LynneC’s review of To Pleasure a Duke (Husband Hunters Club, Book 3) by Sara Bennett
Historical Romance published by Avon Impulse 25 Oct 11
Bennett, hmmm? A Jane Austen fan, perchance, or a mere coincidence?
This one reads like a children’s book. Far too simple, far too flat, with basic sentence construction and any number of inaccuracies, anachronisms, and Americanisms.
The story starts at a kind of Regency prom. Several young ladies at a girls’ finishing school are getting ready to go out into the world and discussing the kind of husbands they want. Although this is set in 1837, the year of Queen Victoria’s accession, and the year of mourning for the late King, there is little evidence of this.
No, just no. There were no finishing schools for daughters of the aristocracy until much later on in the nineteenth century. There was simply no need. You were brought up by your governess and your parents and you just knew. Sending your daughters to be taught by someone else was unthinkable.
So a prom. Not something I’m particularly familiar with either, because they weren’t usual until relatively recently. Not when I went to school, certainly. The young ladies would have been better as cheerleaders, rather than young women entering society, which wasn’t a playground, but a place for doing business.
The hero is, of course, a duke, and one of those dukes that exist merely to be lusted after. He’s cardboard and tedious, never comes alive.
The family of the heroine behave more like Bobbsey Twins than anything from the Regency. The appalling manners and the family atmosphere wasn’t typical of the period, and I doubt would have endeared anyone.
Unfortunately, the story descended into slapstick fairly quickly. There was a goat and an incident designed to make the hero look foolish. He managed pretty well, I thought, but the whole tale didn’t engage me, and, despite that incident, the hero is pretty dislikable. It isn’t funny and it makes everyone concerned appear juvenile. The language and sentence construction are really basic, and I feel as if I’m reading a YA novel or maybe younger than that. There is no depth and nothing to really grab me.
Grade: DNF
Summary:
It has taken Eugenie Belmont but a moment to decide whom to marry . . .
Unfortunately the gentleman in question, the Duke of Somerton, hasn’t yet offered—a mere formality for a confirmed member of the Husband Hunters Club of Miss Debenham’s Finishing School. Like her friends, Eugenie is unwilling to wait demurely until the perfect mate happens by. And, despite the handsome duke’s imposing reputation, she can feel his heated glances in her direction are charged with desire . . . and possibilities.
Saddled with a dukedom, a haughty dowager, and an irresponsible younger sister, Sinclair St. John is far too occupied with important matters to indulge in romantic whims. But for the first time in his life, a brazen temptress has him utterly distracted. He could—and he should—dismiss her and court someone more befitting his station. But he is irresistibly drawn to this bewitching woman . . . and must match her game of seduction, move for passionate move.
Read an excerpt.
