough of a back story to where you are not completely in the dark. However, you will definitely have a better appreciation of this book if you know what happened before it.

In terms of the main characters, I really like Edward (Ned -- the Duke). However, I really found Claire to be annoying and her antics got tiresome very quickly. If she did the type of stuff in modern day, most people would (rightly) conclude that she was bat-____ crazy. However, doing so in the Regency era is supposed to be considered spunky? In the other books, the author spent a fair amount of time probing both the male and female characters' psyche. Here we see relatively little of Edward and his developing feeling but are treated to hundreds of pages of Claire's endless manipulation and self-destructive behavior all in the name of "if I can't have EVERYTHING, then I want NOTHING even if it kills me!"

Where the first two books had a reasonable amount of humor and romance, this book didn't really get going with any real romance until nearly halfway through. The humor (at least in my opinion) never really got off the ground. However, as I said, I found Claire's behavior annoying, manipulative, and needlessly self-destructive rather than "spunky" or "endearing".

To the credit of this book -- there was more "plot" to this book than many romance novels and that is what I enjoyed. Also the "romance scenes" were very well written and the author clearly has a knack for that.

I would still recommend it -- particularly if you read the first two novels. And if she comes out with a fourth (goodness knows there are still plenty of siblings left to be married off -- will Mallory be next?) I will probably read those. I just hope the author starts to make her characters quite so "extreme" and one-dimensional to the point of being a cliche.

I've been a fan (with some reservations) of Tracy Anne Warren since THE HUSBAND TRAP and THE WIFE TRAP. She usually gets the chemistry right between hero and heroine and the stories are relatively interesting. And her first two Byron family stories, about Cade and Jack Byron, were pretty good. I especially liked the romance between Jack and his love. Now, as for this story: Edward, the Duke of Clybourne (Cade and Jack's older brother) should be nominated for sainthood for putting up with the antics of Lady Claire, with whom he manages to fall in love during the course of this novel for reasons mysterious to me. She should have been shown the door one third into this romance. So Claire doesn't want to marry Edward, to whom she has been betrothed since infancy, because she loves him (and, why? She has been in his company only three times since her birth.) but he does not love her. So instead of trying to see if romance can bloom between them, she decides to act like a perfect idiot, indulging in scandalous behaviour so HE will cry off. Apparently, the scandalous behaviour and her subsequent ruin seem more sensible to her than just getting her mother and father to allow her to break the engagement. It seemed to me that angering her father would be a better way to go than to ruin herself in society but then we wouldn't have a story, would we?

Claire and Edward had been engaged since she was an infant, she had been ignored by him until he felt the time was right. At 22 Claire was devastated and understandably wanted more from marriage. This had the makings of another fine romance yet the heroine's thoughts and actions through the story just didn't align. It wasn't until page 277 that the romance became interesting. Finally, Claire was able to communicate her warranted devastation and fear about marrying Edward without his declaration of feelings-- Before that, the majority of the book was her reaction to the disappointment by trying to get him to dissolve the betrothal by a series of possibly self destructive actions (especially the last one). Antics are one thing, but Clair came off slightly immature and impulsive.

This book is the third in a series. The other two books weren't high literature, but they were entertaining and acceptably believable. By "believable" I mean that it is plausible that 1) that these people could exist, 2) that given their personality, experiences, and their time and place in the world they would act and react as they did, and 3) that the flow of the story is consistent with the characters, the events, and the circumstances.

At the Duke's Pleasure simply didn't meet any of the above criteria. The Edward we knew from the previous books had more sense and character than to fall madly in love with a self-centered and immature young girl. Why would anyone who is sober and with a grain of gray matter fall madly in love with her? Yes, he probably would have felt honor-bound to honor his father's word, but he (and the reader) would have hoped and searched for a way out. Claire is not a well-formed character, she is not consistent with her time and place, her behavior and motivations don't make sense and she is, at best, annoying. It adds insult to injury that the reader is mostly forced to view the story from her childish perspective.

I kept asking myself why I disliked this book so much. I think the answer is that (in addition to offending my intelligence) it offended my sense of justice. Frankly, Edward deserved better.

Clearly there are differences of opinion on this book. I suspect that it depends on your reaction to the heroine. I found her so childish, selfish, and Too Stupid to Live that I started to actively dislike her. I found the whole basis of the plot very unconvincing: She's in love with the duke and so wants to force him to break the engagement because he doesn't love her. I find this a childish position to start with.( She would have been a lot better off being determined to make him love her.) But even if you accept that, she seems to have no thought whatsoever for what she will do if she manages to force the duke to break the engagement (and isn't one of the Regency rules that the man isn't *allowed* to break the engagement?). She does all kinds of horribly scandalous things that have the potential to hurt everybody around her - her family, the duke's family - without a care for anybody else. And goes off with the depraved man that *everybody* has warned her against, putting herself in danger.

Then after the two of them get together - losing all tension for a chapter or two - she turns into a jealous harridan and goes around suspecting him of having affairs, and manages to get herself shot because of it.

I started wishing that the duke would dump her and find somebody nice. I really hated her. YMMV

Like some of the other reviewers, I found Claire to be an annoying, self-centered brat. At first, I could sympathize with her plight (an arranged marriage to a man she loved but who didn't love her), but as the story continued her antics became not only childishly stubborn, but downright dangerous. And from what I could tell, she never really gave Edward a chance to love her! He wasn't madly in love with her when she was 16, so he would never love her? Really, I couldn't follow Claire's logic...
Edward seemed to be a nice enough fellow,but a little on the dull side.

That being said, the story was compelling enough that I give it 3 stars -- though the ending seemed to be a bit "tacked-on"
Not the best of the series, but I'll keep reading particularly to follow Mallory's story.

I read it all but I suppose it was a waste of time. I do not recommend this particular story. I haven't read the previous two stories that belong to the same family but I read
The Bed and the Bachelor and I enjoyed very much.

This wasn't my favorite out of the others that I've read in the series, but it was still a good read. I liked both Edward and Claire from the beginning and I was rooting for them all the way. I liked how Claire had a little spunk and stood up for herself. I liked how Edward was a little out of his element when dealing with Claire. But, once I got to the middle of the book and Edward realized Claire was a romantic, I wanted to see him sweep her off her feet. The romance was a little lacking, but it was still good. I'm just about to start Mallory's story now.

I think this is the best of the series so far. It was a light fun read. I do not agree with a lot of the reviews about the heroine. I thought it was nice to see a heroine that was not a doormat. Most of her escapades were funny and harmless and all she really wanted was to be loved. She might of acted a little immature at times but she is fairly young and being sentenced to a supposed loveless marriage. This is the only way she thinks she can end the marriage. I thought the hero dealt well with her. I only wish he had confessed his love for her sooner.

I loved this story and couldn't put it down. I disagree with some of the other reviews about Claire. I personally really liked her because she thought that she would be unhappy married to Edward even though she loved him. Claire was perfectly honest with Edward about not wanting to marry him, several times in fact, and really gave it all she had to get out of marrying him. I enjoyed looking forward to what she would do next. I really hate it when the H/H give in with a token resistance, that's so wishy washy. Edward was lovely and sometimes I could just picture steam shooting out his ears but he was patient and determined. Of course, all works out well in the end and I closed the book with a smile. It's a keeper!