I had a hard time getting into this book. Several times I thought about not finishing it. I have a very hard time with sibling brutality. I did continue on through that beginning theme and got to the rest of the great book. Glad I did. Enjoyable!!

Gritty, angsty historical romance

This historical romance while well-written was a more intense read than I've come to expect from historical authors. Kerrigan Byrne's The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo had a great deal of violence. Ash and Lorelei both experience pain and abuse. While I appreciate a book that has an action packed plot I like a little more happiness and romance in my reads.
I received an advance reader copy from Netgalley.

Kerrigan Byrne is a new to me author, I also didn't realize when I go this title that it was #6 in the series. Not having read the rest of the series, I don't know if I missed anything or not I'm hoping it was just some of the couples that were in this book. I loved that Lorelei was a strong woman, fighting for what she wanted with Ash when she thought all was lost. The middle was a little slow for me, the ending picked up but it seemed a lot was thrown into the last couple of chapters just to get everything cleared up. Still an enjoyable read and now I need to go back and read the other 5 books in the series!

This review is based on an ARC from NetGalley, courtesy of the publisher. All opinions are my own.

This book is a lot darker than I am used to reading in historical romances myself. That being said, I found I could not stop reading it. Lorelei saves animals that are broken, heals them, and then releases them. When she finds Ash, she tries to heal him. Unfortunately Lorelei has a bully for a brother and he sells Ash to a ship as a slave. Ash is coming back for Lorelei, but it takes him years. Years that harden him into a feared pirate captain. Several secondary characters have or will have their own stories, I await them eagerly!

3.5 stars for an entertaining historical read.
Byrne is a new author for me and this was a good introduction to her work. I found myself really liking Lorelei and Ash/Rook. I enjoyed their initial time together when they were young and hoped with them that the fragile bond could grow until they were mature enough to explore it.
I also enjoyed their more adult encounters and how her affections were able to peel back the layers of time and hardship to find the man underneath.
This was a well written story that balances intrigue with passion in a clever setting. This is part of a series, but I did not feel lost for having not read the other books first. My interest in the author and series has been sparked and I am looking forward to reading the other books.

THE DUKE WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by Kerrigan Byrne is book Six in the Victorian Rebels series. This is the story of Lorelai and 'Ash'. I have read the other books in this series (and loved them!!) but feel you can make this a standalone book if you wish to do so.
Lorelai is about 14 years old when her abusive brother and father happen upon a half dead boy (around 17 years old) who Lorelai gets them to rescue him. Lorelai grows to care deeply for Ash and sees him as a light into her dark world. Ash too has come from a very dark place where his tormentors had meant for him to die. But hearing Lorelai beg him to live reopened his dead heart to her and lived for her. But he had to leave and vowed to himself to come for her...but time pasted and now its about 20 years later. Lorelai abuse has gotten worse and has taken on a new level but someone saves her in the nick of time...which turns out to be a harden..older version of Ash.
I am not sure what words I can say that would tell you how much I love this series and this author. Ms. Byrne books take you through a endless row of emotions and you connect with the character very strongly.

A strong start to this story of Lorelei and Ash. They meet when they are both quite young and the affection for each other is sweet and emotional. Then Ash disappears and life goes on for Lorelei. 20 years later, they meet again and things are not as sweet since they both have changed.

While I liked this story and the characters, I felt that towards the end, it suffered a bit. I've read other books in this series and it's obvious that Ms. Kerrigan likes to use profanity just to be using it. I get it, the character of Ash could get away with that kind of talk, but, there were times profanity didn't belong in the conversation, at least for me. As I said, it was used just because, so for me that brought the book down a bit.

**Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley in exchange of an honest review.**

❤️❤️❤️❤️ out of 5
Damaged, tortured, totally alpha pirate hero? Yes please and can I have some more! I loved everything about this book except the fact that I felt like I needed to have read every book in the series before it so I continually felt like I was missing something.
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The story follows our hero (anti-hero) known as The Rook- cold blooded killer and most feared pirate of the seas and the one woman he could never forget. As an 18 year old our hero is rescued by the heroine and her family from a mass grave where he has been dumped. He wakes with no memory of who he was and knows only the kindness our heroine gives him as he is healing. Unfortunately they are ripped apart and 20 years pass before he comes to claim the only woman for him- on the morning of her wedding.
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The hero really stole the show in this book, and reading all the horrors he went through his entire life make his HEA all the sweeter. This book brought all the feels! I felt like the heroine had more character in the beginning when she was 14 than when she was grown up but that’s me being really picky about it. Overall I still loved this book but I do need to go read all the others in the series preferably in order.

Yet another amazing historical romance from Kerrigan Byrne. Two imperfect people who are completely perfect for each other. Lorelei is light and innocent while Ash is dark and decidedly not innocent. The historical setting was wonderfully described, for which this author is uniquely talented. She breathes life into the history surrounding the romance in a way I connect with.

Overall, this book was thoroughly entertaining and beautifully written. The sparks flying off Lorelei and Ash was outrageous! Loved it:) The only very minor issue I had was I think Lorelei should have made him work harder to regain her trust. I mean, really?! Come on Lorelei! He gets up and leaves you for 20 years! LOL Again, entertaining read from a very talented author.

She rescues him, then years later he rescues her!

This is a true opposites attract romance, and beautifully so. Lorelai looks weak on the outside but has an inner strength and faithfulness that keeps her from being completely crushed by the villains in her life. Ash is all swashbuckling-pirate hot and commander of his world, but deep down he's fighting his own demons and struggles to find the good in even his own heart.

Their first relationship is sweet. perfectly idealistic, a glaring contrast to their second go-round where Ash is determined to protect Lorelai at all costs, even from himself if necessary, while Lorelai struggles to keep him from succumbing to the darkness in his soul.

There's plenty to love about this book, plenty of love in this book, and a triumphant HEA that reminds us all of the healing power of love. I really enjoyed these characters and the historic setting was brilliantly portrayed. It's a great read, a fine example of what historical romances should aspire to. I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book.

The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo by Kerrigan Byrne took me on an emotional roller coaster as these two wounded souls story was untold. In her early teens Lorelei Weatherstoke, a crippled girl at the mercy of her cruel brother rescues a man left for dead on the side of the road in a mass grave with a magnificent dragon tattoo on his muscled forearm the only sole clue to his mysterious origins. She rescues him, and nurses him back to health give him the name Ash until the day comes he feels compelled to leave promising “I’ll come back”. For twenty years she’s often wondered what happened to her friend Ash.
The Rook arrives and kidnaps Lorelei at her wedding to a man who disgusts her, kills her tortuous brother whose gambled away all the families’ fortune and sold his sister to pay his debts. The Rook whisks her away to his ship to be instantly recognized as her beloved Ash. The Rook, he knows salvation lies with the one he has never forgotten, Lorelai the beautiful stranger who found him and saved his life and now she can possible save his soul. Can she trust a man who’s been branded a rebel, a thief, and a killer, can she find her love, her Ash in there somewhere the boy she fell in love with all those years ago. A fast paced story had me turning pages to see what was going to happen next as each page brought new twist and turns as we discover where he’s been for the last twenty years and we find out who he really is in the journey of a lifetime. As Ash and Lorelai story unfolds in this journey to find a lost treasure will they find each other is the greatest treasure of all before it’s too late. This is my honest opinions after I voluntarily read a copy of this book that was provided to me with no requirements for a review.

Kerrigan Byrne tends to write about the dark life healed by love and sensuality. The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo is another example of the dark side of people overshadowed by light and love. Lorelai and Ash begin their life with her saving his life after he had been left for dead. Lorelai’s brother, Mortimer, is one of the cruelest of men, a true sadist. He could not let Lorelai and Ash have the love that grew out of their relationship. He was constantly taking his hate out on everyone around him, Lorelai and Ash were no exception.

Ash had no memory prior to coming under Lorelai’s care and living with her family. She healed him in more ways than in body. He felt that he had not been a kind person, but was not sure. Ash promised Lorelai he would always come back to her. And, he did, but he was not the same young man she fell in love with. Twenty years is a long time to be away. The cruelty Ash experienced in his life was almost his undoing, the death of his tenuous, gentle nature as he became “the Rook,” a pirate.

As you read of their journey back to each other, you worry Ash’s hate and now cruel nature may keep them apart. Yet, Lorelai will not not give up on him. She knows that her Ash is there somewhere. Ms. Byrne does a great job of tying up all the loose ends in a truly believable fashion. Lorelai and Ash’s HEA is hard fought and strife with the actions of others, but it is achieved. This has been an amazing series that I hope continues, maybe with Veronica’s HEA.

4.5 Stars!

The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo features a fantastic story with a romance packed with emotion, exciting adventures, and the chance at the treasure of a lifetime.

Known only as The Rook, he’s a man with no name and no past who inspires fear in those who cross his path. Before becoming a legend of the seas, he awoke after being beaten and left for dead with no memories of himself. His savior, Lorelai, became the one bright spot in his life and inspired him to live. Separated for twenty years, he returns for Lorelai a changed and darker man determined to finally have the woman who haunted his dreams for so long. For Lorelai, she must decide if she can trust this man who is so unlike the boy she once loved.

For simplicity's sake, I will refer to The Rook as Ash as that’s the name Lorelai gives him while he is recovering with no memory of who he is. Despite having no memories, Ash knows he’s someone who has known darkness in his life. Fast forward twenty years and Ash is a man who not only knows darkness, but he revels in it. Ash suffered horribly for years and sees it as his due to be able to dole out some of that pain to those who deserve it.

Lorelai grew up in a family that largely ignored her or were actively cruel to her which led to Lorelai coming up with her own coping mechanisms to deal with the abuse she suffered at her brother’s hands. Lorelai is incredibly kind and passionate about helping those who cannot help themselves and at any given moment, she has an assortment of injured animals she’s nursing back to health. Lorelai’s ankle was injured when she was six which never healed correctly causing her to walk with a limp.

Lorelai and Ash’s relationship in their youth is incredibly sweet which is vastly different from their relationship twenty years later. Ash has lived a reckless and hard life for so many years that he struggles to deal with Lorelai who was the one bright memory he had that he used to keep himself going. Through Lorelai’s sheer determination to find the boy she once loved, their relationship slowly gets better. When their relationship turns physical it’s incredibly hot with some fantastic scenes between the two. My one complaint with their relationship and the book in general is the few mentions of rape that come up (no actual rape, just the mention of it). Ultimately it’s dealt with in a good way, but if it hadn’t been included at all this book would have been perfect.

This book ties in with characters from the first book in the series, The Highwayman, so thankfully that is the one other book in the series I’d read. For those who have read The Highwayman, you would know information about Ash’s character that isn’t known to him until a decent way through this book. This book still stands well on its own, but I do think it’s better to have at least read the first book to have a better understanding of who the characters are.

The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo was the second book I’ve read in the Victorian Rebels series and I can’t wait to read the rest of the series. I highly recommend these books if you love historical romances with heroes who are a bit dark.

This is the first book I've read in this series. A friend was talking about it and it piqued my interest, so I downloaded it from NetGalley. I really loved the first half. The angst and emotion from both main characters really pulled me in, as did the suspense of who, exactly, the boy with the dragon tattoo was. Unfortunately the story lost me somewhere around the halfway point. I think I'd have liked to see less focus on the emotional aspects of the book and more on the action. I know, I know, that's not something us romance readers generally want. But the purple prose of the love-scenes along with the heavy focus on the "L" word really pulled me out of the story. Plus, the amount of time spent on how each character was feeling made the story feel heavy and bogged down.

I really loved parts of it - most notably the hero's devotion to his lady - but I'd have liked to see more focus outside their heads.

There is a certain kind of voice in HR that just speaks to me. Lisa Kleypas has it, Lorraine Heath and Courtney Milan do too, to name only a few. I'm happy to report I can add another name. Kerrigan Byrne's spellbinding storytelling took me completely by surprise. She is able to transfer the feel of another time when women were gentle and men courteous, with a good portion of grit and steam. And oh my word did it ever. It packed more steam than I expected, some of the scenes were SCORCHINGLY HOT.

But I should actually say something about The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo, right?

I think deep inside we all want men to promise us women that we are the only one. That it'll always be just us for them and that it'll never change. And you know how, at the same time, we don't have any illusions about it. So along comes a book with a hero who is so totally crazy about the heroine, so absolutely gone for her from the beginning that he promises her to always come back for her. The heroine is 14 at the time, so of course she believes him. Only...one day he has to leave and never returns. Until she is being forced into marrying a disgusting man some twenty years later and kidnapped by a pirate called The Rook.

“Lorelai. There are only two indisputable facts in this world: The sun will set in the west, and I’ll come for you. Always.”

In the first couple of chapters Ms. Byrne tells us about how Lorelai found a young man, almost dead, without a memory. How their love blossoms right from the beginning. How much he adores the young girl, who takes care of him, is there when the nightmares press down on him, always with a soothing hand and a smile at the ready. There is a distinct change in the tune of the story when it switches to twenty years later. The innocent, sweet love from the beginning is gone. Instead we find obsession, the harsh cruelty of truth, a man who is unable to love and a woman who never really let go of her feelings for the young boy. But there is also a bittersweet yearning of a man who experienced incredible tragedy, yearning for the girl who has grown into an enticingly beautiful woman with an iron will.

Am I rambling? I'm rambling, huh? :D

***He inhaled agony, and exhaled anguish.***

Ash was such a tragic character. He thought he was dead inside, without feelings, worthless and totally unable to recognize his emotions for what they were. He came across obsessed, a little crazy, maybe, but knowing what happened to him it was easy to see past what could be seen as a little off the rocker. He made me ache for him, I was horrified at what had happened to him but also admired his strong will to go on. His love for Lorelai was all encompassing, sometimes tender, often passionate and almost too big for his battered heart. Even in the end it felt a tiny bit desperate and sad.

***And yet . . . here she stood. Waifish and delicate, innocent and untouched. Even by him. Because here was the one threshold he could not seem to cross into his final damnation. The one thread that tied him to a flickering vestige of humanity. His one island in an endless ocean of unforgiveable depravities. No matter how cold and cruel and inhumane he’d become . . . he physically could not bring himself to face a weeping Lorelai Weatherstoke.***

Likewise did Lorelai impress me with her youthful wisdom, her patience, her innocence was the sweetest thing. Her growth over the course of the book was huge. I so loved her for not being bitter. Lorelai also had some pretty horrible things happening to her and she never let them pull her under. It's her quiet strength and endurance, her patience and caring nature that frees Ash's heart and mind from the prison of his past.

"Through everything that’s been done to me, I’ve only ever believed in one thing.” “What’s that?” she whispered. “That the sun would set in the west, and that I would come for you.”

Kerrigan Byrne has left an imprint on my heart with this book. Her words are lyrical, beautifully expressive, and oh so romantic. The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo packs a good portion of angst and if you want to be sucker-punched right in the feels you need to read this!

Pirate. King. Realness. One of the many delicious plot points Kerrigan Byrne brings to The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo. I have dubbed Byrne Queen of the Historical Antihero and I adore her for it. I have been a fan of the Victorian Rebels series since I read The Highwayman and fell deeply in love with Byrne’s writing. The first three books were a revelation and I recommend them to everyone. With her latest release, it looks like Byrne is back and just as good as ever.

As a warning, this book is not all sunshine and light. Byrne’s novels always start out extremely dark and brutal. I read through winces as we watch the hero broken down into the antihero he eventually becomes. I can’t say too much without revealing crucial plot points, so I’ll tread carefully in my review.

The Rook, King of the Sea, a brutal pirate has come back to claim the woman he has always been obsessed with: Lorelai. There are many layers and shocking reveals throughout the plot. Not all is as it seems and Lorelai and the Rook both have to bend in the face of their never forgotten emotions. As soon as I thought I knew where the book was heading, Byrne would take the plot a completely different way and keep me hooked. (pirate pun, I couldn’t resist!)

Lorelai was a revelation. Goodness and compassion without seeming priggish or perfect. I love the way she was portrayed. I just wanted to give the Rook a hug, something I am sure he wouldn’t have appreciated. Byrne writes the best growly, slightly (ok, more than slightly) murderous heroes!

The book had a lot of action in a short amount of time so some of the scenes and feelings felt a little rushed. All of a sudden there were a ton of revelations, trouble, treasure, my head was spinning a little bit. All the pirate craziness was fun but it was too jammed in at the end.

I hope you all read this series from the beginning! It will make The Duke With the Dragon Tattoo much richer.

**I received an ARC of this book in order to provide an honest review**

4.5 stars
Kerrigan Byrne’s historicals are a heady mixture of angst, passion, and redemption that really works for me, despite the fact that usually if I hear the word “angst” I’m like seeyoulaterbye and move on to the next book in my TBR pile. But Byrne has mastered the delicate balance of heavy emotion and Happily Ever After: her characters feel so much, and though there is so much stacked against them and so much that they’ve done wrong—specifically talking here about her male leads in her Victorian Rebels series—they yearn deeply. You see them living in the dark and thinking that’s all they deserve, but throughout her books they move into the light, and it’s a beautiful and hopeful thing.

Her latest release, The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo, continues in this marvelous tradition. Lorelai Weatherstoke, who has a limp from a broken foot that didn’t heal properly, is drawn toward helping the wounded. She nurses a young man who has amnesia and doesn’t remember anything of his past, and she names him Ash. We know that he was a prison inmate—one of the Blackheart Brothers—who was mistakenly attacked in his prison cell, burned with lye, and then left for dead.

Ash thinks that Lorelai is angelic, and Lorelai is drawn to Ash in a way that she’s never been drawn to anyone before. They’re both young when we first meet them—Lorelai is only fourteen—and the beginning of their love story is sweet and tender, full of promise. But then Ash leaves for a short trip with her brother, Mortimer, and never returns.

Flash forward twenty years to Lorelai’s wedding day, when the infamous and terrifying pirate the Rook comes to steal Lorelai and take her and her sister-in-law aboard his ship. To her great shock, Lorelai realizes that The Rook is Ash…but not. The Rook tells her that the man she knew as Ash is dead.

What happened to Ash and can she bring him back? Can she make the Rook feel again?

Throughout The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo the Rook/Ash is very resistant to the notion of any kind of redemption. In fact, he spends a great deal of the book insisting that he is just as terrible as everyone says. In the immediate aftermath of her kidnapping, he succeeds in proving this. In one cringe-worthy moment, the Rook/Ash says that it’s not possible for married women to be raped. Though this claim made me wonder if he really was too far gone, he fairly quickly does an about-face, listing what he could bring to a marriage to Lorelai and offering her the opportunity to “use” his “body.” This is an offering which is more meaningful than it might initially seem given that his body has repeatedly been used by the people who held him physically captive over the years.

Though the Rook/Ash's verbal assertions of possession of Lorelai are by turns frustrating and thrilling, to his credit, Lorelai also feels ownership over Ash and who they were together. But will memories of the past be enough to overcome the years he has spent doing unspeakable things to get back to her? Is a present with Ash possible?

Rich and bold, The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo is another sumptuous entry into the Victorian Rebels series. Byrne writes beautifully and she takes the reader on an inimitable journey that’s surprisingly full of hope, even though there’s so much pain along the way.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley but all opinions included are my own.

I would advise you to read every title by Kerrigan Byrne, and this book is no exception. The characters are so well developed, that you can hardly stop reading. The storyline is rich with intrigue and such compelling secondary characters that you hope for new books to tell their stories while continuing the saga. I had been awaiting this book, and I was not disappointed!

I waited months to get the next book so as you can see my expectations are pretty high… pretttyyyy high so when I read it I was just so so confused by how disappointed I was.

The writing for this book felt so sub-par for me and the plot itself was flimsy AT BEST. Don’t even get me started on the atrocious dialogue present in this book. It

The first half of the book was great and I enjoyed the puppy love between Lorelai and Ash as it was so cute and innocent but towards the latter end of the book, the plot was borderline on non-existent and the dialogue/conversation happening between the two main characters were so repetitive and had no meaning nor resolution in sight.

Also, there were a lot of plot points in the book that in my opinion was written purely just for plot progression because honestly said plot point had no bearing whatsoever on the overall plot of the book one wonders why did the author even include it in the first place? One example for this is when Lorelai for some God damned reason fainted in a make out sesh with Ash and miraculously she never fainted again after that even though it was said that she does this FREQUENTLY as a way her body handles stress.

Another thing that annoyed me was how the author doesn’t show what happened to any of the characters and instead just tells us what happened as if that will satisfy our curiosity. By doing so, the author strips the readers empathy for the characters because I swear to God I could not give a shit about the characters whatsoever. I mean I can’t relate to Lorelai and her being a victim of abuse neither can I understand why Ash is so God damned pissed all the God damned time. Like bro, take a chill pill man. Jesus.

I think I was highly disappointed by the book because I waited months for it. MONTHS! Her other books were that good that I waited MONTHS! Will I continue to support the author, yeah definitely one disappointing book might just be a fluke because she is definitely talented.

There were times I didn't feel like I should be enjoying this book as much as I did. It follows the same tortured-hero-long separation as 1/2 of the series (or so). But I loved that part. It features the hero who knows nothing but cruelty for everyone but the loyal few and is ruthless as hell-even at times to the heroine. But...I loved that too. And I liked that the tiger doesn't change his stripes (as usual) but his soft underbelly is exposed...but in the most ferocious way.

And I thought The Rook/Ash was damn romantic. I liked his words. I liked his actions. (view spoiler)

Lorelai was super sweet, but at times hard with how naive she could be. (view spoiler) There were times I was wondering how she didn't pick up on this or that, and protests that didn't persist when they should've increased, but overall..she felt like a new heroine, one who was much softer than the prior ones despite her trauma, and that worked really well to balance out Ash's ferocity.

I didn't particularly love a couple of the plot contrivances to get to resolution, particularly how late they were. Bits of it felt really rushed, and there were beautiful conversations...but there were a lot of them I'd give this a 3.5, but a really solid one that I'll be rounding up for it's binge-worthiness. So yes, formulaic. So yes, maybe too reliant on dialogue. But what fun.