Title: Duke of Danger
Author: Darcy Burke
Series: Untouchables #6
Genre: Regency Romance
Length: Novel
Available: 26th Sept
After killing his opponent in a duel, Lionel Maitland, Marquess of Axbridge, is known as the Duke of Danger. Tortured by guilt, he shields himself with a devil-may-care attitude. However, when he kills another man in another duel, he’s beyond redemption, even though it wasn’t his fault. He refuses to smear a dead man’s name, especially when he’s left behind a blameless widow who doesn’t deserve an even bigger scandal.
Widowed and destitute, Lady Emmaline Townsend must marry the man of her parents’ choosing or beg unsympathetic relatives for support. The only way out is to ask for help from the one man she’s sworn to hate, the man who owes her anything she asks, the man who killed her husband. They strike a devil’s bargain in which passion simmers just beneath the surface. But her dead husband’s transgressions come back to haunt them and threaten their chance at love.
Source: ARC from the author via NetGalley
This is another easy and enjoyable Regency read from the Untouchables series, even if it does stretch the point of credulity a little too far in some places to accommodate the plot. It’s also a fairly unusual romance in that our heroine marries the man who killed her husband – something about which she really wasn’t happy at the time.
It’s a good thing I liked Lionel, because the idea that even a peer could kill two men in a duel (including another peer) and just hang out in Dublin for a year each time without getting in any kind of difficulty was a bit of a stretch. Duelling was illegal and although people tended to look the other way over such things (unless the police heard, then they would break it up), not so much when people died and especially not when peers were involved. So that was the first issue I had, but I ignored it because Lionel somehow won me over with his high sense of honour and inability not to kill his duelling opponents.
I quite like Emmaline too, even if she was a tad impulsive when it came to marriage. She just jumps right in, taking no prisoners. The problem is I liked Lionel so much that I ended up annoyed with Emmaline at the way she treats him – even though she has every right to be a little mean since he killed her husband and all.
And that’s the joy of this book. It somehow managed to make the sensible seem ridiculous and the ridiculous seem normal. It’s been less than a year since Emmaline’s husband died, but she not only gets married again, it’s to Lionel – and this is all fine. It’s not really, and a little more time passing might have helped, but somehow the story sweeps you in and along, past some orphans, into a murky plot of extortion, around something about an old mistress and into seduction and love and drama.
It’s daft but enjoyable, and the way Lionel treats Emmaline is all rather lovely. He’s supportive and generous and ridiculously decent, if a little heavy on the guilt-wallowing. Emmaline turns into a good match for him too, once the old stuff is swept away and she can see him for who he is.
However, even with all the crazy stuff that I managed to ignore, I do think the romantic rival bit was pretty weak and the ending was too far-fetched even for me to swallow. [SPOILERS!] Firstly, the seconds should have played a greater part in trying to resolve the issue, and secondly, the challenger does not get to pick the weapon, the time or the location, that was for the challenged party to decide and the seconds to arrange. As for someone keeping a pair of duelling pistols hanging around, fully loaded – no. She should have just borrowed West’s and forgotten to give it back.[/END SPOILERS]
So in all this was fun and far-fetched, but certainly an original take on an antagonistic romance. If you think about any of it too deeply it really doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, so if you can content yourself without doing that, you’ll get a rather enjoyable Regency with an unusual plot. If, however, you’re not in the mood to suspend your disbelief because historical accuracy is more your thing, this will likely leave you screaming and unable to finish. I landed somewhere in the middle and although I did enjoy it, the ending sadly pushed things a little too far for me.
The Duke of Danger is out September 26th.
Visit Darcy Burke for more details.
Advertisements Share this:
