Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
The Duke’s Privateer by Amy Jarecki
Devilish Dukes #
Over dinner at Prince George’s one evening two people meet, chemistry is felt BUT there is also a bit of worry on the part of the woman because the man is eager to cease smuggling and SHE is in that very business. And thus, a cat and mouse with a touch of flirtation begins. Throw in a father ill for years, penury overcome, secrets galore, a foundling to care for, and a bit of steam but no desire to wed until a marriage is forced upon the two, and you have the makings of a great story with an eventual HEA for the main characters.
What I liked:
* Eleanor: independent, strong, intelligent, capable, strategizes, caring, giving, loving daughter, did very well for herself – also a blue stocking and spinster.
* Sherborn Price, Duke of Danby: a rake, works for the government, handsome, wealthy, working with the Prime Minister to obliterate smuggling, intrigued by Eleanor, stubborn, needs an heir – grows as the story progresses.
* The dragon’s lair – the room sounds divine and the bed gorgeous
* The way Prince George manipulated the couple
* The secondary romance between two of the people working for the duke
* The slow growth of the romance between Eleanor and Sherborn
* That there was a breakthrough in the health issues of Eleanor’s father
* All of it really except…
What I didn’t like:
* Not anything I can think of except perhaps wondering what happened to the person driving the cart taken to prison as a smuggler – the one working for Eleanor…did he get out or stand trial and I wondered if the foundling taken in by Eleanor would ever find out who her mother was.
Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I read more in this series/by this author? Definitely
Thank you to the author and Heber Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.
5 Stars
Devilish Dukes #
Over dinner at Prince George’s one evening two people meet, chemistry is felt BUT there is also a bit of worry on the part of the woman because the man is eager to cease smuggling and SHE is in that very business. And thus, a cat and mouse with a touch of flirtation begins. Throw in a father ill for years, penury overcome, secrets galore, a foundling to care for, and a bit of steam but no desire to wed until a marriage is forced upon the two, and you have the makings of a great story with an eventual HEA for the main characters.
What I liked:
* Eleanor: independent, strong, intelligent, capable, strategizes, caring, giving, loving daughter, did very well for herself – also a blue stocking and spinster.
* Sherborn Price, Duke of Danby: a rake, works for the government, handsome, wealthy, working with the Prime Minister to obliterate smuggling, intrigued by Eleanor, stubborn, needs an heir – grows as the story progresses.
* The dragon’s lair – the room sounds divine and the bed gorgeous
* The way Prince George manipulated the couple
* The secondary romance between two of the people working for the duke
* The slow growth of the romance between Eleanor and Sherborn
* That there was a breakthrough in the health issues of Eleanor’s father
* All of it really except…
What I didn’t like:
* Not anything I can think of except perhaps wondering what happened to the person driving the cart taken to prison as a smuggler – the one working for Eleanor…did he get out or stand trial and I wondered if the foundling taken in by Eleanor would ever find out who her mother was.
Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I read more in this series/by this author? Definitely
Thank you to the author and Heber Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.
5 Stars
Thanks to Netgalley for providing an e-arc for me to review.
I picked it The Duke's Privateer mostly because I expected the protagonist to be a privateer. I think this was a pretty fair assumption given the title. Privateer as defined by the Cambridge dictionary is "a person or ship allowed by a government to attack and steal from ships at sea", or in plain words a legal pirate. But it turns out she is a smuggler who some characters call a privateer, despite her not doing any privateering.
Given that I was pretty disappointed by the complete lack of piracy in the novel. I tried to enjoy it as it was, but the writing also seemed a tad underbaked. The characters felt flat, and I think the plot could have been laid out in a more exciting way. There were some moments between the couple that were kind of cute, so I'm giving it two stars.
TWs: child abandonment
I picked it The Duke's Privateer mostly because I expected the protagonist to be a privateer. I think this was a pretty fair assumption given the title. Privateer as defined by the Cambridge dictionary is "a person or ship allowed by a government to attack and steal from ships at sea", or in plain words a legal pirate. But it turns out she is a smuggler who some characters call a privateer, despite her not doing any privateering.
Given that I was pretty disappointed by the complete lack of piracy in the novel. I tried to enjoy it as it was, but the writing also seemed a tad underbaked. The characters felt flat, and I think the plot could have been laid out in a more exciting way. There were some moments between the couple that were kind of cute, so I'm giving it two stars.
TWs: child abandonment
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. It has been published in January 2021.
"The Duke's Privateer" by Amy Jarecki was quite a disappointing read.
First of all, there is no privateer in this book. The protagonist is a smuggler if you can even call her that. Actually, she *used to be* a smuggler: by the time the story begins, she doesn't even do her own smuggling anymore, a ship captain does it for her. For the duration of the story, Eleanor is more of a fence than a smuggler, and certainly not a privateer. She never was a privateer. She never even *met* a privateer. Well, I guess "The Duke's Fence" wouldn't have worked as well for the marketing, but I really don't appreciate it when the title of a book flat out lies about the content. It's the equivalent of clickbait!
The second issue is, the motivations behind the love story are preposterous: Eleanor is a self-proclaimed old maid, a 27-year-old bluestocking, unmarried by choice, and yet from the very beginning of the book she starts swooning over the Duke (whom she barely knows) just because... he has green eyes? No other motivation for her lust-at-first-sight is ever mentioned in the book. Am I supposed to believe that in her 27 years of life she had never come across a green-eyed man before? They're fairly common in the UK, come on!
Another thing that really bothered me is, it's plain to see that this novel tries to present itself as feminist, but it miserably fails at that. The main character is constantly reminding the reader that she's very content with her spinsterhood, but the thin feminist veneer pretty much flies out the window in chapter one to never make an appearance again. The rest of the novel is just an interminable series of sexist stereotypes.
To top it all off, in the very beginning of the novel one of the secondary characters encourages the protagonist to go after the Duke, a known womanizer, by telling her that the man is only a rake because he hasn't found the right woman yet, and that if she loves him enough, the Duke will change his ways, settle down and magically turn into a faithful husband. Nice progressive message there. I understand this is set in 1819, but it's being published in 2021, and I just can't take such rubbish seriously.
And what about the scene where Eleanor eavesdrop on her crush reading a raunchy novel out loud to her father? That's disturbing! It's the 19th century equivalent of a woman spying on her own father watching porn. We're halfway into incest territory here. The fact that Eleanor's father is mentally ill to the point that he's unable to talk or communicate in any way his wishes - thus he doesn't have a say in choosing which books people read to him - makes this scene all the more upsetting.
The bits about the baby are so poorly researched that they made me cringe. A baby is found who is said to be a few days old. Just a few pages later, someone says that the same baby "will be able to eat soft foods in one or two weeks". What?! Right after that, the baby is referred to as a "newborn" and soon after that she's heard babbling "pa-pa". This is preposterous! Why didn't the author bother to learn what the developmental stages of a baby are? A simple Google search would have sufficed to avoid this embarrassing jumble.
Last but not least, the narrator of the audiobook did an awful job of reading this book: every "P" and "B" he pronounces sounds like an explosion, even if I turn the volume on my device all the way down.
"The Duke's Privateer" by Amy Jarecki was quite a disappointing read.
First of all, there is no privateer in this book. The protagonist is a smuggler if you can even call her that. Actually, she *used to be* a smuggler: by the time the story begins, she doesn't even do her own smuggling anymore, a ship captain does it for her. For the duration of the story, Eleanor is more of a fence than a smuggler, and certainly not a privateer. She never was a privateer. She never even *met* a privateer. Well, I guess "The Duke's Fence" wouldn't have worked as well for the marketing, but I really don't appreciate it when the title of a book flat out lies about the content. It's the equivalent of clickbait!
The second issue is, the motivations behind the love story are preposterous: Eleanor is a self-proclaimed old maid, a 27-year-old bluestocking, unmarried by choice, and yet from the very beginning of the book she starts swooning over the Duke (whom she barely knows) just because... he has green eyes? No other motivation for her lust-at-first-sight is ever mentioned in the book. Am I supposed to believe that in her 27 years of life she had never come across a green-eyed man before? They're fairly common in the UK, come on!
Another thing that really bothered me is, it's plain to see that this novel tries to present itself as feminist, but it miserably fails at that. The main character is constantly reminding the reader that she's very content with her spinsterhood, but the thin feminist veneer pretty much flies out the window in chapter one to never make an appearance again. The rest of the novel is just an interminable series of sexist stereotypes.
To top it all off, in the very beginning of the novel one of the secondary characters encourages the protagonist to go after the Duke, a known womanizer, by telling her that the man is only a rake because he hasn't found the right woman yet, and that if she loves him enough, the Duke will change his ways, settle down and magically turn into a faithful husband. Nice progressive message there. I understand this is set in 1819, but it's being published in 2021, and I just can't take such rubbish seriously.
And what about the scene where Eleanor eavesdrop on her crush reading a raunchy novel out loud to her father? That's disturbing! It's the 19th century equivalent of a woman spying on her own father watching porn. We're halfway into incest territory here. The fact that Eleanor's father is mentally ill to the point that he's unable to talk or communicate in any way his wishes - thus he doesn't have a say in choosing which books people read to him - makes this scene all the more upsetting.
The bits about the baby are so poorly researched that they made me cringe. A baby is found who is said to be a few days old. Just a few pages later, someone says that the same baby "will be able to eat soft foods in one or two weeks". What?! Right after that, the baby is referred to as a "newborn" and soon after that she's heard babbling "pa-pa". This is preposterous! Why didn't the author bother to learn what the developmental stages of a baby are? A simple Google search would have sufficed to avoid this embarrassing jumble.
Last but not least, the narrator of the audiobook did an awful job of reading this book: every "P" and "B" he pronounces sounds like an explosion, even if I turn the volume on my device all the way down.
The Duke's Privateer was a first for me by this author and series, pair it up with the narrator and you have quite the enjoyable read. I managed to finish this book while painting my bedroom. And since I don't read historical romance that often, I kept things pretty open-minded for this one.
I must say that I liked both MCs quite a bit especially Eleanor. She's fully capable of taking care of herself and I loved that she had a bit of a one up on Sher. And the chemistry between them was perfect. Despite what he was working towards and how he comes off, there's definitely some decent character development for him.
It is a bit of a slow burn, which I was surprised that I managed to stick with it since I struggle with that trope. But we can definitely owe that to the narrator, Loved their voice and how they told the story, they kept me engaged the whole time.
Truly a good read and I'd definitely pick up another audiobook from this series.
I must say that I liked both MCs quite a bit especially Eleanor. She's fully capable of taking care of herself and I loved that she had a bit of a one up on Sher. And the chemistry between them was perfect. Despite what he was working towards and how he comes off, there's definitely some decent character development for him.
It is a bit of a slow burn, which I was surprised that I managed to stick with it since I struggle with that trope. But we can definitely owe that to the narrator, Loved their voice and how they told the story, they kept me engaged the whole time.
Truly a good read and I'd definitely pick up another audiobook from this series.
The Duke's Privateer was a first for me by this author and series, pair it up with the narrator and you have quite the enjoyable read. I managed to finish this book while painting my bedroom. And since I don't read historical romance that often, I kept things pretty open-minded for this one.
I must say that I liked both MCs quite a bit especially Eleanor. She's fully capable of taking care of herself and I loved that she had a bit of a one up on Sher. And the chemistry between them was perfect. Despite what he was working towards and how he comes off, there's definitely some decent character development for him.
It is a bit of a slow burn, which I was surprised that I managed to stick with it since I struggle with that trope. But we can definitely owe that to the narrator, Loved their voice and how they told the story, they kept me engaged the whole time.
Truly a good read and I'd definitely pick up another audiobook from this series.
I must say that I liked both MCs quite a bit especially Eleanor. She's fully capable of taking care of herself and I loved that she had a bit of a one up on Sher. And the chemistry between them was perfect. Despite what he was working towards and how he comes off, there's definitely some decent character development for him.
It is a bit of a slow burn, which I was surprised that I managed to stick with it since I struggle with that trope. But we can definitely owe that to the narrator, Loved their voice and how they told the story, they kept me engaged the whole time.
Truly a good read and I'd definitely pick up another audiobook from this series.
This is my first read in this genre. The Duke’s Privateer is the third book in the Devilish Dukes series, but I read it as a standalone.
This is the story of a spinster, Eleanor Kent, who turned to smuggling to aid her family after they became deeply in debt upon her father’s return from war and the Duke of Danby, Sherborn Price, who has been charged with finding out who the smugglers are by the Prime Minister. This story turns into a marriage of convenience and eventually enemies to lovers.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this book and leave an honest review.
This is the story of a spinster, Eleanor Kent, who turned to smuggling to aid her family after they became deeply in debt upon her father’s return from war and the Duke of Danby, Sherborn Price, who has been charged with finding out who the smugglers are by the Prime Minister. This story turns into a marriage of convenience and eventually enemies to lovers.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this book and leave an honest review.
Audiobook ARC Review: Received for free via NetGalley for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Actual Rating: 4.5
Actual Rating: 4.5
The Duke’s Privateer is the third book in the Devilish Dukes series, but I read it as a standalone and don’t think I missed anything. It was beautifully written, fast-paced, and hard to put down. The author gave the story an interesting twist by having the heroine be the privateer rather than the hero. This caught my attention from the beginning, and I couldn’t wait to see how it worked out.
Eleanor Kent’s options were limited when her father returned from war injured and in shock. The estates were in financial ruin and required a daring plan to recover. She became a privateer who provided art, liquor, and various items to the wealthy. She knew the Duke of Danby was dangerous and she needed to avoid him, but she was stuck with a dilemma. His reading to her father was producing positive effects and she couldn’t bring herself to make him stop visiting. The Duke of Danby was determined to stop smugglers from coming into England. Eleanor and her import company intrigued Danby. The more he learned about her the more he admired her and her courage. He was truly disappointed when he realized she led a huge smuggling operation. Left with no choice the two of them must marry in order to save Eleanor. Can they turn a marriage of convenience into a real marriage?
Eleanor Kent’s options were limited when her father returned from war injured and in shock. The estates were in financial ruin and required a daring plan to recover. She became a privateer who provided art, liquor, and various items to the wealthy. She knew the Duke of Danby was dangerous and she needed to avoid him, but she was stuck with a dilemma. His reading to her father was producing positive effects and she couldn’t bring herself to make him stop visiting. The Duke of Danby was determined to stop smugglers from coming into England. Eleanor and her import company intrigued Danby. The more he learned about her the more he admired her and her courage. He was truly disappointed when he realized she led a huge smuggling operation. Left with no choice the two of them must marry in order to save Eleanor. Can they turn a marriage of convenience into a real marriage?
3.5 stars
We have Eleanor, daughter of a Viscount and privateer and Sher, the Duke leading the charge to apprehend smugglers. They meet at the Prince's dinner and Sher decides that he wants Eleanor to redecorate a room for him using chinoiserie as she's done for the Prince. He doesn't really need it done, but he suspects that she's part of the smuggling scheme.
The more time they spend together the more they find themselves attracted to each other. Eleanor knows he's trying to trap her but can't seem to resist him. Sher realizes what's going to happen to her as a result of his meddling and he doesn't know what to do to save the woman he can't stop thinking about.
This has a marriage of convenience, a surprise baby(didn't love this but totally understand why it's present in the story), recovering war vet with PTSD(her father). I loved that she was the pirate in this story, we don't see that enough as far as I'm concerned.
This is also extremely slow burn with low steam content.
Received as an ARC from NetGalley
We have Eleanor, daughter of a Viscount and privateer and Sher, the Duke leading the charge to apprehend smugglers. They meet at the Prince's dinner and Sher decides that he wants Eleanor to redecorate a room for him using chinoiserie as she's done for the Prince. He doesn't really need it done, but he suspects that she's part of the smuggling scheme.
The more time they spend together the more they find themselves attracted to each other. Eleanor knows he's trying to trap her but can't seem to resist him. Sher realizes what's going to happen to her as a result of his meddling and he doesn't know what to do to save the woman he can't stop thinking about.
This has a marriage of convenience, a surprise baby(didn't love this but totally understand why it's present in the story), recovering war vet with PTSD(her father). I loved that she was the pirate in this story, we don't see that enough as far as I'm concerned.
This is also extremely slow burn with low steam content.
Received as an ARC from NetGalley
While I always love a regency romance, this one felt different right from the beginning.
Eleanor Kent took over her father's import business when war injuries left him in her care, and she added a bit of privateering to increase her income and support her family and employees. So, when the Duke of Danby, tasked with shutting down smuggling operations across the country, meets Eleanor at a dinner and is smitten with her, Eleanor has to decide whether to cut all ties or play his game of cat and mouse despite the danger to herself and her business and her attraction to the duke.
I liked this novel because it gave Eleanor agency and power of her own from the beginning, in a way that doesn't usually occur in regency-era romance novels. Her ability to support herself and her father put Eleanor and the Duke's relationship on a more equal playing field and led to a smarter, more exciting will-they-or-won't-they storyline,
Also, Philip Battley did a wonderful job narrating this book and he infused emotion, sarcasm and humor into the story and I'll definitely be looking for his name in the audiobooks I choose in the future.
Overall, I found the story charming, the characters relatable and I will be going back and listening to the first two books in Jarecki's Devlish Duke's series.
Eleanor Kent took over her father's import business when war injuries left him in her care, and she added a bit of privateering to increase her income and support her family and employees. So, when the Duke of Danby, tasked with shutting down smuggling operations across the country, meets Eleanor at a dinner and is smitten with her, Eleanor has to decide whether to cut all ties or play his game of cat and mouse despite the danger to herself and her business and her attraction to the duke.
I liked this novel because it gave Eleanor agency and power of her own from the beginning, in a way that doesn't usually occur in regency-era romance novels. Her ability to support herself and her father put Eleanor and the Duke's relationship on a more equal playing field and led to a smarter, more exciting will-they-or-won't-they storyline,
Also, Philip Battley did a wonderful job narrating this book and he infused emotion, sarcasm and humor into the story and I'll definitely be looking for his name in the audiobooks I choose in the future.
Overall, I found the story charming, the characters relatable and I will be going back and listening to the first two books in Jarecki's Devlish Duke's series.