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Product Details
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A sweeping historical romance from the New York Times bestselling author of The Decadent Duke.
Lady Louisa scoffed when Lord Abercorn of Ireland first asked for her hand. She will be the mistress of her own destiny and no man can change that. As the greatest young beauty in all of England, she is pursued by every titled bachelor in the land, and refuses everyone, including the Irish lord. But a family scandal soon throws Louisa reluctantly into his arms, bringing consequences she never expected.
Virginia Henley is a New York Times bestselling author and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award. Her novels have been translated into fourteen languages. A grandmother of three, she lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, with her husband.
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Too much history and not enough romance,
By
This review is from: The Irish Duke (Mass Market Paperback)
My title pretty much sums up how I viewed this book. This book is based on the life of Lady Lousia Russell who is the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford (their book was the first in this series called The Decadent Duke). This book is chalk full of historical figures and events, but it doesn't read well as a romance novel. It starts off in the present (that being 1894) and then continues to look back on Lady Lousia's life and her courtship and marriage to James Hamilton Marquess Abercorn. For the first half of the book, the author lays out historical events, but she seems to tell them instead of making you feel that you are seeing things happen through the eyes of the hero or heroine. I didn't really feel any emotion from these characters. They were very one dimensional and the author failed to spark any kind of passion between them. The scenes also seem to jump around quite a bit. It was like the author wanted to fit as much historical content into the book as she could, instead of picking a few events and then elaborating on them. It also gets bogged down with too many secondary characters with very similar names. I had a hard time keeping them straight at times. The book does pick up in later chapters, once Lousia and James are married and finally alone, but even then, I just couldn't buy into their love story.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
2.7 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews) 7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
strong historical,
By Harriet Klausner - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Irish Duke (Paperback)
As the Dowager matriarch of her family, in 1894, octogenarian widow Lady Louisa Jane Russell holds court as she always has while looking back over the decades of her life. In 1819 Lady Louisa loves her position in society, which allows her to enjoy life to the fullest. Irish nobleman James Hamilton went so far as to propose, but she ridiculed him for being Irish with a speech impediment; of course he was nine years old at the time and she was his age.
In spite of her putting him down, they become friends though he never has given up marrying his Lu. Other men want her too, but though she adores them, she prefers her independent gaiety more so. However, over a decade later, a family scandal leaves Lu with the choices of marrying her kindhearted Irish admirer, someone else, or face scornful disgraced exile. Few if any writer can interweave historical information to enhance a story line as deftly as Virginia Henley can and does with the enjoyable The Irish Duke. The story line is driven by the heroine who tells her great-granddaughters about her life with her late beloved Irish Duke who to his death insisted B is pronounced as a V. Fans will relish Ms. Henley's fine nineteenth century historical romance as the exhilarating plot with its strong lead protagonists brings the era to life. Harriet Klausner 10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Boring Beyond Beilef!,
By SNB - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Irish Duke (Paperback)
I ussually enjoy Henley's mix of rich history and romance. But in this story, the only history is the fact that the character's actually existed. There're no real political intrigues or big historical event. And, unfortunately, there is ZERO romance. I can't see why the characters loved each other, they never showed it and it was never explained--beyond the fact that the hero has a crush on and proposed to the heroine when he's 9 and she's 7. Who hangs on to a crush that long? There's no explanation of why they supposedly are in love. The only interesting part of this book was the side story involving the heroine's sister...there's literally nothing else of interest going on!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Zzzz........ *snore*,
By readsalot - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Irish Duke (Paperback)
This book has zero sexual chemistry between the hero and the heroine. Moreover, his devotion and love didn't make any sense at all. He falls in love after watching the *7* year old heroine dance when he was only 9 years old, he then doesn't see a hint of her until he's 19 but he's apparently still mad about her. The book is just filled with boring secondary characters who're actually more interesting than the heroine. Who happens to be a spoiled, whiny, and stupidly naive, little prude.
I've been trying to finish this book for the past 2 weeks, but I decided tonight to give it away.... Seriously, whats happened to VH? Her books are normally full of gutsy, fiery, bawdy heroines who don't take crap from anyone.... |
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