Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this audiobook. The narration was excellent.
I had a really hard time following the plot in the second half of the book - even having read the previous books.

An Inconvenient Duke is a brother’s best friend, childhood friends, historical romance.

Lady Alice needs a husband, and fast! Her brother is reckless and about to throw away the dukedom, and with it her future. The Duke of Blackwood is one of her brother’s friends and has known Alice as well since childhood.

I was just so bored with this one. Lord of Scoundrels by this author is iconic and everything else I’ve tried from her…just hasn’t worked. I decided to try this one because the cover is so pretty, but that was about the only thing I liked sadly. The characters fell flat and so did the plot. Not sure if this one would have been more enjoyable after reading the rest of the series or not.

I received an audio ALC, all thoughts are my own.

It's not quite the book I was expecting - which is something I rarely say, but do here because we've known about Alice and Blackwood's marital struggles from the other two books, so I had an idea of what I thought would be a marriage in crisis. This.... isn't really that.

Without going into spoilers here, Alice and Blackwood have a long lasting friendship, setting up both childhood friends to lovers, brother's best friend (Alice is Ripley's sister and at age 19, Ripley said to Blackwood, it's us or her), and some animosity between a woman who is intelligent and cultured and is tired of the crap her brother and his best friends (the Dis-Graces) pull.

This is a book that I urge you to set aside any preconceived expectations going into. Because it's excellent. Loretta Chase is a magnificent writer, and her best character pairings are her brilliant women and himbo men. Blackwood may be the least himbo-y Dis-Grace, but is also perhaps the most likely to urge his buddies on. This book is fun, and familiar for Chase fans. Even though it's book 3, much of the timeline takes place before books 1 and 2. There are plenty of references to the other two in the series, and you'll see some of the events intertwine.

I listened to the audio on a reread, and it's always worth saying that Kate Reading is a genius. A reread also really helped me set aside preconceptions I had about what the book might and might not be trying to do with marriage-in-trouble tropes, rather than just being a sibling's best friend romance!

I love, love, love it! Loretta Chase has done it again, and this series has officially become my favorite historical romance. I’m so intrigued by the timeline—it seems to take place between Ashmont first meeting Olympia (right after nearly running her over) and the latter half of the second book.

Alice is such a strong character, always ready to stand up for the underdogs. Blackwood, on the other hand, is the epitome of the brooding, dark-corner type, wielding all the influence imaginable as a duke. Their banter is sharp, the sexual tension is ever-growing, and Alice is a heroine with a purpose—her drive to help the less fortunate adds depth to her character. She volunteers to assist those in debtors’ prisons, particularly The Marshalsea, a famous institution that once held Charles Dickens' father in 1824 for a debt to a baker. As a Dickens fan, I loved seeing this historical detail, especially since Little Dorrit is my favorite of his works.

Alice’s main fear is that her horrid cousin will inherit the dukedom and control her fate—a seemingly inevitable outcome given her brother’s reckless, self-destructive behavior. Her cousin is a despicable little vermin of a man; as a child, Alice once assaulted him after catching him drowning a kitten, and their relationship has not improved since. She refuses to be at his mercy, so the only solution is marriage—quickly.

Alice is no wallflower. She’s a striking woman who knows how to use her charm, but her strong will and commitment to aiding the poor (which often requires disguising herself as a commoner) mean she must find a husband who will allow her to continue her work. Enter Blackwood. Their chemistry is undeniable, and their love story is compelling. While I wish the third act packed a bit more of a punch, I truly enjoyed this book!

Alice and Blackwood are both excellent characters and their banter and chemistry is evident from the start. What is missing for me in this book is why their relationship/marriage wasn't working (as we see in the previous two books in this series)--it felt like Loretta couldn't quite bring herself to let these two be miserable, however the end result was a book that felt disjointed and like it stopped and started over and over again. Loretta has a gift for writing witty, compelling characters, and that felt like the true saving grace of this novel. I'll obviously read Loretta forever and Kate Reading absolutely nailed the narration, but despite the fact that the first two books of this series will remain my favorites, this was a bit of a disappointment for me.