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On the
London docks one day, Jack Thorndike rescues a lovely young
lady from several ruffians. In return, she offers him a
ride to his home, which he shares with his older brother.
Later, she visits to return a glove he left in her carriage,
and believes him to be the Duke of Stratford. Taken with
her beauty, he doesn’t correct her. When he finds himself
going to her hometown of Lower Pennington to look at a
vacant home there and meeting her father, the vicar, and
others, however, his deception begins to weigh on him.
After being
rescued by the handsome duke, Miss Angela Ainsley is
smitten. Although she knows it’s not likely a duke will
want to marry a mere vicar’s daughter, she manages to get
him to come to Lower Pennington. Even in a town as small as
hers, there are many secrets, some dangerous. When several
of them come out at once, will Angela and Jack’s budding
romance weather the storm?
Duke Pretender is an enjoyable (if not
particularly realistic) Regency tale. Jack is the typical
jaded, secretly unhappy rake. Angela is the marriage-minded
miss who sets out to catch him. Despite their somewhat
clichéd natures, Jack and Angela were so darned likeable I
couldn’t hold it against them. There are a great many
secondary characters in Lower Pennington society, and they
were fun to read about. A suspense storyline introduced
about halfway through the book provides additional conflict
and wasn’t too easy to figure out. Overall, Duke
Pretender is an entertaining book, and it made me
curious. Though it stood alone perfectly well, I believe
I’ll check out Duke’s Project so I can read the real
Duke of Stratford’s story. |
