
TEST
Jane Ashford adds a middling chapter to her Duke’s Sons series with The Duke Knows Best, the story of a lordling vicar and the improper young lady who falls in love with him.
Often called the handsomest of the Duke of Langford’s six sons, Lord Randolph Gresham is between parishes taking a holiday in London to indulge in the social whirl. Though haunted by his tragically broken previous engagement, he decides that this is the time to throw himself upon the marriage mart and finally select a proper wife.
Verity Sinclair is the lively daughter of a clergyman, and yearns for great adventure beyond the dull, scholarly home her parents have provided at Chester Cathedral. Her desire for escape has manifested in private and scholarly rebellions until – finally – she manages to charm her way into the London Season. Determined not to marry a religious man, she enters into her oft-requested Season with vim.
She meets Randolph at a party and they clash instantly. Verity strains against the constraints of proper society, while Randolph adheres to convention, and she dislikes his stuffiness as much as he abhors her directness. They do have a meeting of the minds over their exacting taste in music, and when they perform together by chance it’s as if they’ve reached simultaneous Nirvana. When they receive an invitation to perform at an exclusive reception for the Prince Regent, they soon find themselves settled together in happy harmony. But soon Verity has her hands full trying to keep her even more daring friend Olivia out of trouble, and finds herself contending with her father’s disapproval of Randolph and has to decide if setting her cap for the handsome duke’s son is truly worthwhile.
While I enjoyed the author’s earlier Lord Sebastian’s Secret, this installment in the series fails to congeal into anything worthwhile, a lot of that because of inconsistencies in the characterisation of the two principals. We’re told that Verity has repressed herself to fit in with her stodgy parents, but we meet her in full rebellion, behaving daringly at a party and immediately engaging in a ridiculous argument with Randolph so they can hate each other for a few chapters before discovering that their voices blend so well. She also tolerates her frankly sociopathic (and speaker of far-too-modern slang for the period) friend Olivia’s antics for far too long; between that and the hero’s mother getting typhoid fever from having a pot of refuse thrown on her, a lot of the plot gets eaten up by characters not central to Randolph and Verity’s romance.
Randolph is supposed to be both the sort of man who’s both prankster and a man of God, but his devotional side never really a factors into the story beyond his refusal to ruin and shame Verity with premarital sex. I’m not asking to be preached to, but you’d think his faith would enter into his thought processes since he’s devoted his entire life to religion. The man spends more time in boxing clubs and ‘undesirable’ locations than preparing for the move to his next parish, yet he’s supposed to be dull!
The toughest part of the entire novel is that the chemistry just isn’t there between these two characters. We’re supposed to believe that the music they make together is just that beautiful and rapturous, but many, many musicians have partnered up to make wonderful music while loathing each other. The music feels like it’s the only thing that really binds them together, and I ended up feeling as if Verity fell in love with the entire family instead of with Randolph himself.
Ashford is at her best when writing about quirky families doing quirky things, and we do get some lovely glimpses into the Gresham family. Every scene including the brothers and their family is interesting or fun, and fans of the series as a whole are likely to get more out of this than newbies.
The author’s love of unusual scientific practices of the time (in this case, phrenology) appears as well, which adds the only spice the plot offers up. As always, the research is good, but the conflict is ridiculous – featuring Verity’s stiffnecked father using an incident involving the Archbishop of Canturbury, his white vestments and an angry ram to point up the incompatibility of our hero and heroine.
The Duke Knows Best is a cute distraction, but it’s not Ashford’s best by a long shot.
Buy Now: A/BN/iB/K
Grade: C-
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Kisses
Review Date: 08/12/17
Publication Date: 12/2017
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.