Reviews tagging 'Grief'

The Duke I Tempted by Scarlett Peckham

11 reviews

lenanico's review against another edition

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

The Duke of Westmead proofs that consent indeed is very sexy.
- While his sister on the other hand is queen of overstepping boundaries...
And Poppy admittedly is embarrassingly relatable to me.

For something that isn't really my usual taste I enjoyed this A LOT. Maybe partly also for the aesthetic. The vibe feels the way the covers of the "Emily Wilde" books look like.

"The Duke and I" got nothing on this one!

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unsuccessfulbookclub's review

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challenging emotional hopeful mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Very angsty with a lot of conflict driven by miscommunication. The conflict between Poppy and Asher was very realistic and that’s what made it PAINFUL to read at times. This is a pretty slow burn, emotionally, but the payoff is VERY HOT. I loved how Poppy was fiercely independent and curious. I thought the way the author portrayed the evolution of their sexual relationship from her being a virgin to her being a Domme was really well done and believable (ie, it didn’t happen overnight!!). Excited to read the rest of this series!

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vagrantheather's review

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emotional hopeful sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I had zero intent to tell Goodreads I was reading this book. I picked it up on Libby looking for a smutty historic romance. It's not my usual genre but sometimes my brain is ISO serotonin and this gets 'er going. Most romance I've dabbled in has been abominably, intolerably poorly written (Hello, Bridgerton books), so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying the writing here. It's not simply passable, but actually uses vocabulary a middle schooler would have to look up, and not in a scandalous way (well, not always in a scandalous way).

There is smut here, yes. Too little of it to some reviewers, but well balanced in my eyes. But what really captivated me was the way it toyed with my emotions. The ways they misunderstand each other and it breaks their hearts. The ways they misread cues and self-abuse. In my 30s I'm still an emotional wreck and this book landed so many blows.

> "I am not the kind of man with whom there is a future for you." Her blood ran cold. Suddenly she could see herself the way he saw her . . . Not a goddess. Just a spinster who forgot herself.

> She could still feel that child's fear, that primal urge to burrow into the darkest, smallest nooks. . . Only Bernadette had understood. . . She'd sensed innately what Poppy had really wanted when she had hidden herself away. To be found. For to be found was the only way of knowing you were wanted.

> And today he had been so polite and bloody sweet in letting her down gently that her foolishness was compounded, because he must have seen how she had hoped. It was mortifying, the amount of care he took. She would rather he had simply said 'thats not what I bought you for, cavendish,' and slapped her.

I was not expecting this book to be emotionally devastating. I need a dozen more like it.

PS this is still definitely sappy and definitely vivid in a mature audiences only kind of way.

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buttermellow's review

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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beccaand's review

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dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

this cover is luscious, and the book matches - thoroughly wowed by Scarlett Peckham's writing

Content Warnings

nicolewhopickedthisbook's review

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a bdsm, historical marriage of convenience romance with a submissive hero. That really checks a lot of boxes for me personally lol but this book is long winded in regards to how long our hero keeps his secret, there’s a lot of angst, and not really as steamy as I thought it was going to be for a bdsm romance, even historical.

That being said, I did enjoy my time reading this book and I love that Archer is truly a romantic once he gets out of his own way. A lot of things Poppy did really infuriated me but she does eventually learn and grow

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always_sorry's review

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dark emotional informative fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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sydapel's review

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emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

It's possible this book is trying to do too much by combining grief, feminine independence, botany and the BDSM community in the regency era, but I - the ridiculous person I am - really really enjoyed this one. It's highly angsty but I'm of the opinion it works well here

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friends2lovers's review

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emotional sad tense slow-paced

2.0

There were times while reading this I got so frustrated or bored that I wondered if this would end up being a 1-star. Overall, the book is kind of a mess. But, there were a few scenes that, individually, were beautifully written and cinematic. So I can’t say I totally disliked it. In between the sparse good bits, though, the book lacked focus and felt very disjointed. Plot threads didn’t come together in a satisfactory way. One chapter followed another without a clear, strong through line, so there was nothing compelling me to keep reading. The characterizations, their personalities, motivations, and reasoning, were inconsistent and confusing. An inciting incident would occur and instead of letting the characters deal with the fallout on page, there would be a time jump (days, weeks, or months) where suddenly they’re acting completely different. Their relationship didn't progress, it reset. It was all so jarring, I felt like I was reading about 5 different couples.

On Peckham’s website, she says, “This is a gothic-style romance and contains a LOT of angst.” I would not describe this as a gothic-style romance; the gothic elements are minimal. However, there IS a lot of angst. They’re both in their own heads a lot and not communicating. The only significant secondary character in the story is Archer’s sister, Constance, and neither he nor Poppy turn to her for advice, guidance, or even just a listening ear. Without any outside, influencing perspective, their perceptions and assumptions about each other are constantly distorted. Which leads to a lot of ridiculous melodrama. For angst to work for me, I have to know the characters well enough to understand and sympathize with their situation. Since the characters in this were so poorly drawn and perplexing, the angst was annoying.

Poppy, in particular, is a baffling character. She acts out in childish, retaliatory ways. I could never quite comprehend where her reactions or emotions were coming from, they all seemed out-of-the-blue. For example . . . There’s a villainous character, Tom, who harasses Poppy, and Archer is there to witness it a couple of times. The first time, Tom has snuck onto Archer’s estate to speak with Poppy, and Archer sees their interaction as it’s beginning to get heated. Archer intervenes and tells Tom to leave (which he has every right to do since Tom was there uninvited and harassing one of his employees). However, Poppy’s reaction is to get angry and berate Archer for interfering. The second time, Poppy is inexplicably grateful that Archer swoops in to save her. I believe these two scenes are meant to mirror each other. But I struggled so much to follow the trajectory of her character and their relationship, that I can't even begin to explain why such similar incidents would provoke opposite reactions.

The final nail in the coffin for Poppy’s character occurs late in the book, when she

runs into a burning building to save her business documents. Archer risks his own life to save her and she becomes enraged, shouting she’ll never forgive him! As if he deliberately set out to ruin her business or something. She’s supposedly madly in love with this man, yet there’s no self awareness, regret, or even acknowledgement on her part that her idiotic actions could have gotten him killed. If her livelihood were at stake, I could understand her desperation, but she’s a duchess who has the money, time, and resources to rebuild her business. We’re meant to feel sorry for Poppy because she’s lonely and her nursery business is all she has left. Yet, I can’t bring myself to root for a character who places her business or profession over everything and everyone else. And I hate how the whole incident serves as a catalyst for Archer (not Poppy), who thinks he’s to blame for making her feel unloved.

I’m honestly really confused by the entire chain of events in this book. When I sat down to write this review, just a day after finishing it, I couldn’t remember in what order certain events or conversations took place because there is no logical flow to them.

Finally, I want to note that I read this series backwards (3, 2, 1) and I enjoyed the other two books a lot more. I remember The Earl I Ruined being a little messy and annoyingly angsty, too. But I highly recommend Peckham’s The Lord I Left and the erotic short story Widow in Emerald.

______________

Endnotes

Series: The Secrets of Charlotte Street #1

Genre: Historical Romance

Setting: Wiltshire and London, England; July & December 1753 (Georgian era)

Hero: Archer Stonewell, the Duke of Westmead, age 34

Heroine: Poppy Cavendish, botanist, owns a plant nursery, age 25 or 26?

Tropes/Themes: class difference, starchy hero, marriage of convenience, marriage in trouble, put a baby in me (sort of)

Length: 313 pages, 85k words (novel)

Read Date: February 3, 2022

Heat Index: 4.3 🌡️🌡️🌡️🌡️

Heat Notes:

5 full, moderately explicit sex scenes. BDSM/kink includes whipping, masochism, dom/sub (hero is the submissive), and light bondage. The hero keeps his kinky preferences a secret. Other than his fantasizing, kink is not depicted on-page frequently. Kink is featured in two very brief scenes and one full sex scene.

______________

Quotes

Beware of spoilers!

They could not go on like this.
Because the darkness of that scene was hateful. Its pleasures, such as they were, a slinging of anger back and forth.
The words he’d said to her were cruel.
The things she’d done to him were insulting.
They would not have felt so vital were they not a symptom of a bitter war that she was losing.
The fact that she’d enjoyed it left her lonely and afraid. She longed to knock on his door and apologize. To curl up beside him in the dark and say that she was sorry and confused and sad and ask him what that coupling had meant and why this marriage hurt so much.
She could not imagine what he’d say.
They’d done altogether too much talking. Whatever this ragged thing between them was, conversing served only to make it worse.

Too much talking?! Conversing would make it worse?! Ugh.

Keep him safe, she whispered to herself as they clattered over the dark roads. Don’t let him do something foolish—trying to save lives, or things, or—and then she remembered.
She’d forgotten to take her papers home with her. Her ledgers, files, correspondence, all her annotated plans—she’d overlooked them in the tumult, shaken from the scene with Tom. They would burn.
Years of careful research and months of breakneck work. The future for which she’d traded in her past.
All locked in the bloody cabinets behind her bloody desk.
Prayers could be changed midutterance.
Let me get there in time, she whispered. Oh God, please don’t let them burn.

This is when Poppy completely lost my sympathy.

“Enough, Poppy,” he yelled, beating his head back against the wooden headboard. The pain of it centered him. He did it again.
“Stop that! You will injure yourself.”
He opened his mouth and laughed, a nasty, mirthless snarl. “Will I? Rich words from the likes of a woman who ran into a burning building.”
“It was not yet burning,” she said with a petulant toss of her head. For once, her determined jaw and tumbling hair did not move him. He wanted to shake her.

Ah, yes, petulant is a good word to describe Poppy. I wanted to shake her, too.

Content Warnings

jessreads137's review against another edition

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5.0

This book tells the story of a young widower who craves submission as punishment for what happened to his family years ago. Poppy craves freedom and is fighting the conventions of society but she is forced to realise that in order to keep her exotic nursery she may be forced to marry. After she plans the extravagant floral arrangements for an event at his house, commissioned by the Duke eccentric sister, they are brought together and Westmead requires a new bride. The two navigate married life as a business transaction and begin to get to know and understand each other but the Duke cannot bring himself to trust his wife with what might be the most important and influential part of himself when it comes to success of their marriage.

This book is FULL of miscommunication, lack of communication, and that results in an interaction that ends in one of the characters cheating on the other. As the reader this seems like something that could have been prevented with simple communication but there is a lot of complicated character development and deep pain that culminates in this event. That being said, this didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the story while I understand that for some readers this will impact their enjoyment of the book. If you enjoy angst in your romance and the intense dynamics that can arise when reading about the societal pressures that exist in historical romances I believe this will be a book you enjoy.

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