I’m not sure why I didn’t love this one. I enjoyed the 2nd book in this series, which is why I requested this one, but it wasn’t as good. Like almost too banter-y and the location additions seemed distracting.

Loretta Chase is Loretta Chase and even at her…not best, I still enjoy what I’m reading from her. And I mostly enjoyed this one. If only because we’ve been teased by this couple for two books and I was ecstatic to finally get to Alice and Giles. For the most part (or better yet for the first 70-ish percent), this was classic Chase and I loved it. The banter is spot on and so dryly witty. Alice and Giles fall into this friends to lovers dynamic that was endearing, sweet, and hysterical (the Dis-Graces are going to be disgraceful, y’know). So far so good. No complaints.

But I kept wondering how when and why this couple came to be the estranged married couple we’ve seen in the prior two stories. I actually was confused when I got to 70-ish percent and still hadn’t even encountered hide nor hair of a marriage on the rocks. And when it did come….I didn’t even really feel like I needed it. Because it wasn’t done well or even really necessary that far into the story?

It’s Chase, so I still had a good time and I loved Alice and her feral fierceness and Giles and his secret gigantic heart of gold (A Chase classic). But I didn’t *love* it as a whole and I’m a bit sad about it!

We’re back to visit with the Dis-Graces in the third installment of Loretta Chase’s Difficult Dukes series. This is the story of Alice and Blackwood, who are married but estranged in the first two books.

I love Loretta Chase’s writing and the good stuff was present here: great dialogue, interesting characters, well-drawn settings. The problem for me was the plot that included All The Things: evil villain, criminal mastermind, disappearing (3 times!) street urchin, rejected suitors (Justice for Doveridge! Give me his book!), relations in mourning, misbehaving friends, childhood trauma…it goes on and on and distracts from the romance at the heart of the story. I really just wanted more time with Alice and Blackwood.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon/Harper Voyager for an eARC. Opinions are my own.

This was pretty confusing, honestly. For a romance there was a distinct lack of... well, romance. Everything feels taken over by random adventures that didn't seem to ever add up to anything coherent and it only seemed to serve to separate Alice and Giles constantly.

Second chance romances generally have a bit more angst and yearning associated with them, and that was completely missing here. The only hint of romance between Alice and Giles happened years ago with a single kiss that ultimately resulted in nothing and Giles's grand betrayal was to not pursue it any further because he was young and wanted to continue enjoying his freedom and wasn't worthy of her. That's it?

Then once the two finally get together, time jumps ahead another six months and their marriage is bad. Not surprising considering they never communicate and Alice seems to think Giles is a waste of space for the most part, but still, pretty disappointing for a romance.

ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A very busy story, you won’t be bored. But for all the plot, the romance felt very minimal and I grew a little annoyed.

My Inconvenient Duke takes place in three acts. In the first, the main conflict that Alice and Giles face is her dastardly cousin, Lord Worbury, who is eager to gets his hands on the Ancaster's family assets and take the title from Alice's brother. Having been embarrassed by Alice as a young child, Worbury will do anything in his power to humiliate and degrade her, including making a target of the street boy, Jonesy, that she is trying to save from a violent fate, as so many other orphans face. Sensitive to the needs of children because of her own childhood spent in the care of a neglectful headmistress of a school, Alice seeks to protect Jonesy. During a public confrontation with Worbury when Jonesy and a few other boys tried to steal from him, Worbury makes it his intention to ensnare the boy and possibly imprison or hang him.

The second act of the book revolves around the Duke of Ripley's sudden disappearance. With no information, Alice and Giles are left to wonder about any number of fates that could have befallen him: murdered at the hands of thieves, attacked by someone that Worbury hired, etc. Together, they travel to retrieve him.

Finally, the third act of the book deals with Alice's attempt to overcome the trauma she still associates with her childhood at the Tollstone Academy. She and Giles also have to outsmart the people behind the kidnap of Jonesy, and to put an end to Worbury's scheming, once and for all.

This book is a slow-burn romance, driven primarily by plot rather by character development. The romance between Alice and Giles often falls secondary to the various missions that they undertake. There is very little intimacy in terms of touching, kissing, or sex; also, being that the characters are not in the least romantic, there is practically no praise that passes between them that is not disguised by a joke.

While numerous characters, including Giles himself, claim that Giles is a rakish, irresponsible sort, there is minimal evidence presented in the book to support that. In fact, at one point, Alice draws a mental comparison between herself and the duke, stating that he is the one to follow the rules and implying, to the contrary, that she is not. He enjoys coming up with plans, that is for certain, but that does not make him the misbehaving, brutish man that the readers are told that he is. In fact, his adversity to integrating with society seems to stem not from his desire to continue causing mischief, but from the fact that he is disinclined to associate with others.

The greatest strength of this book was the chemistry established between Alice and Giles. Their exchanges of dialogue are entertaining and fast-paced. They are a match for wits, and the most enjoyable part of the book were the pages when they could carry an extended conversation with each other.

Rating: 4 Stars ⭐️

Spice: 2 out of 5

Characters: Alice & Blackwood

Chemistry: yearning and witty banter

This is the third book in the Difficult Dukes series. My favorite in the series is book #2, The Ten Things I Hate About the Duke.

It’s a second chance romance. The subplots in this book are endless which puts the romance on the back burner. Alice’s backstory, a short stay at a board school and its ramifications were a little over the top. Blackwood’s fear of losing his friendship with Alice’s brother also seemed a bit dramatic. There is a large cast of family, friends, orphans, intrigue, and mystery. The romance was the weakest part of the story.

There is witty banter, yearning, guilt, subplot galore, and mystery.

Thank you to the publisher for providing the ARC.

I did not read the previous books in this series but I don’t think it was super important for me to do so, I didn’t feel lost when the other couples were mentioned. My Inconvenient Duke has all the making to be a very good historical romance but it fell flat for me. There were too many storylines going on and random POVs thrown in that felt unnecessary. Then with the many storylines nothing felt fleshed out. One point I did really like though was that once the couple were married that didn’t automatically turn into a HEA, the end. Instead, we were given time for them to overcome some obstacles.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc!
A bit too angsty for my taste and I wish the heroine gave the hero more credit. He seems pretty great to me.

2.5 stars, rounded up

My Inconvenient Duke has most of the things I love in Loretta Chase's historical romances--witty banter, fun scenes, cool historical references, intelligent writing--but the plot overall and the romance between Blackwood and Alice just didn't work for me.

(Side note: I did not remember the plot events from the first two books very well, especially as I said "I should finally read book #2" when I saw this book was being released, only to realize that I already read Ten Things I Hate About the Duke in 2022. Oops.)

The first 75% of the book is how they get together, which felt very dictated by external events happening around them. Alice wants safety and normalcy, but she ditches that quest at the drop of a hat when Blackwood tries to send her home while they're looking for Ripley. There's some tension between them, but it felt spotty and I got the sense that Chase was rushing to get to the wedding.

I also expected their marriage to be more dysfunctional, based on the first two books. It was more that they were focused on separate things--royal duties and her charity work for Alice, keeping Ashmont out of trouble for Blackwood--and I didn't feel like they truly resolved their issues by the end either.

Like always, Loretta Chase delivers. I love this author and she is an automatic buy author for me. This book was amazing. Loved the character development, loved the side characters and loved the plot. Looking forward to the next book in the series.

Right off the bat, let me begin by saying that I have not read either of the prior two novels in this series, however that did not stop me from understanding and enjoying this one as it would seem as though all three of these stories take place during the same time frame with events coinciding with each other in some parts.

However, this book has left me feeling very conflicted. On one hand, I enjoyed the banter between Giles and Alice. There were times when their quips made me literally laugh out loud, and it made it easy to buy into their prior history together. The problem I had with this story was that I feel like their romance was secondary to everything else going on which made it hard to connect with that aspect of the story.

She shows up at his house dressed as a washing woman to enlist his help in finding a certain street urchin for which she had a fondness, and he goes with her. Then when her brother goes missing, she demands to accompany him, then takes it upon herself to race off into danger while he is busy elsewhere. Giles points out that unless she allows him to take her back home immediately, she will be ruined so she can either go home and back to the suitor she had there, or she could marry him. Which had me then questioning Alice's true affections for either man as she had a perfectly respectable suitor that she admired very much in Lord Doveridge, who he in turn seemed perfectly amenable to her society work with the less fortunate. But when given the choice between going home before she was utterly ruined and lost all chance of a marriage to that man, Alice instead chooses to accept Giles' proposal (such as it was). She claims she realized that she did not want a life like the kind she would lead with Doveridge, and yet even married to Blackwood, that is exactly the type of marriage she would have. Still doing favors for the Queen and other influential people.

But I digress. The same street urchin runs away again, gets into a spot of trouble, again, and is rescued (you guessed it again) by Lord Blackwood. And then the poor lad ends up kidnapped leading to more drama for our newlyweds. Not that their marriage was off to a good start as it was what with Alice constantly running off to meet with this person or that person to help with her various charitable works (admirable to be sure, but as Blackwood pointed out why couldn't she delegate some of these tasks to other people)?

Of course, Giles wasn't any better constantly running off to keep his friend Lord Ashcroft out of trouble, and honestly these were grown men, why can't this Lord Ashcroft behave his damn self? Why does his newly married friend have to leave his wife at home to come make sure he's not doing anything stupid?

I swear, Alice and Giles spent more time together before they were married than they did after the fact making me care less and less for the state of their marriage (or their happiness in general) as the story went on. I would have much rather preferred to see them together more, finding a way to balance all of their responsibilities and still have time for one another, and in some cases, hashing out their issues and reaching a compromise, for it would seem that was another aspect of their relationship that was sorely lacking, they were both too stubborn for their own good.

Now, I fully understand that I will likely be in the minority here with my thoughts as the story itself is well-written, it just didn't resonate with me the way I wanted it to. However, I do think it will appeal to others who enjoy historical romance novels, and I would read more from this author in the future.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

Strong FMC who has to take control of her life knowing she won’t be able to depend on her unreliable brother. At a time where women are at the mercy of others all Alice can do is find a decent man she can marry. The book is detailed and properly researched, though it is 200 something pages it does not go by quickly with the multiple pov’s. I understand the need to be better after realizing that you have no choice in the matter. But the having the sitting in your high horse mentality really bores me/annoying as hell. Though with Alice behaving all proper and Blackwood trying his best everything is a bit serious, but we have some moments where I can’t help but laugh out loud. Blackwood is so attractive in his seriously calm and confident self. I can’t understand why Alice makes such a fuss of him not being as perfect as can be. He’s real fine just the way he is. Unrequited love trope mixed with second chance. I tend to not read these they happen to have a bit to much angst and dramatics for me. But after we put it all aside and they decided to give it a try I was pretty interested. I’ve read many historical romance’s it’s good to see a couple who each has their own life, responsibilities and tends to their friendships. Though it was seen as things were going awry in their marriage from an outsiders perspective. They were very much together. I enjoyed the book and love the authors writing.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager publishing I received a ARC for an honest review !

Loretta Chase overcame a serious case of writer's block to get this out into the world, and I think it shows. But more on that later.

This book is about the Duke of Blackwood and Lady Alice Ancaster, and the third party in their relationship: Blackwood's blood-brothers friendship with the Duke of Ripley (who is Alice's brother) and the Duke of Ashmont. Alice is a primal scream of a woman who rages at injustice and often gets into scrapes trying to right wrongs. Cassandra Pomfret, the FMC of Ten Things I Hate About the Duke, is also a disruptor, but Alice is full of barely leashed fury. I loved that, and it (eventually) made Blackwood a perfect match for her.

The book has two main conflicts: Blackwood's (and Ripley's and Ashmont's) continual drunken shenanigans, and a rather nasty villain. Both put Alice's wellbeing and future at risk, which only serves to amplify her rage.

So, the challenge with this book: Rather than the marriage-in-trouble story that I feel was so heavily foreshadowed in the first two books, most of it felt more like a friends-to-lovers story. I spent about three-quarters of the book wondering when we would learn what happened to turn them into the cold, estranged couple we'd been reading about for two books. The marriage-in-trouble aspect really only kicks in at 75%, although you can see it coming. This made for a rather odd and confusing reading experience. I don't think a book has ever upended my expectations like this one.

That said, it's Loretta Chase, and she can turn even an odd reading experience into a beautiful portrait of an imperfect marriage. Alice and Blackwood love each other, but external forces keep them apart. It felt like a truly grown-up book, and I feel like I'd like to read it again to get my head around what Chase has done here; I'd happily do so.

I can understand why some folks are rating this low: They (and I) were expecting another madcap book and got a much more serious one, albeit one with plenty of humor and chemistry.

Stray thoughts:
- I hope an editor puts the kibosh on all the Amusing Capitalization before this is published. Loretta has used it effectively in her books before, but it is overused in the first quarter of the book and starts to be an irritant.
- There is much made of the fact that Blackwood is so intimidating that people often go silent when he enters a room, or nervously leave altogether. But I never felt it was explained WHY he is perceived as so intimidating. Just because of his size and dark hair? Ashmont and Ripley behave just as badly, and yet they're not perceived as so scary.
- Lord Doveridge is hot and I think he and Blackwood's friend the Earl of Lynforde should get their own stories... or maybe one together??
- I fell for Blackwood when we learned that his horses are called Circe and Sappho.
- More detail of Their Dis-Graces' awful behavior has not dimmed my love for Ashmont whatsoever.
- Alice and Blackwood's kisses are very hot.

Thanks to Avon and NetGalley for the advance copy. My Inconvenient Duke is out on Jan. 21, 2025.

The mystery of what happened with Alice and Blackwood has lurked in the background of the first two books in the series. No one seems to know, not Alice's best friend, not her aunt, and not even Blackwood. For the first two books, (which take place in a very compressed period of time, days for one, weeks for the other) Blackwood is living as one of the Dis-Graces, married but not with his wife, and when they are together (like at the Ripley Ball) they seem estranged.

This book starts a year before the action of the rest of the series, and seems like a ret-conned fitting of the story to the series lore (for all I know Chase may have had all three books carefully plotted, it just doesn't *quite* ring that way). The estrangement seems more logistics and family obligations (to the aunt who saved her as a child, to his "brothers by bonds thicker than blood"), and they know what the other is doing, and see each other when they can. While it could stand alone, the plot is closely connected to the first two books; I found myself constantly referring to them to keep the timeline straight.

Alice realizes that the stupid actions of the Dis-Graces could very well lead to her brother's early death and her and her aunt being shut out by her awful cousin the heir. Listen, possibly could she have had one adult conversation with her adult brother about the stakes of his behavior? Possibly not given his continued stupidity, but at any rate, off she goes to get herself married to protect herself and her aunt. Blackwood soon finds an excuse to go to London after her. He's always loved her, but had to choose between the correct life that would allow him to court her, or the continued bond with his "brothers" and being 17 at the time, chose bros before, um, young society ladies. Cut to the ten years of the dukes being idiots.

Chase's ear for dialogue and emotional connection is as strong as ever. These two are quippy with each other, and hide a life-long "affinity" for each other under snappy insults and comebacks. At times their exchanges sound like something straight from Lord of Scoundrel (complimentary). There are side plots with Jonesy the scampish street urchin and Worm the cartoonishly villainous heir, and while are essential as catalyst for relationship beats, but at the same time feel like Macguffins to bring Alice to London to look for husband and to keep Alice and Blackwood in each other's orbits.

When Alice's worst fears look like they come true and her brother gets into trouble (I still don't understand the eventual explanation of what happened there) yada yada she's out after dark with Blackwood so they have to get married (and are both secretly delighted/outwardly annoyed at this turn). "I don't want another, [...] I want you as you are, and you are never to think otherwise." They seem perfectly emotionally and physically in sync, and are very happy together.

What are our obligations to others? Alice is busy fulfilling the social role of her grieving aunt (who rescued her as a child) and doing her work to support children (as she was never supported). Blackwood is sucked back into caring for Ashmont, the same black hole of self-destruction and despair that threatened to swamp the first two books. "He told himself he wasn't his friend's nursemaid. He told himself that Ripley hadn't felt compelled to give up his trip on Ashmont's account." Blackwood needs to keep Ashmont alive when he seems hellbent on destruction, and Alice agrees, even though "It isn't fair - to you , to me, to us. I want to tell you to choose differently, but I can't. If anything happens to him, you'll never forgive yourself." This is pretty much where the first book in the series picks up, but Alice and Blackwood are in correspondence and grab nights together where they can, its not the mysterious rupture we've heard about for two books, although of course its wearing.

Eventually Ashmont grows up and the aunt comes out of mourning in book two, but problems not yet resolved. The whole thing gets drawn out after the plots of the other books happens for the Macguffins and a whole other "resolve childhood trauma" sideplot that was maybe one side plot too many. Some might think (its me, I'm some) that the declaration of love comes a year late, but I'm not an accomplished author with many many books under my belt, so what do I know.

Loretta Chase wrote my favorite historical romance of all time - Lord of Scoundrels. In this book, her signature wit and knowledge of the Regency period make for a fun story following the third of a group of troublesome Dukes.

Lady Alice fell for Giles, Duke of Blackwood, when she was very young, and although he fell for her as well, he chose a life of fun and adventure with his two friends, one of whom is Alice's brother. Now, Blackwood can't stop thinking about her, and Alice needs a solution to the problem of the future of her brother's own dukedom.

These two have been gone for each other for years, and when they have to marry due to Alice being compromised, it's a very weak sort of "oh no, now we have to be together" except Blackwood still needs to look after one of his friends and Alice has her own obligations.

From what I understand, this book takes place before books 1 and 2 in the series, so you might need to read those first, but I enjoyed it a lot as a stand alone.

Let’s be clear: I adore Loretta Chase and will continue to read anything she writes, but unfortunately, this book wasn’t one of her best. While I enjoyed the buildup of Alice and Blackwood’s relationship in her previous Difficult Dukes novels, I finished the book feeling disappointed by the final product.

The story takes place in two timeframes: one is approximately a year before the events of the previous Difficult Dukes novels, and the second is after those books conclude. I kept wishing that we’d spent more time exploring their relationship in the second timeframe, rather than reading about what prompted their marriage for approximately 70% of the book. Even a 50/50 split would have been better, and we could have cut down on some of the unnecessary adventures and shenanigans.

From a writing and editing standpoint, the book is almost flawless, like most Loretta books are. She has a way with words that’s hard to ignore, so although I didn’t enjoy the narrative itself, I loved the prose and gorgeously researched descriptions.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for the ARC! All opinions are my own.

my review will be forthcoming in December—I accidentally posed a review for an alternate novel here.

This is the first more recent Loretta Chase novel I’ve read (previously I’ve only read her 1990s classics). There was a lot to love here. It has a pretty unique structure and pacing: the first two thirds of the book take place BEFORE the events of the previous books in the series, and is mostly a delightful reforming rake/brother’s best friend/ second chance romance between a feisty heroine and a dissolute duke. But that ends only with a fragile and temporary HEA. The final third becomes a kind of marriage-in-trouble book, as the couple’s history and obligations catch up with them and drive them apart. I have to say, this final third didn’t work so well for me, but I think it was partly because I haven’t read the two previous books in the series. So, although I am often someone who happily dips into series, for this book I would definitely recommend reading the first two books before. I will go back and read those, for sure. The cast of characters is charming and Loretta Chase is just a masterful writer.

Loretta Chase is a relatively new to me author, but one that i have grown to love. having read the previous books in this series, i had hope that this one would be everything the first two were and more. unfortunately i was left a little frustrated with the piv switches and the lack of time spent in the present timeline established in the other books