REVIEW: A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole
B Reviews / B+ Reviews / C+ ReviewsADHD / Contemporary / Duke / grumpy hero / interracial relationship / Scotland / sword making32 Comments
Dear Alyssa Cole,
I was so excited to read this book. The cover is gorgeous and the book itself had a great start – with lots of fun humour and strong characterisation. I was wearing out the highlighter function on my reader with all the quotes I wanted to put in the review to show how much I was enjoying it. I did stumble over some things later on; I expect many readers, particularly US readers won’t notice or care though.
I have A Princess in Theory on my TBR but I haven’t managed to read it yet. A Duke by Default stood alone well however so I don’t think readers need to have read the earlier book before diving in. That said, there is clearly some extra context in the first novel; something to do with Portia causing some kind of trouble for Ledi and that behaviour risking their friendship? It wasn’t a focus of this book however so I didn’t need to know about it to enjoy Portia’s story.
A Duke by Default begins when Portia Hobbs, daughter of wealthy New York realtors, socialite and party girl (apparently) is waiting at the train station in Edinburgh having arrived early that morning for a three month apprenticeship at the Bodotria Armory. She is embarking on “Project: New Portia”. She has clearly decided she needs to make some changes in her life. She regards herself as a fuck-up, a maker of messes, the person whom others are always cleaning up after. She has decided to stop drinking and hooking up and start making better decisions. Her apprenticeship is the kick start to the next phase of her life.
Portia’s parents think of her as a flighty dilettante and their best hopes for her are a good marriage to a member of the New York elite because goodness knows Portia can’t settle into a proper job. They disapprove of her “little trip” to Scotland. The apprenticeship is just another one of her flights of fancy. Portia’s twin sister, Reggie, is more supportive but there is so much baggage Portia is carrying, with that mix of guilt, envy and love which happens with siblings sometimes, all mixed in together that it’s difficult for Portia to see it clearly. Reggie is the “good twin”, the golden girl and Portia feels she can never measure up.
Tavish McKenzie is about ten years older than Portia and the owner/operator of the Bodotria Armory. He runs it with the help of his younger brother Jamie and Jamie’s wife Cheryl (who also runs a very cool Doctor Who themed eatery out of the armory). Tavish’s and Jamie’s parents are Chilean (their mother) and Jamaican (their dad). Tav’s biological dad was white and, apart from that he inherited the armory from him, Tav doesn’t know much about the man. I admit this never quite made sense to me. I didn’t understand Tav’s singular lack of curiosity.
It was Jamie who did most of the work setting up the apprenticeship. Tav is a bit of a Luddite and a grumpy one at that. He is not welcoming to Portia at all at first.
A woman had once told him he was like the weapons he made: cold, sharp, and designed to repel those who got too close.
Most of what Portia does in the first few weeks is administration and website design with very little actual sword making. In fact (sadness!), there is only one sword she makes through the whole book. I’d have loved more of it, not least because there was so very much opportunity for innuendo.
“I thought there’d be more banging.” Her eyes went wide and she glanced away. “With hammers. On a forge.”
Jamie and Cheryl both call Tav on his bad behaviour though, and Portia stands up for herself too. I loved this:
Tav shifted his bulk, leaning back in his seat. “So you’re just waiting to see which shoe fits, eh Freckerella?”
She didn’t quite like that comparison. People focused so much on the prince slipping on Cinderella’s lost shoe that they didn’t realize the real happily ever after was the moment she realized she was brave enough to go to the damned ball alone in the first place.
“I’m not waiting around for some fuckboy to bring me a shoe. I’m here, working for you. I’m finding my own shoe,” she said.
Tav is not all bad. He realises he’s been treating Portia badly and apologises without making excuses and, over the course of the book makes some important realisations. I particularly appreciated this one:
His feelings weren’t something else of his for her to manage.
When Tav steps up, he is extremely good for Portia, validating her and encouraging her without browbeating her. He appreciates her physical attributes as well.
“Is this where you reveal you’ve got a thing for feet?” she asked.
He glanced up at her, smirk on his lips and gray at his temples. Damn, he was handsome. “I’m discovering I have a lot of ‘things.’ Feet. Ass. Collarbones. Nose. Freckles. One common denominator, though.”
Portia has undiagnosed ADHD and over the course of the story she comes to understand herself a lot better, why she is like she is and how to manage herself to fit better with what others expect of her (a thing she wants to do). She also comes to appreciate herself and her skills too but this is a long journey for her. Her default is to believe the bad stuff, her lens is to anticipate criticism and then believe it.
I related to Portia in a number of ways, especially this one:
Tavish was sleeping; Portia was not. He had his arms around her and was holding her close and, honestly, who slept like that? Holding another human being like a koala hugged up on a eucalyptus tree. Ew.
Portia is black but she is also wealthy and somewhat protected by it from racism. Jamie is black, not wealthy and is also the son of immigrants. Xenophobia and fear-mongering by white supremacist factions about immigration and refugees and are impacting the neighbourhood Tav loves. He teaches the local kids and teens sword-fighting and such (with Styrofoam and/or wooden swords) and the immigration debate is affecting them too. I liked the scenes with Tav and the children. It helped me cut him some slack when he was being less than stellar to Portia in the beginning.
The armory is losing money. Sales to castles and souvenir shops of swords and daggers are down for some unknown reason and the needs of the community are up; Tav gives the kids a meal when they come for a class and there seem to be more and more kids in need. One of Portia’s particular superpowers is internet searching. While digging into old records about the history of the armory for the new web page she’s building, she stumbles across some information which could change everything. The man who bequeathed the armory to Tav was a duke. And apparently Tav is his heir.
This is the bit I stumbled on and I pretty much stumbled my way through the rest of the book. It wasn’t 100% clear but the strong suggestion was that Tav’s mother and biological father weren’t married. There is a reference to the duke having a second marriage which could possibly infer Tav’s mother was his first wife but there is also this:
“Sorry to ruin your little fiction, but she had no interest in his wealth. She turned down his proposal once she saw how detestable the aristocracy was.”
There’s a newspaper article quoted which mentions Douglas Dudgeon was a bachelor when he inherited the title of duke. So, either there was no marriage and therefore Tav could not be the long lost heir to a dukedom or there was a marriage but it was secret and never before discovered which seems equally unlikely. After Douglas Dudgeon died apparently without heirs, the title went to a distant cousin, David Dudgeon. Given that Tav inherited property from Douglas, it seemed to me that had there been a secret marriage, it would have been discovered during the search for heirs and/or around the time the will was read. (I guess there’s a third option; this is a world where real inheritance laws don’t apply – and I could have gone with that had it been made clear in the book that was the case.)
The title, by the way, is Duke of Edinburgh. Which, no. For those who don’t know, the actual Duke of Edinburgh is Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II’s husband. Prince Philip was granted the title upon their marriage approximately eleventy billion years ago. The book uses the term “royal duke” from time to time too but the only royal dukes are actual Princes. (Prince Harry, Prince William and Prince Philip are all royal dukes.)
Now, it is true that Prince Philip is a racist misogynist so maybe you did this on purpose to stick it to the royal family? I guess if you did you couldn’t exactly say that in an author’s note. But in any event, given I know who the Duke of Edinburgh is and what is known cannot be unknown, I was thrown out of the story every time the title came up. And after the subject was raised about halfway into the book, it came up a lot (of course). Now, obviously A Duke by Default is fiction. There are plenty of contemporary royal romances around the place which are based in fictional countries or with fictional aristocracy and I’m good with that. Here however, I kept seeing Prince Philip when I was supposed to be seeing Tav (and anyone who’s seen Prince Philip will understand why this was not a good thing in a romance novel). For me, the parts where fiction met reality were not separated quite enough for me to relax into the story.
However, to people who assume or are prepared to believe that both the dukedom of Edinburgh and Holyrood are fictional and aren’t fussed about the laws of inheritance as they pertain to the British aristocracy, it probably won’t matter a whit (and that’s fine).
World-building is as important to me in contemporary novels as science-fiction or fantasy. The use of actual titles and palaces here gave me a kind of cognitive dissonance, particularly because the rest of the book seemed so firmly attached to current real world issues such as racism, immigration and asylum seekers. Not that alternate universes cannot tackle real world issues – of course they can (Gulliver’s Travels anyone?). It’s just that I could not believe the world of A Duke by Default was not the actual world I live in which has in it, a real Duke of Edinburgh who is married to the Queen. The book existed in some kind of uncanny valley where what was fictional was too close to reality.
One other thing; David Dudgeon is not a nice guy and he does something late in the book which I felt needed more overt punishment. I sincerely hope he got taken down the way he needed to and that readers get to find out about it at some point.
There was a lot to like in A Duke by Default. The writing is good, the characterisations strong and the humour engaging. I believed the connection between Portia and Tav and while a lot of their future is somewhat up in the air, I believed in their HEA too. I enjoyed the way the book dealt with immigration and asylum seekers and the way you showed the impact of racism and intolerance on the Bodotria community, in both big and small ways. I liked so much about the book that I plan on bumping A Princess in Theory up the queue and I am all over Nya’s and Prince Johan’s book (A Prince on Paper) too – Johan was a bit of a scene-stealer actually. If not for the whole Duke of Edinburgh thing the book was tracking along to get a high B (- maybe even a B+ had there been more sword making) – so that might be a good barometer for those readers who do not have the same sensibilities regarding the British royal family/aristocracy as I do. As it was, I kept tripping over Prince Philip and the thorny issue of an apparently illegitimate child inheriting a dukedom and it did cast something of a pall over the book for me. I’m Australian and I’ve grown up with this stuff. I remember standing for hours when I was in primary school waiting for the Queen and Prince Philip to pass by and give us all a wave (it wasn’t really that exciting actually – we speculated there was a fake arm at play).
On the other hand, there was this:
The librarian looked up again.
“I need help now. I need to print this article and . . . do you have any books about dukes?”
The librarian’s eyes went wide and she rubbed her hands together with glee. “We have a fantastic romance section,” she said. “Do you need recommendations? How do you like your dukes? Grumpy? Tortured? Alpha, beta, or alpha in the streets, beta in the sheets?”
“Actually, I meant nonfiction,” Portia said glumly.
The librarian sighed. “Aye. Just a warning, love—the non-fic dukes are not nearly as fun.”
Grade: C+
Regards,
Kaetrin
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Good review. I agree that world building is important in contemporaries just as in SFF. In any genre, really. It’s part of what gives a book the texture of reality so readers can buy in. When something keeps yanking you out of the story, you can’t stay engaged the same way.
It sounds like there’s a story there and I want to hear it!
I don’t know about US readers not knowing about the implausibilities in this book. The basic rules of inheritance in the British aristocracy (as well as the mere existence of the Duke of Edinburgh) are surely general knowledge things that lots of people (especially romance readers) would know about, aren’t they? Not caring is a different matter but for me that kind of thing is annoying beyond belief.
I am also Australian and as a schoolkid in the 1980s I was steeped in the glamour of the royal family. The Woman’s Weekly Royal Wedding souvenir editions! In my case standing around with thousands of other kids to see Charles and Diana on their first tour to Australia. It also wasn’t very exciting…..
@Janine it’s not a very interesting story I’m afraid. We were waiting, lining the side of the road for what felt like hours (and probably was at least 2) and then the limo drove past and we saw a twisting forearm for about 5 seconds as they went by, just glimpsed through the window. We had to cheer and be excited. After all that time waiting, we had to fake it. I was in primary school so I think I was about 8? I may have been younger. I could look it up, the year she was in Adelaide but really who cares? LOL
@oceanjasper I think there are many people, in the US and elsewhere who don’t know and/or don’t care about British royalty. We grew up with it, many didn’t. I guess my personal vox pop wasn’t very scientific but lots of people I asked about it didn’t know.
I’m convinced it was a deliberate choice on the author’s part rather than lack of knowledge or research though. She’s an intelligent woman who knows how to research. Lots of folks are loving the book so it’s clear that while the authorial choice in this instance didn’t entirely work for me, it wasn’t a barrier to many, if not most readers.
I have been dabbling in historical romances lately where the historical inaccuracies are so all pervasive that it can make it difficult to keep reading. This just felt like more of the same, frankly. I mean if our contemporary heroines can routinely go from menial office worker to billionaire’s wife I don’t know why we would balk at some miscellaneous dude inheriting a Dukedom. (I say good riddance to Prince Phillip!) And the whole bizarre thing was made extra delicious by Tav’s stepdad being a rabid republican. At least there were some people pointing out the inequity that keeps any royal family in power. All to say that I decided to go with it and thus enjoyed all of it. If the final scene where Queen Elizabeth is completely parodied didn’t suggest Cole was taking the piss, nothing would.
“Xenophobia and fear-mongering by white supremacist factions about immigration and refugees […] are impacting the neighbourhood Tav loves”
Umm. Yes, there’s racism in Edinburgh: a Syrian refugee recently ended up in hospital having been knifed (by a single individual) and this year there was a racist gang attack on a young Polish man though it wasn’t mentioned as being an organised “gang” in the sense that the word’s sometimes used. But “white supremacist factions”, in an organised and locally-based sense, and more than one of them, in a single small neighbourhood? I don’t think so.
Also no Edinburgh librarian has ever addressed me as “love” and in my library the romance section was removed some time ago and the books merged into general fiction, so I’m extremely doubtful about that scene.
The US fought a war so we wouldn’t have to know how British titles work, so I’d agree the American audience, other than a relatively small number of Anglophiles, will either have no idea how sketchy this is or will have ideas informed by equally sketchy historical romances.
I cannot emphasize enough how lightly history (including American history) is treated in American public education. When it’s addressed at all, it’s “Look how happy the natives are in this artist’s rendering that proves how awesome colonialism is!” History as a subject is valued about as much as the humanities, which are the first thing to go when the curriculum gets cut. We’re churning out worker drones over here, not encouraging development of critical thinking skills.
The guy’s name is Dudgeon? Really? As in “high dudgeon”? Hahaha.
Some of the Queen’s cousins, Kent and Gloucester, are royal dukes, so the author may have been able to make this work without choosing the Edinburgh title (which I believe the Queen has stated she wants to go to Edward upon Philip’s death). I assume Tav–or anyone, really–could inherit unentailed property without being a legitimate heir if the Dudgeon guy specifically willed it to him, but I don’t know how inheriting the actual title could work. I’m American, but know there are rules, and this would bother me. (OTOH, titlewise, it kinda reminds me of the whole Duke of Manchester thing where he didn’t tell his second wife–and kids–that he’d forgotten to get a divorce from the first wife. Second wife thought her son would inherit the title, but was SOL. Dad eventually got jailed in the US for burglary–I don’t know if he’s still in or not. Seriously, some of the real-life stuff is better than make-believe.)
If the hero inherited property and somebody else inherited the title, how can the hero be either a long lost heir or a duke?
I’m from the US and don’t know much about titles. I’d definitely wonder about the use of “royal duke” just because of “royal,” and I’d look it up. If it’s alternate reality, no problem, but the plot and setting still have to be consistent within the world of the story. Otherwise, it’s confusing and distracting, and I’ll stop reading.
I was in Scotland around 1990, and every woman over 40 who spoke to me called me love. I’ll admit that I didn’t talk to any librarians though, and I was in Glasgow more than Edinburgh.
@Laura Vivanco: “white supremacists factions” is my wording and not from the book. I was referencing politicians and aristocrats and interest groups rather than a group like Unite the Right. I’m sorry if that wording gave the wrong impression.
@Kathy: I didn’t really like the scene with the Queen. Apparently I’m more of a royalist than I thought I was. I have a great deal of respect for her. But I do think this was a deliberate decision on the author’s part and it’s clearly working for many. I tried to go with it but I just couldn’t. There was a lot to like about the book otherwise though.
@Ren Benton: I think the author knows and I think Avon knows but yes, I don’t think it’s exactly common knowledge in the US and because America doesn’t have royalty and in fact was born out of snubbing royalty and inheritance of titles etc, I expect a substantial portion of the book’s market will either not know/care or actively embrace the way the story was told.
@Susan: I figure Dudgeon was a joke too.
@MaryK: It’s the kind of thing I find distracting. On the other hand, I did got down some interesting rabbit holes about the origins of the Duke of Edinburgh’s title and the royal dukes still alive. I didn’t know there were other English princes that are not sons of QEII still alive for instance.
@Kris Bock: I went to Scotland a couple of years ago and spent a day in Glasgow and 4 days in Edinburgh. Edinburgh was so lovely. I walked the Royal Mile and went to Holyroodhouse and Old Town and New Town and the book brought back some lovely holiday memories.
Now I need some recommendations for books with alpha in the streets, beta in the sheets dukes.
I enjoyed the first book, so this one was on my radar, but the Duke of Edinburgh stuff sounds properly annoying.
I started to write that I could live with it if the author was making some subtle in-joke, but thinking about it – it’s a flat out joke, to call a character by a well-known person’s name/title. You can’t expect your readership to ignore it, so there has to be a point to the joke.
Just to give a sense of how oddly the use of the title reads to someone born in the Commonwealth, I googled, and the US equivalent would an author calling her heroine Nancy Reagan (also born in 1921), had Ronald Reagan been President continuously since 1952.
I think it would throw me out of the romance, if I kept picturing a frail, elderly man instead of the hero.
I’m torn whether to read it now.
Is there any particular reason given as to why a Scotland-based sword-making business would bring in an American with no relevant experience? I’ve been curious about that since I first saw the synopsis.
I realize that royalty is a frivolous interest, but as someone who *is* interested, the Duke of Edinburgh stuff would have been a huge distraction. Likewise the idea that an illegitimate son would be able to inherit. As those of us who read Anya Seton’s Katherine know, there is precedent for a royal duke legitimating his children. But that was a long time ago, and they didn’t inherit (though everyone from Henry VII onward is descended from the Beauforts).
I’m guessing it is indeed an authorial choice, but I don’t understand why such a choice was made, just as I didn’t get why Ruthie Knox had to name a contemporary British hero Neville Chamberlain. Readers who don’t care about history/royalty/etc. won’t notice, and many readers who do care will find it distracting. Thinly veiled fictional kingdoms are always a good option, and if you’re doing an alternate history UK royal family, there are plenty of titles to choose from that are not currently in use.
Add me to the QE2 is awesome faction. She’s made mistakes – in 92 years, who hasn’t? – but she’s devoted her life to public service, and that deserves respect. For that matter, the real Duke of Edinburgh retired from doing engagements only last year, at the age of 96.
Gorgeous cover, though. Alyssa Cole’s recent covers are probably my favorite in the genre.
@Jo Savage: Wouldn’t we all Jo? :)
@M McA: I struggled to find a US-relevant analogue but in the end there wasn’t anything that quite fit that I could think of.
Other than that I believe the author knew what she was doing, I’d be reluctant to hazard a guess as to why she made the choice she did. I guess if you think you couldn’t get past it the book may not be for you?
@Rose: Portia was selected by Tav’s brother, Jamie, for the apprenticeship, from what I understand to be a large number of applicants. Ultimately he liked her application the best. It’s a little thin perhaps but I routinely accept fairly thin setups to get the MCs together so I didn’t really balk at it. I agree with you about those covers. They’re amazing.
‘“white supremacists factions” is my wording and not from the book. I was referencing politicians and aristocrats and interest groups rather than a group like Unite the Right. I’m sorry if that wording gave the wrong impression.’
OK, so is this about Boris Johnson, Tommy Robinson and Jacob Rees-Mogg? Because they’ve got a lot less support in Scotland than they do in England. Scotland as a whole voted against Brexit. Nigel Farage got a reception he wasn’t expecting when he visited Edinburgh a while back (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22559526 ). There is a “Scottish Defence League” but they’re tiny and ‘THE far-right Scottish Defence League has been dismissed as a “joke” after a spokesman for the racist group claimed so few people attend demonstrations because they’re scared they will be beaten up.’ (http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15902465.Inside_the_sad__deluded_world_of_the_far-right_Scottish_Defence_League/ )
There is sectarianism, which might overlap with some of this, but it’s a much bigger/more visible issue on the West coast than in Edinburgh.
@Kaetrin:
Maybe it was on par with what Elle Woods used to get into Harvard Law School ;)
@Laura Vivanco: None of those people were referenced in the book. David Dudgeon (the duke Tav displaces when he takes up the title) is one who’s been virulently anti-immigration and there are other references to problems in the community and the country with regard to immigration. I took it to be more social commentary on the rise of the far right and xenophobia/anti-immigration sentiment in general that’s happening all over the place (including in Australia sadly) rather than a specific comment on how it is in Scotland. If you’re worried that Scotland comes off badly, that wasn’t my impression. The community Tav lives in seemed to be more welcoming than not.
@Rose: If that was the case, then, like Elle Woods, Portia shows she is more than a pretty face and deserves her place there! :)
@Kaetrin: It seems to me, from what you’re saying, that this isn’t really a book set in Edinburgh. It’s a book which is using Edinburgh’s built environment as its setting/backdrop, and apart from the fact that Edinburgh is beautiful and there are tourists who might buy replica swords, I don’t understand why it was chosen for this.
@Laura Vivanco: I think there are many books where the setting isn’t exactly a character but places within it are important to the story or provide a picturesque backdrop and/or other things. I can’t say what was the case here with any authority. I enjoyed the setting, especially having spent some time in Edinburgh relatively recently. Maybe the author just likes Edinburgh? That’s probably as good a reason as any.
@Kaetrin: I’m sure it’s fun for lots of people. It’s a bit like the Edinburgh Festival, really: something exciting comes to town but transforms it to such an extent (at least if you’re visiting and stay in the Festival bubble) that the experience of Edinburgh most Festival-goers have doesn’t relate much to the experience of people who live in Edinburgh all year round.
@Laura Vivanco: I’ve seen the same thing in many books set in Paris. It’s a beautiful city, I loved living there, but it is not some romantic fantasyland.
I guess sometimes authors who lack first-hand experience with something fill in the blanks based on what they know or assume, because research will only take you so far. If you’re more familiar with the context or subject, it can be jarring.
@Rose: Yes, exactly, and I was really hoping it would depict the city in a way I could relate to (a) because I liked the first novel in the series and (b) because it’s quite rare to see Edinburgh in a romance.
@Rose: There’s seriously a contemporary British hero called Neville? Over here in the UK Neville is pretty much a ‘joke’ name because it’s so tied up with a generation previous. It implies a man over fifty, who wears a tank top knitted by his mother.
This whole debate just goes to show there is so much in a name and title, they shouldn’t be used without serious forethought.
@Jane Lovering: Neville Chamberlain, no less; Nev for short. The book is Knox’s About Last Night.
But I’m not sure anything can beat the baseball romance in which the heroine was named Anna Benson. Google her to see why that’s funny.
@Rose: *Googles Anna Benson* O.o
@Laura Vivanco: I’ve never been to Edinburgh and I don’t know if Cole has been to Edinburgh, but my impression is that she did do some research. The Edinburgh at the beginning of the book is basically a working-class immigrant community and that felt more authentic and was a more interesting than when the story moves to Holyroodhouse (apparently Tavis’s title allows him to hang out and be some type of co-host with the queen).
@KaIetrin: I’m an American (albeit I was a history major) and I was totally thrown by the fact that Tavis was supposed to a “royal” duke and not just any royal duke, but the Duke of Edinburgh. To my knowledge a peerage is only royal if it’s held by a close relative of the Queen (and there is no claim that Tavis is that close a relative of the queen).
I did catch the fact that Tavis’s parents were married (his mother mentions it obliquely in her confession about why she hid Tavis’s heritage from him). Knowing this, I just couldn’t figure out how the estate’s lawyers missed the fact Tavis’s biological father had been married twice and that his first marriage had produced a son. Especially given that his father had handed over to Tavis a valuable (although one assumes un-entailed) piece of property that had a historical connection to the duke’s family. There just would have had to have been lawyers and masses of paperwork involved in the divorce (especially given that divorce happened around the time that Tavis’s father had just inherited a large and wealthy dukedom) and in that later property transaction.
However there was so much that I enjoyed about this book. I thought Portia was terrific character. (I had already read Princess in Theory and thought she would be an interesting heroine.) Tavis, took a bit longer, but by the end I really liked him and I also believed in their HEA. I also liked how Cole wove all sorts of contemporary issues into the story: eg., gentrification, immigration, racism, class. It was all there — but integrated into the story in ways that made sense to the story. I thought that the way Cole showed that suddenly inheriting great wealth and social prestige could create as many problems as it might solved was smart. She also noted that even among the well-off there are social and class distinctions. Portia’s family clearly has lots of money, and, although she understands the ways of the rich better than Tavis, she still struggles to understand what exactly does it mean to be a wealthy peer of the realm. I also enjoyed how natural and nice it was to have such a diverse cast of people — it felt like a real working-class immigrant neighbourhood in a real city.
Overall I liked this book in spite of the strangeness around the royal dukedom/secret baby plot line and in spite of the fact that Portia only worked on one sword in the whole book. I think it’s because I liked Portia and Tavis (and many of the secondary characters) so much — the plot may not have always been believable, but the H & H were. And because of that, I’m definitely planning to read the next book in the series. And yes the cover was terrific!
@Kathryn: I agree with you about the things you liked Kathryn.
As to whether or not Tav’s biological parents were married. I’m still not sure. I think I know the bit you referenced in your comment. There’s a part where Tav’s mum tells him something like “by that time he was married for a second time” and when I read that, I wondered whether she and he had been married. But then later Tav says that his mother turned down his bio-dad’s proposal so then I thought maybe the married for a second time comment referred to two other women, neither of which were Tav’s mother. But I don’t really know. Either way, the story didn’t quite hang together for me there. I tend to get hung up on details like that – they distract me.
I am definitely in for the next book though and I do intent on reading book one at some point (when I can find the time among the other eleventy books I must read immediately! LOL)
@Kathryn: “my impression is that she did do some research. The Edinburgh at the beginning of the book is basically a working-class immigrant community and that felt more authentic”
Leith’s probably the most traditionally ethnically mixed and working-class part of Edinburgh. Parts of it are “gentrifying”, which is an issue.
I had similarly conflicted feelings about this book! I really liked Portia, and the way she rebuilt herself through the book, and I loved Tav and his family, and also the way people were saying, actually, you really shouldn’t be his girlfriend AND his PA at the same time, that’s going to end badly’.
But the bit where an illegitimate son of a Duke can become the Duke ahead of a legitimate cousin just grated on my nerves (and the Duke of Edinburgh part was also highly distracting!). Also, at one point, the Prince from Liechtenstein appears to use ‘putain’ as a term of endearment, which it very much is NOT.
And it’s such a pity, because there was so much to love about this book, but I found these little quibbles so very frustrating.
@Catherine Heloise: Ohhhhh — I forgot about the “putain”! Yes — that was quite the surprise.
@Kaetrin — I agree Cole seemed to have caused unnecessary confusion over whether Tavish’s parents were married or not. And I’m not sure why. The whole plot line around parents just seemed unnecessarily all over the place and as a result it dragged down the story. His parents were not married, then maybe they were married, but Tavish’s father didn’t know about him. And then he did maybe know, but he never keep in touch. And then he didn’t know about Tavish until he was a teenager, but instead of trying to contact him, he secretly bought his swords and deeded him the property. And even though he didn’t have any other offspring and Tavish was his heir, he didn’t let Tavish or anyone else know about Tavish (except somehow the evil cousin knew). And Tavish’s mother let Tavish think his bio father had abandoned them, when it was that she hadn’t told her ex about Tavish because she hated how his inheritance had changed him . . . .
I’m not going to demand total logic in romance plot line about a secret duke, but I would have more clarity and consistency about the parents’ backstory.
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@Catherine Heloise @Kathryn: Yes.