I don’t think fiction should imitate real life. I wouldn’t want to read it if it did. I think that’s why I love the Regency historicals with dukes. It’s sort of like Cinderella, with the guy everyone wants and no one (but the heroine) can get. The real dukes of the period certainly were nothing like these guys in romance novels. I’m sure I wouldn’t want to read a book about a real duke, unless he just happened to be young, rich, handsome and hung like a stallion (LOL).

I did think the wife’s reaction was quite in character though, having gotten to know her in previous books. It would have been interesting to have seen more of her POV, but maybe that would have extended the story too much?

BTW…what’s wrong with another duke? I will always choose a book with a duke as the hero over any other. Always! Always! Always!!

There’s only one thing that bothered me and that I can’t quite shake off and it’s what you put in the spoilers. I’m not sure I should discuss it here since some people haven’t read the book yet and I don’t know how to put spoiler tags. I’ll try not to give any names away. It almost felt contrived so that we could have a tie in with the Mallorens and an excuse to revisit them. I also found that it was dealt with all too quickly and a little too easily. The easy acceptance of the father I could understand. But the One Big Happy Family (ie, the scene at super the day of Petra’s arrival)and the never ending smiles of his wife I couldn’t. We never got to see something from her point of view. No matter that it’s something that happened more than 20 years ago, IMO no woman would feel unreserved joy at learning that her husband had a child from a past liaison, especially since they haven’t been married long at all yet. Acceptance would come, but so quickly? without the least little pinge? I remember one scene in particular, the one in the carriage when they’re going to the venetian soirée. Petra is wearing a replica of her mother’s mask and her father makes a comment about it, saying that he remembers it….with his wife sitting next to him (and both Petra and the reader know in which circumstances he saw that mask too). Surely it was not considerate of him to mention this in front of his wife? His actions in this book made me perversely think less of him although I used to admire his character greatly.

So, yes, I was disappointed to see how this book tied into the Mallorens world, especially since, as I mentioned above, it wasn’t at all necessary to Robin and Petra’s story–which I greatly enjoyed independently from this nitpick I have. It dimished my previous enjoyment of a certain book which was on my keepers shelf until now–I need to re-read it and see if I can dissociate it from A Lady’s Secret before deciding whether to leave it there or not.

That allowed Robin and Petra to get to know one another in a way that I think doesn’t happen when it’s strictly one action sequence after another. So you could believe that their relationship grew out of genuine affection. Not just because of the adrenaline rush of going through some scary stuff together.

Yes, yes exactly. I also liked the language bits where Petra got introduced to the wonderful world of the English language as spoken by natives. But even that didn’t seem ‘overdone’ the way these things sometimes are – just misunderstandings arising from everyday conversations.