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This book took me by surprise. I thought by the look of the cover that I’d be reading something lighter and more predictable – but as we all know, you can’t judge a book by its cover. The Duke Undone is a captivating story about a deeply flawed hero and the woman who recognizes the ‘hero’ in him. There’s a satisfying romance, an almost overwhelming obstacle to true love, and a mystery to be solved.
By day, Lucy Coover is an art student at the Royal Academy. By night she lives in the slums of Shoreditch helping her aunt with her failing seamstress business. One morning on the way to the Academy, Lucy stumbles over a corpse – a naked, male corpse. She is upset but also fascinated, because female students in this Victorian time period, are not permitted to attend classes where artists study the human body. She takes a good, long look – only then noticing that this is not a corpse, only a very drunk man. She covers him with her cloak, pays a street urchin to watch over him, and rushes off to class.
Lucy can’t forget the ‘corpse’ and paints a portrait of it, having no idea the body is that of Anthony Philby, the new Duke of Weston. When she and her aunt are desperate for money, she sells the painting to Adelaide Forbes, whose husband discovers it and confronts Anthony (thinking he must be having an affair with his wife). Anthony has no idea how this painting came to be or who the artist is, but he is determined to uncover these secrets. This is a scandal he can’t afford.
Anthony is trapped by his father’s will. His late duke was a sanctimonious ass and his elder brother was a rake of the worst variety. They are both dead but Anthony’s father has managed to put the dukedom in the hands of his best friend Robert Yardley in trusteeship until Anthony turns thirty. And then, if Anthony has stayed sober and not caused any scandals, the dukedom will transfer to him; otherwise the trusteeship will continue. Anthony is stuck in a desperate situation – a duke in name only, unable to control his finances or aid his tenants who are begging him for help. Worst of all, his beloved sister Effie has disappeared and Anthony suspects Yardley knows where she is.
Anthony searches for the portrait artist and eventually finds “L. Coover” at the Academy. He confronts her and they strike a bargain. He won’t tell the Academy about what she’s done and she will help him search for his sister in the slums of London. A lovely friendship and riveting mystery follows.
The Duke Undone starts out light but quickly deepens. The first thing I loved about it was the evocative writing – Ms. Lowell can pen a beautiful sentence. Soon I was captivated by the struggles of Lucy and Anthony and the high stakes involved in Anthony’s plight. The underlying mystery of what happened to Effy (and to Anthony’s mother) is very well-written and leads to a perfectly plotted conclusion.
I was fully drawn to Lucy and Anthony. Anthony is an unusual hero and I was completely fascinated by him. His whole life, he has been told he is a disappointment and not worthy of his name. He is dyslexic and so, at this time period, assumed to be slow. He was sent off to Afghanistan with the Army, but his heroism there was rewritten by his father as more proof of his hedonism. And the lesson Anthony came away with is that even when he gets it right, he’s still not enough, still degraded and punished. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. And Yardley is a master at gaslighting Anthony. When Lucy meets Anthony, his power has been stripped, his will destroyed, and he is trapped by a plague of inertia.
He didn’t know how to be himself; it was painfully obvious. He was trying to break out of molds made by other men. His father. His brother. What would it look like, a portrait of his inner self? Black and red, brown and amber, no figures, its essence in shades, modulation, sensation. She could barely imagine such a painting.
Lucy recognizes Anthony’s inertia for what it is – not laziness but despair and fear, and she sees Anthony more clearly than he sees himself. She is afraid to get too close to Anthony whose failings now include liquor. Lucy’s father was an alcoholic and she has no desire to tie herself to another of them. But she’s a tough cookie – if she can help the Duke and get something she needs from him, she’s going to do it (and protect herself along the way).
This book drew me in and kept my attention all the way to the end. Sometimes I raced through the pages; other times I savored them, not reading more than a chapter at a time, needing an emotional break. I despaired alongside Lucy for Anthony’s future and my heart broke for Anthony whenever he tried and failed to get his power back. It was a tumultuous ride!
I confess I did wonder if the inheritance parameters suffered by Anthony were legal in Victorian England. I have my doubts, but the author states in her Author’s Note that she consulted “Victorian estate law” so that “nothing I wrote was strictly impossible”. If you are a stickler for 100% accuracy, you have been warned.
I’m not sure all readers will be as sympathetic to Anthony’s plight as I was; it’s hard to love a hero who has been so beaten down and who struggles with alcoholism. But lately I’ve been trying to reframe my ‘judgments’ of heroes/heroines by switching their roles. If Anthony’s plight was the heroine’s plight, I think we would all be more impressed with his eventual redemption. We readers can be hard on our heroes! At the end of The Duke Undone, we hope but don’t know that Anthony’s struggle with alcohol is over. For me, this was true to life and not sugar-coated. It’s an HEA knowing that there are still challenges ahead.
Ms. Lowell does a fabulous job developing her secondary characters and word on the street is that there will be more books to come featuring these characters. I’m looking forward to reading them. In the meantime, I highly recommend The Duke Undone!
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Grade: A
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 05/04/21
Publication Date: 04/2021
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.
Related Reviews
Regencies are my favorite romances. But… I’m a historian and worked for decades as an archivist. So I’m very sensitive about accuracy. I read regencies as if I would read a fairy tale as long as the errors aren’t totally distracting. There is a limit!
From other time periods I stay mostly clear as I simply know too much.
As Amazon makes it possible to look in the books before buying them one is mostly able to judge an author and her willingness to do it right. I often ask myself why an author thinks she can write a historical without the basic knowledge about history . Why not write a contemporary?
By the way, in times of Google everybody can make a simple research. If an author can’t be bothered to do that I can’t be bothered to read her book. And pay for it!
Such an interesting discussion about this book’s contrivance! Oh, the things I learn from this site!
The legal ramifications of a title belonging to the crown, not to the recipient, never occurred to me. Chrisreader’s comment about unentailed money and property being at the will of the owner to determine the terms after his death is so logical.
I bet that we have thought more about this plot contrivance than the author ever did.
And, as the romance reader who doesn’t give a fig about most historical accuracy, that’s OK. The word on this book is that readers really enjoyed it which, this year, is a damn gift!
It has always seemed to me that, as readers, we are sensitive to themes and inaccuracies that affect our area of interest or expertise. I’m sure this isn’t always the case, but we’ve all come across people in the legal field who can’t read legal thrillers, or medical personnel who cringe at romances set in hospitals, etc. I’m not an expert on much, but I have years experience with horses and can’t stand to read ignorance in that area. Plus, while my degree and experience is out of date, I worked in genetics research and taught biology, so I get frustrated when inheritance or illness is inaccurately portrayed. My oldest is a historian by training and interest, and this would probably irritate her and take her out of the story. I, on the other hand, can easily just go with it! :-)
Yes, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I’ve read plenty of reviews from people working in law enforcement (or a related field) who have plenty to say about procedurals/romantic suspense/romantic thrillers because the authors get the LE details wrong. I wouldn’t say I don’t care, because I feel that to say that is to disrespect their opinions – instead I can say that such errors are unlikely to affect my enjoyment of a story unless they’re so massive that even a layperson like me can spot them, or at least question whether whatever it is could actually happen.
I’ve said before that the biggest problem I have with all the historical inaccuracies I see is that authors – who are almost overwhelmingly NOT from the UK – are mining my country’s history and then cherry picking the gold nuggets they want while throwing out the rest. And frankly, it’s insulting. It’s good enough to make use of to sell their book, but not good enough to actually get it right. THAT’s mostly what pisses me off – that and that it’s a lot easier to fact-check in the internet age than it was way back when and so many of them just don’t seem to bother.
I’m curious, Caz, given the blog post about grades, etc. If you were reviewing this book (enjoyed it as much as Evelyn did except for the unlikely premise), how would you grade it? Just as Evelyn did with an A but mentioning in the review that it was likely not historically accurate? Or would you have graded it down because historical accuracy is important to your overall enjoyment of the work?
I haven’t read it yet, so it’s hard to say. BUT if the premise is so fundamentally flawed (i.e, what the author has based her story around is actually impossible) I’d have a hard time with it. A few years back I reviewed a book (The Virgin and the Viscount) in which the hero decided to abdicate his title because he knew the old viscount wasn’t his biological father. Back then, if your mother was married to a man at the time of your birth, then that man was legally your father regardless of whether he provided the sperm or not, AND the the previous viscount acknowledged him and brought him up as his son. That happened in the last few chapters of the book – which I’d been enjoying up until that point, and it was so implausible that yes, it did really spoil the rest of the book, and yes, I downgraded it. And what made it worse was that it was a completely unnecessary plot device that didn’t have a great deal of bearing on the story and had been done simply to set up the next book, which was the story of the hero’s brother (One for the Rogue) who was suddenly going to have to learn how to be a viscount. So not only did the author do something completely unlikely and implausible (I don’t know what it takes for a peer of the realm to abdicate his title, but I bet it takes acts of parliament and somesuch) but SHE DID IT PURELY AS A PLOT DEVICE. That’s my problem here, too. (Assuming the fundamental flaw is the case). Pretty much the entire plot hinges on that one detail – which may be implausible at best, impossible at worst.
I’m trying to think of a comparison; as someone commented on the blog post about grading, people in law enforcement often have problems with the way procedurals/mysteries/suspense novels are written because authors need to make their plots work and do it by coming up with stuff that could never happen. A doctor might look at a medical drama and say “nope, nope and nope, that doesn’t happen.”
And as I also said on that post, I do get rather ticked off at all the non-British HR authors who pick and choose – they want a titled hero, for example. but how that title works or what he should be called doesn’t matter. Well, it does – especially if you’re trying to be true to the time period.
Thanks for replying! The other conversation was uppermost in my mind when I saw your response above and I was curious.
Sounds like only Brits can write Brits for you.
No, not at all. This is something more than the usual crop of Americanisms that appear frequently. If a British author had done the same thing – and that has happened – I’d be voicing the same concern.
“I’ve said before that the biggest problem I have with all the historical inaccuracies I see is that authors – who are almost overwhelmingly NOT from the UK – are mining my country’s history and then cherry picking the gold nuggets they want while throwing out the rest. And frankly, it’s insulting. It’s good enough to make use of to sell their book, but not good enough to actually get it right. THAT’s mostly what pisses me off”
“I do get rather ticked off at all the non-British HR authors who pick and choose – they want a titled hero, for example. but how that title works or what he should be called doesn’t matter.”
I don’t see how that quote relates to your original comment. The vast majority of HR writers are not from the UK, but as I said before, I’d be saying the same about the problems with this book regardless of where the author comes from. A recent HR by a favourite UK author of mine contained quite a big historical inaccuracy/implausibility and I called that out, too. So I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make.
I’ll notice medical inaccuracies but I’d never downgrade a romance for them. Factual verisimilitude just isn’t important to me in romance. I can’t stand when people behave in ways that make no sense or when plotting is lazy.
Thing is – for me, a plot which depends on something which couldn’t actually happen makes no sense and IS lazy plotting! If the situation the author has written is as Evelyn says it is, then it’s lazy plotting because it’s just a device to make the hero suffer!
Excellent point. Being a lawyer, I never read books about lawyers or watch lawyer TV shows, so naturally the legal issue here jumped out at me. I’m delighted for others to enjoy this book, but likely I would not.
This looks quite interesting, and I have it on my wish list in audio, narrated by Mary Jane Wells, who’s a favorite of mine. I have to admit I was hoping for something a little lighter to fit my current desire for comfort reads rather than challenging reads. However, I’ll definitely get around to this based on your review and the quality of the narrator.
I hope you enjoy it – I like her narration as well!
Oh, it’s exciting that this one is good! Looking forward to reading it!
Thank you for the review, Evelyn, this sounds interesting!
You’re welcome. I hope you get a chance to read it!
I know we spoke about this before, but I have problems with the idea that a thirty-year-old peer of the realm could have his dukedom held by a trustee. At that time, the age of majority in England was twenty-one and while it might be possible for money to be put into some kind of trust until he came of age, the actual dukedom would have been his from the moment his father died.
I am always suspicious when an author points out – “I know I might have got this wrong, but hey, I’m owning up so you can forgive me”. I haven’t so far been able to find anything to back up the author’s assertion that nothing she wrote was “strictly impossible” – but I’m sure we have people around here who might know more on that score.
I agree that it may be an unlikely setup but in the end I didn’t really care. I just got lost in the story. Readers who know they will not be able to get over this (no matter how good the story) should steer clear!
It would be interesting to have a discussion of historical inaccuracies that bother people, and ones we tend to either be ignorant of or let slide. Also, it seems there are historical inaccuracies, and then there are historical improbabilities, which are different, I think.
Yes, this is one that I couldn’t get past but other things might not bother me as much.
Interesting review Evelyn!
“Dukedoms” aside, it is perfectly legal in the US to create a trust that ties up someone’s inheritance indefinitely. Why bother to make someone a “duke” if that is the story one wants to write? Why not just write a character whose family – for whatever reason – has created a financial bind for its heir? Personally, I’m not more or less likely to read something because it does or doesn’t have a duke in it. . . . although it might mean someone has to come up with a more interesting title for the book.
As a duke, Anthony should be able to help his tenants and all the families in his care. With the restrictions he is living under, he is unable to do his duty by these families and this brings him a great deal of sadness adding another layer to the frustration and guilt he is suffering under. I imagine the author made him a duke to add this other challenge for him. But you are right, the premise could work without a duke as well.
It’s probably possible to do that in the UK as well, but NOT with a peerage which doesn’t technically ‘belong’ to the person who holds the title.
I actually think it’s an interesting direction for the story to take, and I like angsty stories, but if it’s basically impossible for that situation to happen, then it’s just an overly contrived plot device designed simply to pour some extra suffersauce onto the hero.
I wonder if the author tried not writing an aristocrat and was instructed her hero had to be one…
So, I haven’t read this book and don’t claim to know everything about this (or anything) but English law was pretty adamant about preserving those estates–if a boy inherited a title, someone without a vested interest would be appointed to run his estate until he was of age. The actual title would be the boy’s even if he were an infant in the cradle.
Putting a dukedom in “trusteeship” is, AFAIK, complete fiction. The heir became the duke at the death of the previous holder, and unless the conservator got him declared an imbecile (aka legally incompetent), control transferred to the duke when he became of age. Authors love to tie up heirs in knots but this one’s….not right.
Unentailed property and loose cash could be tied up or left outright to someone else, even if it impoverished the estate, but the entailed lands, and the income from them, would remain in the estate. A guardian who didn’t manage an estate well could be removed for cause, and it sounds like this hero is old enough to go to court and argue for that. I’ve never ever heard of estate lands and income being tied up in such a way that the estate couldn’t be run. No one wanted that, as it would mean lots of homeless and unemployed people being cast on the parish dole. Major landowners were generally major employers as well, and parishes went to great lengths to avoid paying more in poor relief.
Yes, exactly. Peerages are granted by the Crown and the person who is invested with them is a kind of trustee. The laws of inheritance are pretty strict.
I’m reading this book now and from what I understand, it’s not that the estates aren’t being managed or tenants are being forcibly evicted. The Duke is also in possession of his title, but there’s been a trustee (a family friend and fellow peer) who is effectively managing the estate on his behalf. In fact, the lands are proving quite profitable, although the hero is disinclined to be as mercenary as his predecessor because it’s coming at a cost to his tenants. He would prefer to be more generous with the rents, if he was in control legally.
I hope this clarifies the book’s intentions somewhat. Aside from this stretch, I’ve found it unusually historically aware and well researched.
Sorry, there’s a little more context: the conditions of the previous duke’s will (the legal guardianship) were expressly created to guard the dukedom from his son’s profligate and self-destructive tendencies, which are well documented. These conditions are also set to expire or be reassessed on the hero’s 30th birthday and in the case that the conditions haven’t been met, there’s talk of the hero being declared legally incompetent.
To be clear, I’m not saying this isn’t implausible. But I would say it makes more sense in the universe of the book (from what I’ve read so far), especially compared to the wildly unrealistic stuff in a lot of current historical romances.
Thanks for the information. And none of this next is directed at you, but… I’m afraid it doesn’t make any more sense because it’s just not possible for a peer to dictate how his title is handed down in a will. Unless the dukedom was created by the monarch in a very peculiar way – which is unlikely because let’s face it, men were in charge and why would they want to make it difficult for another man to inherit wealth and lands? (Not talking specifics; the dukedom was probably been created centuries earlier).
The age of majority was twenty-one, so I can’t see any lawyer at that time actually agreeing to include such a clause – it might even have been illegal to extend the guardianship beyond the age of majority without good cause – and saying “he drinks and sleeps around” isn’t good cause! Almost every duke in HR drinks and sleeps around (and so did a fair few IRL!) so that’s not a good, or legal reason.
For me, this is just as wildly unrealistic as all those heroines running gaming clubs who want to have sex without contraception but rejecting the hero when he offers marriage!
Yes, I completely understand and I wouldn’t recommend this book to readers who feel similarly. This part of the premise is integral and overstays its welcome as part of the story’s conflict, in my opinion. If this is a deal breaker for you, it’s definitely wise to skip this one.
I also agree with you that historical romance authors have a tendency to play with Britain’s historical past in a way that suggests it’s an imaginary fantasy sandbox and not, you know, a place where real people live today that possesses a vibrant historical record. Consistently getting modes of address wrong or wallflower heroines with secret BDSM clubs aren’t to my reading taste, more generally.
At the same time, apart from the premise, this book is compellingly written and has a great historical voice that seems built from a lot of research. If you’re someone who is looking for that AND you don’t mind the implausibility of the legal premise, maybe it’s a good option?
…historical romance authors have a tendency to play with Britain’s historical past in a way that suggests it’s an imaginary fantasy sandbox and not, you know, a place where real people live today that possesses a vibrant historical record.
YES! Thank you, that’s it exactly. In one of those reviews I linked to in another comment, I quoted KJ Charles – “Britain is a real country and our history actually happened” – not unsprisingly, she’s a stickler, too!
Caz, are there any books you could recommend to historical romance authors on this topic? I was thinking along the lines of Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders, except with more of a focus on British history for writers.
Nothing comes to mind off the top of my head, tbh. The late Jo Beverley’s website is a mine of information and KJ Charles has written some really informative posts about issues relating to historical accuracy. If I come across anything else, I’ll let you know.
This is all true, but I’d say it’s applicable across the board though.
I’ve read laughable books set in France where they don’t even get the names of the titles correct and ask any knowledgeable person about “Western novels” let alone historical ones set in the “Old West” and they will tell you most of the writers probably never met a horse let alone rode one.
Same with Harem/Sheik novels, Colonial set romance novels, fill in the blank.
I read a romance novel years ago set in Massachusetts during the period of the Witch Trials in the late 17th century where a woman not wearing her hair under a cap could probably get you a ducking as a witch and the heroine was running around half dressed and ran back to tell a girlfriend all about the wonders of the pre-marital sex she was out having in the fields with one of the guys. Sure, sounds plausible.
Yes to all of this. I started a topic on the Agora about the subject of historical accuracy in HR for anyone who’s interested in continuing the conversation there.
As for that romance novel in the witch trial era, yikes! Although I have to say, their Puritan predecessors could be quite scandalous. While doing research for a short, I was surprised to learn of a Plymouth Colony court case that stated, “John Alexander & Thomas Roberts were both examined and found guilty of lewd behavior and unclean carriage one with another, by often spending their seed one upon another, which was proved both by witnesses & their own confession; the said Allexander was found to have been notoriously guilty that way.”
That last line about being “notoriously guilty that way” seems to indicate this guy was being quite flagrant before someone in authority said “enough!” and hauled him before the court. So, in that light, maybe that romance novel you mentioned isn’t so implausible after all…
Oh there were always scandalous things going on, even in Puritan times. Hint: Google what the first execution of a juvenile was in the Colonies. I think we would all agree it should be a crime, if not a hanging one.
I just meant if someone was going around having pre-marital sex then they probably wouldn’t be telling everyone about it unless they wanted to be brought to trial.
Yep. I’m with Caz on this one. I don’t think that I could quiet the voice in my head saying, “this could never happen.”
Thanks :) It would be another matter if it were something minor or relating to a sub-plot – but the entire story hangs on this premise, which makes the whole thing smack of contrivance just to make the hero suffer.
Yes, the original wording of the grant made by the crown set the terms for the title. I think it’s pretty much an impossibility for a trust to be made that denies the male heir the title (even for a matter of years) when the old Duke dies. Simply because it’s not theirs to give or take. It’s why they can’t decide to just skip over sons they don’t like or make a favored daughter the Duke.
If the house and other material things are entailed they go by the original entail document as well.
If it’s a privately held house or money or estate not entailed then the owner can make up pretty much any trust and terms they please.