I love an upstairs-downstairs romance. This one was pretty straightforward--new (young, hot) duke falls for his housekeeper (young, hot), but she is planning the house party that he organized to bring all the young, eligible ladies of the ton to try to find a wife. The plot maybe wasn't as complicated as I wanted it to be, but the tension between the two main characters was sexy and well-paced.

At the beginning the duke's valet sprains his ankle, resulting in a week of ordered bed rest. There are inexplicably few servants about for a duke's household and it falls to Susanna the housekeeper to help the duke will all of his valet-y things, such as seeing him naked while he's dressing and seeing him naked while he's bathing. The bathing scene is one of the best in the book, it drags out the moment where she walks in and sees his d*ck and he makes eye contact and watches her look at his d*ck for literal pages.

He's very mean to her and threatens to fire her multiple times so be aware of that if you are sensitive to that kind of content (but also maybe you're into that in which case highly recommend—he's mean to her and orders her around in a sexy way for most of the book).

Overall, I think the plot was a bit simplistic and the upstairs-downstairs "we can't because of society" conflict was resolved a little too easily, but it was very hot and the tension between the characters really drove the book. There is also a small secondary romance that I don't want to give away (she sees him naked isn't much of a spoiler but revealing the secondary lovers would be, imo). There is some gestures toward light dominance and a bit of dirty talk, but nothing particularly scandalous once everyone's clothes are off.

Nothing is particularly innovative or new about how the Duke of Penning and Susannah's relationship develops and the sex scenes are normal Sophie Jordan fare (even possibly a little *more* tepid). There are elements included that clearly signal Jordan thinks she is progressing (Penning's career prior to becoming a Duke unexpectedly, the lesbian aunts) but most of things that felt new to Jordan for me I have seen done better in other books at this point, namely The Earl I Ruined by Scarlett Peckham.

The hero in this book was previously a sex worker and based on reviews of The Earl I Ruined, I do wonder how people are going to take his attitude compared to Julian in that book's, but I want to make it clear: the thing that makes this book just Okay has nothing to do with the hero being a sex worker and everything to do with the book just being kind of boring.

So many threads of potential conflict felt underdeveloped and under discussed--it is like there is no linkage between who the characters are and what happens to them. This leads to a weirdly paced book that just isn't that interesting and it is also reflected on a smaller scale in the way that dialogue is explicated over and over again. Nothing is left to be intuited or discovered by the reader; we are told what the significance of lines and speeches, which does help, mostly because I quickly lost trust that the dialogue would have any clear logical connection to the characterization that I had gotten up until that point.

Susanna and Lucian’s story is true Sophie Jordan gold! A commoner with a shady past thrust into the upper levels of the Ton and a housekeeper with her own past she’d rather keep secret. You know all the secrets are coming out and I love how their relationship develops and they share their secrets with each other. There’s some drama thrown in to keep this story moving but I love how there was no jumping to conclusions or miscommunication. Once they knew what they want and saw the path to it, they jumped. Great story and wonderful characters.

A duke and his housekeeper. Both hiding pasts that would tuin them both if revealed.

Susanna and Lucien have a slow burn, contemptuous relationship. He’s fighting the attraction because she is his servant, she’s fighting it because she’s his servant. This is made clear in the umpteen repetitious inner dialogues from both of them.

They get there happy ever after quickly after they are locked in a cellar together overnight. Yeah.


Predictable. The steamy parts are quite steamy.

Sophie Jordan’s The Duke Starts a Scandal is the latest in Jordan’s “The Duke Hunt” series and it’s my favorite installment thus far. I found both Lucian and Susanna to be engaging and intricately drawn protagonists and I really appreciated the magnitude of both of their backstories and how it informed their decisions in the present day.

I also really liked the characterization in this novel even apart from the leads, especially Lucian’s sisters, and Susanna’s old lesbian aunt(s), and they were deftly handled in a way that didn’t come across as remotely anachronistic. Sometimes when writers are attempting to add representation or instill their work with modern-day sensibilities, it’s really clunky, for lack of a better word, and Jordan is able to seamlessly integrate the romance of the genre with our modern day awareness of the deep-seeded social inequities and unfairness that characterized this time period.

I’ve read a whole lot of historical romance, some of it vastly better than the rest, and the books that have stayed with me are those which have a deeply human element, and this book really delivered in that realm. In fact, I actually cried at the end of the novel, not when the leads were in active danger or when Lucian and Susanna’s tragic backstories were revealed, but when everything was resolved, when they were all set to live happily ever after, after they’d done more than enough to earn their happy endings;

That said, something that stood out to me about this book, compared to some of Jordan’s other books, is that it’s sort of a slow-burn, i.e. it does NOT start out with with a bang, to borrow phrasing from the last episode of Sarah MacLean and Jen Prokop’s Fated Mates podcast. This fact informs my only actual criticism of the book, which is that the two leads have SO much chemistry and I wanted to see more of it on the page! Of course, this is also because the book is relatively short, only 214 pages in my NetGalley app, but I really wanted more, and I’m looking forward to whatever Sophie Jordan writes next because I know it’ll be amazing.

**Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC.

Susanna Lockhart has worked to bury her past and become the very proper housekeeper of a grand, ducal estate. But the new, true Duke of Penning has gotten under Susanna's skin since their first, unlikely meeting. The dukedom has given Lucian a new chance to provide for his sisters, if he could just ignore his deliciously distracting housekeeper.

This is the fourth and final book in the Duke Hunt series, which began with the previous heir being deemed ineligible and continued with a con artist pretending to be duke. This story can be read independently, as there is no connection to the other couples in the series.

Sophie Jordan is always a quick and easy read for me. One thing that I really liked was that there was quite a bit of character development revealed early in the story, which helped me to connect to the characters. The reader doesn't have to wait around until 2/3 of the novel when someone reveals "I'm sorry I've been a jerk this whole time...it's because XYZ in my past!" The only downside was that their connection at the end felt rushed. I would have liked to have seen that drawn out a bit more. Personally, I don't think this is one of Jordan's best books, but as a longtime fan I still enjoyed it quite a bit.

Tropes: Unexpected Inheritance, Class Difference, Working Heroine, Power Dynamic (Employer/Employee), Ruined

Steam: 2

* I received an ARC and this is my honest review.

I really liked the characters in this book and the overall story. Susanna has been the housekeeper for the Duke of Penhall for a few years. The most recent Duke moves in with his two sisters and they don't really get along, but mostly because they're attracted to each other.

Lucian, the Duke, invites the best of the best to a house party in order to find himself a bride and husbands for his sisters. Susanna is working as the housekeeper ever since she was ruined by a minor gentleman who said he would marry her then died before he could. Of course he had an evil friend who wanted her too, and that friend ends up being a guest at the house party and threatens to unmask her for having created a new fake persona.

When the villain threatened her this book went from a mild mannered romance to a stressful worry that she'd be cornered and attacked by the villain. That didn't really happen and frankly I felt like the book had been severely edited and parts removed since near the end Susanna was supposedly really close to the Duke's sisters which hadn't really been discussed earlier on in the book. The Duke had an unsavory past (he had to do some questionable things to keep his mother and sisters clothed and fed) but he didn't really seem worried that that would come out, and it didn't.

I enjoyed this book but felt it wasn't entirely fleshed out. I love Sophie Jordan books and rated the other books in this series 5 stars so I'll keep reading even if this wasn't the best.

I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This is book 4 in the Duke hunt series. I wish I could figure out what the title of the series is supposed to mean but after 4 books still haven’t figured it out. The story was pretty good the duke was a jerk at times but I did enjoy it a great deal. It was a pretty good way to end the series.

Lucian is a duke seeking to keep his sisters away from his earlier way of life, away from scandal, so they can find good husbands and be safely set up. Part of that means he’s got to marry the perfect aristocratic wife. Susannah is his house keeper. She’s definitely got a past scandal that she’s successfully run from. Since then she has never stepped out of her irreproachable station in life. At first they can’t stand one another but then they can hardly keep away from each other.

However, for me, the idea that they were interested in each other happened rather abruptly within the narrative, which was a bit jarring. They went from adversaries without a speck of a clue to us that they wanted each other to lovers yearning for one another. But otherwise their back stories really made them human and appealing; you wanted to root for them. And there are some nice, very hot love scenes. There’s the requisite dastardly nobleman out to ruin our Susannah so the duke gets to ride to her rescue. And there is a sweet romance between the sister and the valet. It is a sweet and interesting subplot.

I love Sophie Jordan but I don’t think this is one of her best novels. However, is it still worth the read? Yes.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I am such a fan of star crossed/wrong side of the tracks romance. However you would say 'of different social classes' in a way that sounds cute? That.
A new duke and a haughty, long time housekeeper? sign me tf up!!!

Last year I read the third book in The Duke Hunt, The Scoundrel Falls Hard, and I adored it. What's not to love about a lady blacksmith giving a fake declaration of love to save a strange babe from public execution? A typical love story I've read a thousand times, duh. I had expected the same chemistry and strong characters in this book that I received in the previous installment. I was poorly mistaken. The Duke Starts A Scandal was a messy romance and I was honestly more invested in the side plot involving the valet and the hero's sister. The tertiary characters had more warmth in their scant pages than the main couple did in the entire novel dedicated to them. They were completely frigid and their entire romance came off as bitterly cold.

My main beef with The Duke Starts a Scandal was how the main couple talked to each other. They were very snippy and mean. I'm starting to lose my fondness for Enemies to Lovers because I don't equate cruel dialogue with romance. I think authors are mislabeling their works when they really mean "bully romance". The key element that made me uncomfortable was the power dynamic between the hero and the heroine. He was her employer and she was the main housekeeper who ran the estate for a decade before he claimed his dukedom. There was a lot of weird tension that I can't fully attribute to their physical attraction. It was bad juju and I honestly didn't care whether or not they ended up together. That's a horrible indicator for a romance novel when the reader isn't completely invested in the happy ever after.

The Duke Starts a Scandal was not what I was anticipating considering how much I enjoyed its predecessor. My favorite part was the romance between the hero's sister and the valet. The young man was recovering from an injury and it spurred the heroine to assist the duke during his absence. I feel like the secondary relationship was sweeter, softer, and more genuine than the main romance. I would have preferred for them to take the spotlight, but a valet is not a duke. It's a darn shame that I couldn't substitute Valet with The Duke Starts a Scandal. Now, that's a title! I know from Downton Abbey that not all upstairs-downstairs romances last, but there's an exception for every rule.

A fun new historical romance read by Sophie Jordan! Jordan’s books are always fast paced and lighthearted which I love. I can never put them down once I start one, and can usually finish them in one sitting. She doesn’t over complicate the plot or secondary characters so it is easy to get lost in the love story of the two main characters until you reach their HEA. I love a falling for the housekeeper trope and this one doesn’t disappoint!

From their first run-in on a stormy evening, tensions are high between Susanna and Lucian. Susanna's kept house for multiple Dukes of Pennington, but Lucian may be the most difficult to please. He's on the hunt for a respectable wife to cement his sisters' places in society, but he can't seem to keep fight his attraction to his housekeeper. Both have secrets in their pasts they'd like to keep hidden, but soon find that to have a future together, the truth must come out.

I don't know how she does it, but Sophie Jordan always writes a book I can't put down. There was just the right balance between sweet and steamy, and I was rooting for all of the characters, including Mattie and Colin, to get their happy endings. Both Lucian and Susanna forgave each other pretty quickly after the 3rd act break-up, which was my only complaint. Susanna's history in the Isle of Man was a fun little bonus, as I don't often see it as a setting in romances (or any books!)

I had high hopes for this book. The beginning started strong and had good tension. I felt the attraction between the characters, and while I can appreciate a slow burn, this one just didn't have the payoff that I thought it deserved. I appreciated that the hero was conscious of his power and didn't want to start a relationship while Susanna was working for him, but when they finally got together I just wanted more. My main complaint with this book was that the conflict had so much buildup, and both characters thought so much about the consequences of what would happen if people found out. Then that conflict just sort of sizzled with no real payoff. I think that the housekeeper/duke dynamic had the potential to be the main conflict, and to me that probably would have been more interesting to explore than the "what if my secret is revealed" angle. Particularly because in his case, once you're a duke I think you can pretty much be excused for anything, and in her case, the secret just didn't seem like a big deal.

Why wasn’t the cover scene in the book?? That was disappointing for sure, but otherwise this was an easy read that I quickly gobbled up.

I recieved a free copy from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I didn't want to put this book down.
Lucian has just inherited a dukedom, something he was never expecting to occur.
Susanna became the housekeeper after her aunt retired.
The spark between the two was immediate.
I liked that Lucian didn't want to take advantage of his employee no matter how attracted he was to her.
I liked that Susanna was an independent woman determined to show her worth.
I usually hate books with no secondary conflict other than characters having an internal problem with the relationship but I enjoyed this book.
There wasn't really a scandal at any point since we don't see any repercussions for their marriage.
Lucian was really great especially when he finally confessed his love.
5 stars

This book is a 3.5/5 to me. I felt like all the things that could have been potentially angsty had no consequence to the main characters getting together. I really liked that they didn't hook up until she was no longer his employee it was sexy the way he talked about it. I also liked how they didn't just have smoldering eyes at each other but that they actually got to know each other a little first. The only thing from holding me back rating this higher is that I was actually more into Mattie's relationship than the main characters. Thank you NetGalley Into the publisher For allowing me to read the copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

What a fun one! I loved the internal nature of Susanna's characters but also, in a lot of ways, this was a romp. Horny villain? Check. Interfering sisters? Check. SO FUN. Can't wait to give this to my patrons.

Thank you to Avon & Harper Voyager/NetGalley for this ARC!

This was a fun read! The chemistry between Lucian & Susanna was PALPABLE; oooooh nelly. Pining + just the teeniest bit of angst; really great!

I did find the pacing a bit bizarre; if you told me this was an 80 page novella, I would totally believe you. It felt like everything happened so quickly & wasn't quite as nicely fleshed out as it could've been. The first 80% is basically just a lead up to the main events.

Overall, I did enjoy this book & would happily read more by the author!

There wasn’t much of a scandal. There was no real consequences for the supposed class divide. This was a slow burn, with minimal angst about sleeping with a servant, but even when they didn’t get around to banging it was pretty lackluster. Nothing like the cover image sold me on. Felt phoned in.