He plans to secure his future duchess at a house party, but she’s being managed by a thoroughly meddlesome-and provocative-Mrs.

The Duke of Warrington dislikes social gatherings and despises the Marriage Mart which makes it nigh impossible to find a wife. Too bad the duke is an unsmiling, rigid grouch, albeit an irritatingly handsome one. When a house party provides an opportunity to match her difficult charge with a duke, Juno will go to any lengths to satisfy her employer and ensure the young lady’s future. Her cheerful disposition never wavers no matter how challenging her assignment. Juno Langton helps young ladies develop the skills and confidence to secure an advantageous marriage. I’m really disappointed in this one.The Rigid Duke (Matchmaking Chronicles #1) by Darcy Burke – Free eBooks DownloadĪs a refinement tutor, Mrs. The main couple clearly feel everyone else in the world is out to get them, and the narrative just backs that up without interrogating it, which makes it feel quite unfulfilling. Apart from the content just not being my cup of tea, I felt this had some unnecessarily nasty things to say about women who do have children (referring to them as ‘broodmares’ and painting them all as smug), and also felt that all the characters except the main couple were bafflingly caricaturish and evil, and none of the character motivations made sense. Nothing in the blurb or marketing of this book indicates that it’s going to be a story about child loss, and that’s pretty much the main theme of it I find the lack of content warning or even mention of it really insensitive, as I prefer to avoid this kind of plot. This one was not for me, and I think if I end up disliking the author’s second book in this shared quartet, I might give up on reading her work entirely as I’ve had misses from her before. Overall, this was very sweet.Ĭontent warnings: death of a child death of a parent (both prior to story but heavy themes) These moments don’t at all spoil the main story for a new reader (which I was!) but they lend a sort of cosy, happily ever after feel from the very beginning, which I really liked. This is the last book in a series, and it does feel like a sort of epilogue to the main series, which focused on Gia’s children as they each found love – there are lots of moments that feel like they wrap up those previous stories, that are presumably nice cameos for long-term readers. That being said, her plots are really sweet, so I will occasionally get tempted by her new releases, and I’m glad I did for this one! I’m always interested in a romance between two older characters, and both leads here are in their fifties, but get just as sweet a love story as any young couple. I’l be honest, I’m not a fan of this author’s writing style – I find her sentences, particularly her dialogue, clunky. Content warnings: death of a spouse emotional neglect/abuse from spouse

The rigid duke darcy burke