The Duke Next Door (Heiress Brides)
St. Martin's Paperbacks - St. Martin's Paperbacks
Release date: 2008-04-01
Mass Market Paperback
Author: Celeste Bradley
Romance: historical, Fiction, Fiction - Romance, Romance: Modern, Fiction / Romance / Historical, Romance - Historical, Romance - Regency, Romance - General
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The Duke Next Door (Heiress Brides)
Date undefinedThis is the second Celeste Bradley book that I have read and it will be the last. I thought perhaps this series needed a bit of warming into, so I continued on after reading the very silly, boring and disappointing first entry (Desperately Seeking A Duke). Big mistake.
The Duke Next Door has absolutely nothing going for it. I found it to be incredibly boring. There was no romance, no heat and really no plot. The heroine was annoying, shallow, not very likable and not well drawn. The hero was just blah. Midway through the book the hero for the third and last book in this series was introduced. Nothing that was written about him enticed me into continuing with this series.
Once again we have a glowing back cover description that makes one wonder if whoever wrote it actually read the book or was perhaps giving into a bout of wishful thinking.
The reader is led to believe that our hero had some huge secret that was responsible for him being so cold, unfeeling and absolutely miserable to his new bride. The secret, once revealed didn't live up to it's billing and was in truth a non-event. Add the silly sub-plot of the two idiots responsible for maintaining the Pickering trust and the boring miserable excuse for an anti-hero that was supposed to provide a bit of intrigue and you have a recipe for disaster.
I totally gave up on this one and by three quarters through the book, was skimming and skipping whole pages of this yawner.
Maybe it's time for authors to release books more slowly and get back to basics. I can't be the only one growing tired of cookie cutter regency romances where one simply has to change the names to protect the guilty. The reading public isn't stupid and quality is worth waiting for.
Bottom line, save your money and skip this whole series. I am going to save even more by skipping this author entirely in the future.
The Duke Next Door (Heiress Brides)
Date undefinedI was not disappointed with this second in a series. Not sure why some of the reviews are so brutal, bad day perhaps? I found it to be a light, fast read.
The Duke Next Door (Heiress Brides)
Date undefinedI have read all three in the series, with this one being the last. I am glad I read the other two before reading The Duke Next Door, or I would never have picked up the other two in the series. The character turn-around was weak and banal. Where as the other two books in the series seemed more plausible (as plausible as you can get in a romance novel--not that I am complaining) and the characters more likeable, this seemed compulsory. All that being said, I do like this author, this book just wasn't her best attempt.
