A review by themeadowlibrary
The Duke Gets Desperate by Diana Quincy

tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

“Castle Tremayne had made a woman out of her.” 
 
When this book opened, I loved the first sentence and thought it was going to be a super fun read. I was very wrong. 
It’s not that anything was awful, it just was meh. For example, I am a fan of archeologist heroes normally, but there was just something about Strick that annoyed me. He was completely against monetizing anything, so how does he plan to save his home? It started to veer into him being really unintelligent. I liked Raya a little more, but she still wasn’t a character I was excited to read about. In fact, there weren’t any characters in this book that I really loved. 
The writing was very clunky in parts. At times the plot did not make sense to me, and the pacing felt off. Also some details did not ring historically true. One major thing that stood out to me was, no matter what’s going on behind the scenes, I don’t think servants at this time period would speak so harshly and correct their employer in the way they did from the very beginning of the book. 
The mystery plot was really predictable; all it served to do was make me anxious and annoyed. Most of all I just never felt hooked- into the story or the characters. 
It may be just that it didn’t resonate with me, because there were some good scenes (I love when Raya gets into the cider). Overall though, not my favorite. 
 
Star Rating: 2/5 
Tropes: Enemies to lovers, inheritance, class differences 
CW: Death, murder, violence, racism, classism 
 
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.  
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