The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare

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Title: The Duchess Deal
Author: Tessa Dare
Series: Girl Meets Duke #1
Published by: HarperAudio
Release Date: August 22, 2017
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Mary Jane Wells
Length: 7 hours and 56 minutes
Genres: Historical Romance
Source: Libby
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Audiobook Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ IndieBound ✩ iTunes
My rating:

Blurb:

When girl meets Duke, their marriage breaks all the rules…

Since his return from war, the Duke of Ashbury’s to-do list has been short and anything but sweet: brooding, glowering, menacing London ne’er-do-wells by night. Now there’s a new item on the list. He needs an heir—which means he needs a wife. When Emma Gladstone, a vicar’s daughter turned seamstress, appears in his library wearing a wedding gown, he decides on the spot that she’ll do.

His terms are simple:
- They will be husband and wife by night only.
- No lights, no kissing.
- No questions about his battle scars.
- Last, and most importantly… Once she’s pregnant with his heir, they need never share a bed again.

But Emma is no pushover. She has a few rules of her own:
- They will have dinner together every evening.
- With conversation.
- And unlimited teasing.
- Last, and most importantly… Once she’s seen the man beneath the scars, he can’t stop her from falling in love…

My Review:

4.5 stars — I’m not a historical romance reader…I just don’t gravitate towards it.  But damn, I am definitely putting Tessa Dare on my list of “always take a chance on her”!!  I LOVED this one!

I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Wells narration — even the male POV as well!  Sometimes it was hard to initially tell which POV we were in, but the internal thoughts/dialogue made that obvious pretty quickly.  Her voices were pretty consistent, and she delivered the punch lines and wit superbly.  In general I thought her emotion was fantastic…occasionally I wanted something more from Ash, but that might just be the nature of Ash.  Hard to tell if I would have read it differently myself.

Ash was hard to love at times…I felt for him, but he was so freaking stubborn, clinging on to the bad opinions instead of listening to Emma.  Emma could be stubborn in her own right, but in general I loved that feisty girl.  The two of them together made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions, which must have looked ridiculous when I was in public.  But the way they connected with their dry wits and their teasing was just…GAH!  So good!  I love sassy interactions, and I wasn’t expecting so much in this one, but it was an absolute delight.

And the thing is that it wasn’t just our MC’s that made this book delightful, it was the insanely colourful and endearing cast!  From Khan, the butler — who was AMAZING as a foil for Ash — to the rest of the meddling staff we only saw glimpses of.  And then there’s the delightful, if naive, Ms. Palmer.  And who can forget Breeches?  *snort*  But my favourites were Trevor and the ladies across the street.  Trevor was the funniest addition to this cast, and I just adored how he forced a relationship on Ash.  And Penny, Alex, and Nicola were just bright stars!  I can’t tell you how delighted I was to learn that they would all get stories in this series.  I’m so excited to find out what becomes of these oddballs.

I really enjoyed the very subtle Beauty and the Beast allusions too…I’m not sure if I would call this a retelling per se, but it was definitely highly inspired.

So yeah…look at me, using Book Club to stretch my wings into other genres more often, and so far being pleasantly surprised!