Vesper and Aspen were childhood friends meeting up again as adults and the sparks were flying! First of all, I found the names distracting, not sure why but I had to stop and remind myself who Vesper and Aspen were through most of the book. I really had to make myself read the first half, but it got better in the second half.

I’m happy I got this from review I love all of Amelia‘s books but this one just didn’t do it for me. I love how they got trapped together and like an attic but like I love this love scenes as well and her chemistry between the Duke, but everything else is just a little bit boring for me. I did finish it, but I’m just gonna give it two stars cause I was bored..

The second book in the Taming of the Dukes series is inspired by the movie Clueless. The Hellfire Kitties are back and Lady Vesper is our heroine. She was childhood friends with Lord Aspen and she loved him. When they saw each other again for their first season, he spurned her and then later left for America to be a paleontologist. A few years later, he is back and is now the duke.

The longing and the attraction jumped off the page while I was reading this. The banter, their nicknames for each other - Lady Viper and Lord Ass - you wonder why were they so foolish in their younger days to ignore all this chemistry.

Never Met a Duke Like you is out on November 14 - so next week!! While it is part of a series it can definitely be read as a stand alone. Read this historical romance if you enjoy:
💖 Childhood friends to enemies to lovers
💖 Forced Proximity
💖 Open Door Romance
💖 Clueless and Emma retellings

Thanks for Forever and Netgalley for the advance readers copy. All thoughts are my own.

I really enjoyed the first one in this series but this one didn't have the same joy for me. Seemed to lack the same character development and story line as the first book. Had cute aspects but this was just okay for me.

Passion vs. pragmatism

I loved this book. Vesper and Aspen, the two main characters, are colorful. Their first encounter, which we witness, is humorous and tense. It's a very good, promising start, and the author does not disappoint us.

I loved all these spats between Vesper and Aspen. We constantly feel their emotions on edge, and we want more and more because each of their exchanges is endearing to us readers. There aren't two people that provoke each other more than these two, and yet their intense chemistry is always on point. A romance to read!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Lots of banter and bickering here between Vesper (daughter of a duke) and Aspen (the duke next door and former childhood friend). Somehow these two had a falling out as teenagers, grew apart, and then Aspen spurned Vesper at her debut ball. Now it’s many years later, Aspen has been off looking for fossils and back in England to deal with his wretched mother. Despite multiple offers of marriage, Vesper is still unwed and ruling society with her perfect poise. Aspen believes Vesper to be a spoiled society miss and tries to avoid her, even though he needs her help in preparing his mother’s ward for the Season. Despite Vesper’s outward appearance and reputation, she’s still the same outspoken and fiery lady she’s always been in the presence of her trusted friends. There’s a lot of push-and-pull between Aspen and Vesper as they fight, and kiss, and push each other away.

Never Met A Duke by Amalie Howard is hands down one of the best novels of 2023. Witty banter, humor, romance, spice, and a historical romance that is relevant to 2023. I enjoy a historical romance but they are generally not as romantic or witty or spicy enough for me and this hit all of my favorite pieces of a modern romance but give the fun of a historical romance. The storyline and characters are brilliant and well developed and intriquite.

Lady Vesper Lyndhurst is a single woman who spends some of her time as a single woman matchmaking and she is quite good at it. She end up stuck in an attic with a childhood friend and current enemy of sorts and he requests a favor of her. He also calls her lady Viper. On top of all of these things the chemistry and sexual tension is palpable. Lady Vesper is working to avoid the Duke who once broke her heart and now he is asking favors of her, calling her names so she returns the favor. Does the tension turn to romance between the Lady and the Duke or does it stay between the matchmaking "clients" of Lady Viper, er Vester. Does Duke Greydon aka Ass admit his feelings for anyone or does he grow old alone?

Read this brilliant novel to find out all the amusing spicy adventures of Lady Vesper aka Viper!

When they call each other Lady Viper and Lord .Ass, you know the story will be full of teasing, witty and goading remarks. Although she puts on the mask of a perfect lady, she is fierce, independent and fiery in her commitments. He just loves to rile her like a boy pulling his crush’s pigtails but first, he has to find justice before he can see the future. Lovely tale, not easy to put down even for a short break like dinner!

I received an ARC from Netgalley and leaving my review voluntarily.

I’m a marketing and publicity associate Forever, so I am reading this for work! Aaaaaaand there's a character limit on reviews here are some more words

📖 𝘕𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘔𝘦𝘵 𝘢 𝘋𝘶𝘬𝘦 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘺 𝘈𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥

“𝕋𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕨𝕚𝕝𝕕 𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕓𝕖𝕥𝕨𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕒 𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕝𝕠𝕦𝕤 𝕤𝕖𝕒. ℙ𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕗𝕦𝕝, 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕦𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕘, 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕤𝕠 𝕕𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕝𝕪.”

Vesper, as the daughter of a Duke, has always been the diamond of high society. When she came out everyone had such high expectations for her season and who she would ultimately marry. For Vesper, there has only ever been one person she wanted to marry. Her childhood friend, the Duke of Greydon, Aspen. When she sees Aspen at her coming out party for the first time in several years, he looks her in the eye and turns his back on her. Aspen then goes to America to study fossils. Naturally, this effected how she was viewed by society since the most eligible Duke didn’t want her.
Years later, Vepser is still unwed and prides herself as a matchmaker for those around her. After getting trapped in an attic with the one and only Duke of Greydon, he asks her to help his mother’s ward with her first season. From then on, the two become more and more entangled in each other.

The banter in this book was top of the line! I adored every conversation between Aspen and Vesper. He calls her Viper and I freaking love it. The heat and connection between the two is so tangible to everyone around them. Vesper is such a strong FMC and I loved how supportive her family is of her ambitions. It was also really nice to have Aspen’s POV, it explains a lot about his background and what he lived through. The supporting characters in this book were great, and I can’t wait to get more books featuring their stories! The villain is truly despicable and there is some justice but I wanted a little bit more.

Special shoutout to Cat, the real star of this book! 🐈

🚫This book does deal with grief and Aspen’s father is put into an insane asylum so make sure you check the TW at the beginning of the book!

For a historical romance this book was spicy! It’s definitely a slow burn, but once it hits! 🥵🫠🔥 Spice level: 3🌶️

Tropes:
🩶 Friends to Enemies to Lovers
🫶🏼 Matchmaking
💃🏻 Historical Fiction
🔥 Spicy Romance
⭐️ Dual POV
👊🏼 Protective MMC
💪🏼 Independent FMC
💋 Romcom

Thank you NetGalley for access to an ARC of this book so that I could share my honest review! I highly recommend this book to all fans of historical fiction and romance books! This book will be available on November 14!

This is an AMAZING historical romance that is historical but still a book that feels relevant in 2023! The mixture of vibes from Clueless and Emma make this childhood friends to enemies to lovers even more lovable! This great adventure of love gained and lost and gained again throughout a lifetime of knowing each other, Aspen and Vesper give the MOST tension, chemistry, and butterflies that all romance readers crave!
Even though there are miscommunication/misunderstanding tropes wound throughout the plot and some readers can find these disagreeable, I LOVED this book for the plot, for the spice 👀, for the strong and independent FMC even in a historical romance, and the "I've always loved you" aspect of Aspen and Vesper's relationship.
It is definitely a book that will keep you on your toes! Also, even though this is the second book in the Taming of the Dukes series, it can most definitely be read as a standalone (that's what I did) and I ADORED that fact that unlike some other "in a series but can be standalone", I did not enter this book feeling lost or confused or like I missed something! I am definitely interested in the previous book in the series and cannot wait to see the other books that I am hoping follow this one! A great modern historical fiction romance!💖

Amusing, enticing, and adventurous!

Never Met a Duke Like You is a heartwarming, playful romp that sweeps you away to England and into the life of Lady Vesper Lyndhurst, a clever young woman who, although doesn’t believe in a happy ever after for herself, is more than happy to matchmake those around her even the dashingly handsome Duke of Greydon who once spurned her affections and broke her heart and who would much rather spend his day studying bones than wooing potential brides.

The prose is smooth and light. The characters are loyal, supportive, and endearing. And the plot is a delightfully enchanting tale full of friendship, family, societal expectations, tricky situations, tender moments, desire, and romance.

Overall, Never Met a Duke Like You is a fast-paced, passionate, highly entertaining read by Howard that is the second book in the Taming of the Dukes series and a novel that I absolutely adored.

It was my first book from that author (uh oh, I know... blasphemy! She started with book 2) and I loved it. I love when a series has these moments where all friends are together and tease one another and look like a family, and it makes you want to know each character's story, it's simply the best. You definitely get that whole vibe in that one. Loved every character (especially Cat cause.. Well.. She's a cat).

Second chances / friends to lovers are always a hit or miss with me, but this one was a hit. I think that I'm okay with it when it happened at a younger age, it makes it easier to understand for me. When they are both adults and it goes wrong, I'm like: that's it, I'm out. In this one, the relationship between our MCs was precious. They had known each other from a very young age and actually knew the other pretty well. They were friends, then enemies, but enemies that still care about each other deep down, and that, I can definitely enjoy! I loved their banter (and nicknames), I loved the tension, it was delicious! I loved even the scenes where it all went wrong and they said something they regretted... Even that was satisfying to me and got me looking forward to how they'd have to admit their feelings and all. Loved their banter even during spicy scenes and how Vesper was so impatient and wanted to command everything.

This book, even though quite entertaining also approached deeper subjects, such as ADHD at such a time period. It was quite interesting and made me love Aspen even more because of how he loved Vesper when she was being her true self. Vesper's friends and family were also quite understanding and so nice, which I really liked, because let's be honest, it sure wasn't easy for Vesper. There was also this whole part about Aspen's father being wrongly admitted in an asylum. As heartbreaking as it all was, it was still an engaging part of the story.

I did wish the old b**** had a worse ending (yes, I'm talking about you Aspen's mom). There is also a part of me that wished our main characters would have talked together of their own will and solved things together, but it all ended beautifully and their interactions were always interesting so I'll survive.

Let's not forget about the Clueless/Emma vibe of this book which was simply fantastic! I'm really looking forward to reading more from that author now because this one was really nice!

P.s. The way I need a book with Lushing and Briar is not funny guys. Give it to me!

Thanks to the author and Forever for my copy. All opinions are my own.

4/5 Stars

Thank you to Forever Publishing, Amalie Howard, and Netgalley for the ARC to read and review.

Last year I read Always be my Duchess which I absolutely adored and was actually my first ever arc from Forever Publishing. I definitely had my eye out for Never Met a duke like you because I loved the world Amalie Howard has created and I highly suspect there will be at least on more book if not 2 and I can’t wait. This one is inspired by Clueless, I can’t actually say how similar it is as I have never seen Clueless and I met to watch it before reading this but I forgot. This book also featured a lot of discussion about mental health and how horrible it was in this period but also shows the MMC working towards making amendments in the House of Lords to protect people from those who would accuse others of being mentally ill and incompetent just to get their way.

Vesper has all but given up on love after her childhood best friend destroyed her heart. She still loves love but instead tries to help others find it instead of finding it for herself. The Duke of Greydon is forced to return to London to help his ward and try to get justice for his father but he didn’t expect his childhood best friend to have become someone who he can’t get out of his head. But when they end up in an arrangement after an accident landing them locked in an attic alone, their goal is to get Judith, Greydon’s ward, married off but things don’t go as planned.

One of my favorite things in this was how much mental health discussion there is in this book. Vesper has ADHD, and while that diagnosis didn’t exist at this point the author makes it clear in the beginning that she has ADHD and you can see it throughout the book. She really reminded me of myself mostly before I was diagnosed and got medicated but there were a few moments where she just blurted stuff out which I really relate to. Greydon aka Aspen is trying to amend the Lunacy Acts to try to prevent what happened to his father from happening again. Aspen just wants to fix what led to his father’s death as well as get justice for him and do his duty to Judith in finding her a husband.

While I did very much enjoy this book, the sex scenes were so not for me. They were super vague describing body parts but also it seemed like they were supposed to be pretty steamy instead I was just like uhh what??? Very minimal changes could have been made to fix this but also i think it just sometimes is a part of the historical romance genre. Also we don’t really seem to learn more about why Judith ended up becoming Aspen’s mother’s ward in the first place which seemed kind of important. Aspen honestly doesn’t grovel enough for how much he hurt Vesper when she first came into society which massively changed her view of the world and I feel like it barely gets addressed and gets brushed off as he had a lot going on.

I do still recommend this book if you enjoy historical romance and are looking for a fun book that discusses mental health in this era with a cute romance.

While I really appreciated that the third act drama was external to Aspen and Vesper’s relationship, I couldn’t help but feel that the miscommunication trope was a little heavy in this book.

Vesper had a lot of growth in this book, and some of her antics were a tad cringey, having her learn the cause and effect of her actions felt rather satisfying.

I was very intrigued with the underlying plot of Aspen’s mother. I was invested in seeing how that all played out, along with how Judith’s background and further was going to be shared.

Perfectly agreeable read. I tend to find couples that refuse to admit that they like someone a bit frustrating to read, but I'm trying to give this one a pass because of time period courting conventions. I'm trying really hard. This is a hard review to write, because I can absolutely see that this would appeal to people who love reading angsty pining and regency settings. I'm just not an angsty piner. The sex scenes were also not my cup of tea, just, logistically, I could not figure out where the bodies were located, and public sex in Regency era stuff just feels off.

Never Met a Duke Like You is low angst, medium heat, and lots of fun. Vesper (Lady) and Aspen (Duke) were childhood friends until he went to school and got embarrassed that a girl could kick his ass... and then, a few years later, gave her the cut direct at her first ball. Then, he disappeared from London to become a paleontologist. But now he's back to save the dukedom from his evil mother's machinations. Vesper is the perfect Society lady on the outside and a chaotic softie on the inside. She might seem like she's got it all together, but it's an act. She's determined never to marry and to devote all of her energy to charity work. Too bad she's decided to partner with Aspen's mother for the biggest charity ball of all time.

It's unusual these days to have such an obvious - and truly evil - villainess in a historical romance, but Howard goes all in. Perhaps because it's not in every book, but we had a great time hating Aspen's mother. At the same time, we were a little frustrated with Vesper for falling for the duchess's schemes so easily. Once Aspen and Vesper finally come to an understanding, we had a great time. Also, there is some nice heat to the book, including a semi-public hookup in the natural history exhibit at the Crystal Palace. Honestly that might make the whole novel worth reading right there!

Although this is the second in a series, we think it's fine to read on its own. We had a fun time, although the book doesn't break any new ground.

This objective review is based on a complimentary copy of the novel.

I received an EARC from Netgalley and the publisher but hadn't read book 1! So I quickly bought book 1 and devoured it in a day.
Lady Vesper and her friends were in the book and couldn't wait for her story. She is quote the character, although she really doesn't know her own mind.
Although this book has another Duke with a sad back story, I still empathized with him. Vesper takes a while to gather some empathy because he hurt her. They were childhood friends and she felt abandoned.
They remeet cute by being locked in an attic room, then spend much of the book ignoring their attraction.
I recommend reading book 1, then immediately grabbing this book. It is a fun series that also shows the unfairness of life, and how people overcome difficulties.

Never Met A Duke Like You. My fellow readers. Hang on to your wet whistles as Aspen and Vespers love story will leave you with your jaws drop while you say to yourself did he/she really say that? I know that I did. The sharp tongues nearly had the cat claws coming out at the dinner table and at a ball or two. Friends and family members ofVesper and Aspen new when to turn and walk away. They definitely didn’t want a curse word or two thrown at them. I just couldn’t understand it. How can two people who seem to hate one another through their strong words of dislike still find a way to stand side by side in a room. Truthfully though all that aggression of futile rage towards one another hid how Vesper and Aspen felt towards one another. All the unbridled passion and sensual desire burns so far down deep into that part of you that completes you. Aspen looked at Vesper as the better half of him and through shear force of will he made it his mission to make her see it and him. Vesper realized Aspen’s plans for her, but Aspen had no clue what Vesper had for him. It would seem readers that Vesper wanted to make Aspen offer his feelings as a true gentleman and not as the young man when they were children. She wanted to see her as the woman that pulls on his desires for her. The two ring the bell and battle each other through colorful wording and humorous innuendos. The romance is a firecracker for sure with these two. This love story is so entertaining and fun to read. I chuckled during the fun parts and left stunned during the entertaining moments. I so look forward to another great read from this writer. I give this book two snaps and a, Aspen before we marry “you will send your mother away to Liverpool immediately”. Until next time my fellow readers. Read on! I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
#NeverMetADukeLikeYou #AmalieHoward #Netgally #Goodreads #Bookbub

This is a fun, entertaining read. Vesper and Aspen are interesting, relatable, entertaining characters. Their time on page together is always fun to read as they spark and you just never know if it will end in a kiss or a slap. The romance fits these characters and was enjoyable to read. I really enjoyed these characters and their journey through this story. I would have liked more from a couple of the subplots. The secondary characters added so much to the fabric of the story, especially Cat.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.