REVIEW: How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days by Laura Lee Guhrke
B+ Reviews / Recommended ReadsAmerican heroine / England / historical romance / marriage-of-convenience / Recommended Reads / sexual-assault / wounded hero20 Comments
Dear Ms. Guhrke,
A historical romance heroine traumatized by sexual assault is a rare and challenging plot line. We see it in contemporary romance with frequency, but in the land of manners and repressed inhibitions, where there’s an unwed duke allotted to every good soul in the British Empire (and the emancipated colonies), this type of heroine is in short supply; much shorter than reality had it, I’d bet. We see virgins, scandalous mistresses, virgins, merry widows, unmerry widows, and more virgins. We hardly ever see a rape victim among the marriagable flock of young women vying for matrimony with a peer of the realm.
I’ve read too many tales where the writer makes the assumption that, after the heroine is raped, this is her defining characteristic. She is now a broken woman. Let’s write a solemn story about how she triumphs. Okay. That has its place. But it also makes me feel terrible. This novel was different. While the matter was treated with appropriate gravity and direct honesty, it didn’t eclipse everything else in the novel.
It’s a tricky balance, but your novel managed to maintain a breezy charm. This was not a preaching novel. It did not point fingers at a social cause. It didn’t drag us down into the realm of Everything I Say Is Terribly Important and Serious. You simply showed us Edie, a beautifully drawn character who created a new life for herself after her innocence was violated.
Absolutely: Edie was broken. But interlaced with that dark, pulsing threat that lived inside her, that never forgot how she was raped, was a firm and steady core, a force that pushed her forward, that accepted the bad and, with intention, strived to bring her life to a better place than before.
“Her spirits revived a little at these plans, her sense of control over her life began to return, and she stood up, banishing any further inclination to feel sorry for herself. She would continue to be mistress of her own life. She would be no victim, not of her circumstances, not of Fate, and certainly not of any man. Not ever again.”
Of course, for all her strength and confidence, she could not control her instincts or her abhorrence of sex. Someone she’d trusted had ruined it for her. She could not lead her emotions and actions to an ideal state, so she didn’t try. Edie knew who she was and she knew what she wanted. And she knew, most powerfully, what she did not want and could not have. She did not want her husband’s presence and she could not have a normal relationship with him. It wasn’t her decision; she literally just couldn’t.
The sexual assault she experienced didn’t just steal away her control during the act. It lingered long into the aftermath, stealing her choices even years later. Edie once wanted to be in love and have a happy relationship and kids and a full, thriving life. She accepted years ago that she could not have these things. This is where we begin.
One of my least-favorite tropes is marriage of convenience, where the relationship is chaste. I am uninterested in this awkward and unrealistic plot device. It usually irritates me to read about heroines who refuse to consider that sex might be a good thing, only later to embarrassingly embrace it in full after meeting their true mate who employs a wicked tongue, or whatever clunky, cliched rationale you have for a complete 180 that immediately makes the created tension a non-issue. I honestly don’t care if it’s historically accurate to have innocent misses afraid of sex due to their complete ignorance of the matter. It doesn’t entertain me in the slightest. Innocent: fine. Scorning sex entirely: tiresome.
This is the first time, after thousands of romance books read and certainly hundreds employing marriage of convenience, that I am 100% convinced of its necessity to the plot and not irritated by its employment. Lisa Kleypas’s Devil in Winter came closest before this one. I was maybe 75% convinced a marriage of convenience between Evie and Sebastian was appropriate to the plot and characters. But with every reread (according to my spreadsheet, I have read it six times), I still bitched to high heaven about it. That is the difference. Here, I did not bitch. I nodded my head and carried on reading. In fact, I was impressed with the heroine for insisting on it and taking charge of her life, and that has never happened to me before while reading a romance using the marriage of convenience trope.
Her arrangement with Stuart was a wonderful solution, or so she thought. She provided the money in the marriage and Stuart provided the means to her independence. He agreed to go back to Africa fully funded and do whatever he liked for the rest of his life. He could do anything at all, so long as it wasn’t in England with her.
But years later, after he nearly died in Africa and lost a friend, all he wanted was to be back in England. With her. She had no idea why this could be so. She never understood her husband and never fathomed his true sentiments toward her. Her concept of their marriage was simple:
“We both know you married me for the money!”
“Your money, as lovely and fortuitous as it was, my sweet, wouldn’t have persuaded me to the altar. I knew what my family’s financial situation was before I was fifteen, and if money was all I needed to tempt me to matrimony, I’d have married long before we met. No, I married you because although I’ve known plenty of women, I’ve never known one quite like you.”
Stuart, the Duke of Margrave, had a definite flaw: he had to be liked. His own family never liked or cared for him, which is probably why he thrived on the fact that everyone else did. He was deliberately charming to all he met. Women gave their hearts regularly. When he encountered Edie, who flat-out refused to like him, he took notice. After marriage, his wife stayed cold, no matter what he did. His interest in a novelty, a woman who couldn’t be charmed by him, converted over time into his own private emotional hell.
He held Edie in much greater regard than she ever did him. He genuinely liked her and enjoyed being with her. She wanted him on another continent. He wanted her to like and want him, to feel even a fraction of the craving he had for her. She didn’t. He’d finally found a woman whose heart he wanted and she declined to give it. Politely.
No matter how he changed tactics, Edie still had the upper hand. She waved him away without the slightest idea that she hurt him in doing so. He was patient. He was respectful. He was tortured. She, his own new family, also did not want him. She couldn’t even abide the thought of their living in the same country. Cohabitation was firmly and vehemently denied. She made it perfectly clear that she was happier when he was gone and she didn’t have to acknowledge his existence.
It wasn’t a healthy relationship.
He needed Edie to embrace him wholeheartedly. She was not only unable to do so, but entirely ignorant that her lack of regard for him was one of the most distressing situations he’d ever experienced. And that’s how you do it: tension created through two opposing forces, both with a powerful need that cannot be satisfied by the other. You throw them together and you give them no exits.
I actually went weeks after reading this before finishing the review. I kept hopping between B+ and A-. This is not a perfect novel. The pacing is a bit slow. The villain is predictable and tedious. I also didn’t enjoy the ten-day bet itself. I am always wary of bets used in plots when they hold such life-changing stakes. I understand it’s the catalyst for change here, but a bet that someone won’t kiss you within ten days, or you’ll agree to legal separation, and if they do kiss you, they’ll stay with you forevermore as your real wife, just smacks of silliness to me. It’s a weak aspect of the plot.
Still, weeks later, I find myself wanting to re-read it. I find myself thinking about Edie. She impressed me as a character, and she left an imprint on my mind. I think about Stuart and his strong need to be loved by someone, by anyone, and I am gone. I loved this story’s center. I will read it again and I will remember it. Thank you, Ms. Guhrke, for writing it.
Best regards,
Suzanne
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“She was not only unable to do so, but entirely ignorant that her lack of regard for him was one of the most distressing situations he’d ever experienced.”
That line makes me cautious. I’ve read too many books where the hero or heroine continuously hurts their love interest over and over and over again, and they only come together in a very rushed way, at the very end of the book. Your review is awesome and the book sounds intriguing, but I am not sure I have the patience for those storylines any more!
This sounds so good and then, I read about the bet. That is one of my least favorite plot devices. I will pass. However, EXCELLENT review!
This sounds good, if the price is right I will overlook the bet device
This review makes this book sound just bad enough to be good. In that, there are several obvious tropes in use that appear to be used in a way that moves the plot forward. I do have a hard time with the bet aspect and the fear that she tortures him and he just gets over it. These plot devices can be used well, though. It sounds like the author did her best and did it well.
If I still read either historical or m/f fiction, I’d pick it up. I might anyway.
This review is engaging (and I, too, loved Devil in Winter), and I think the book sounds great (I don’t mind marriage of convenience or bet tropes–both can be fun). Thanks for such a great description of what you did and didn’t like. I’m eager to go sample pages.
Thanks to everyone for the kind words. While it used the bet trope as a catalyst and there were a few drawbacks, I still deliberately made this a recommended read because it is a unique and memorable story worth reading. Especially notable is Edie’s experience with sexual assault and the treatment of this throughout the book. It was honest, it did not sugar-coat anything, and at the same time, it was neither wretched nor trite. It was a fact that existed. She had to deal with it. So did Stuart. Both of their emotional reactions on this matter were pitch perfect for me.
@Diana: I think that his admiration of her was pretty solidly on the plate from the moment he returned. He didn’t shy from it. He was pretty frank, and I always enjoy a frank hero. Their romantic development didn’t seem rushed to me.
Also, she didn’t mean to torment him; she was always very up-front as well about her disinterest in pursuing a more developed relationship. She was not vindictive. In fact, she was kind of a softie. She was a good and sweet person, which is why he liked her. It’s why I liked her, too.
What a fantastic review! I read this one several weeks ago (I grabbed it when it was one sale). I was caught by the marriage of convenience setup but the way Laura Lee Guhrke handled the sexual assault yet the lightness of it (as you mentioned) is what I really enjoyed. It wasn’t quite a 5 star read for me but it was definitely 4 star material. I recommend!
Thanks for the review! It made me interested enough to take a closer look – and it’s currently on sale on Amazon for $1.99…how fortunate for my wallet :)
I loved a lot of things about this book; it is beautifully written and Edie is such a refreshing character. But it didn’t quite reach the emotional heights I expected. From my review on Amazon:
“I think on reflection that Stuart is a bit too understanding and gentle; given what he stands to lose if Edie leaves him forever, I wish he had shown a bit more desperation or anger or something. The ending of the book is touching, as they finally speak honestly about their feelings for each other, but my attention kind of wandered in the middle section.”
@Suzanne: Thanks for the clarification! That is reassuring. I did pick it up on Amazon, so I will be giving it a try soon. Again, great review. :)
I found this book very hard to read. One of the problems for me is that although Stuart was charming and nice, and Edie was hard and prickly, all my sympathies were with her. I could not – could not – get over the way Stuart just broke their agreement, and didn’t even seem to realize that that was a problem. When they agreed to marry it was to definite conditions on both sides – she gave him pots and pots of money, ran his estates, looked after his family and funded his expeditions, while he gave her a title and (most importantly) left her alone. That’s it, that’s all she asked in return for saving his ancestral home and letting him go off and play colonial explorer.* He gets tired of it, comes home and expects to just benefit from all the money and work that SHE has put into HIS responsibilities, and to have her also. I found him really dishonorable, while I felt the book was portraying him as nice and good and lovely.
The one trope I cannot stand is where one of the characters, usually the heroine, has all her options and cohorts taken away from her in the interest of the romantic storyline, leaving her completely isolated. Edie, for example, is a very strong woman, who has been looking after her sister and managing the ducal estate very successfully from the age of nineteen. But as soon as Stuart comes back, he has full legal rights over her and all her money, all the servants and workers immediately switch their allegiance to him (he is the Duke after all – she’s just a jumped up American) and her sister immediately becomes his willing conspirator.
I couldn’t decide which I disliked more, Stuart or Joanna, the sister. Joanna is spoiled rotten, and about to be sent off to finishing school. She does not want to go, so she immediately (literally, as soon as she sets eyes on Stuart) bargains with Stuart to help him win her sister if he will prevent her from being sent off to school. What gets me about this is that nobody knows that Stuart’s long absence was part of their agreement, so the assumption is he abandoned Edie. Joanna doesn’t even ask why he deserted her sister, or if Edie might not have been better off without him. No, she doesn’t want to go to school, so it doesn’t matter what Edie wants. She has no loyalty to Edie at all. Of course, Stuart is no more honorable in his agreements with Joanna than he is with Edie. Having made the bargain, later in the book he strongly advocates she be sent to school and even rather sneakily persuades Joanna that this is what she wants.
Ugh – this book made me shudder with rage, and I only managed to finish it with extreme persistence.
*This is probably one of the reasons I disliked him so much. It all sounds very nice and adventurous, but the book starts with Mystical Tribesmen tm, which is never a good sign IMO. He is a “scientific explorer” and big game hunter, who shoots elephants and “discovers” butterflies while exploiting and condescending to the local populace.
@Shaheen: Wow. This is a very different opinion of the book than the others. It kinda makes me not want to read it – I don’t do well when the heroine’s agency is removed from her, either.
@MrsJoseph: I know, right! I don’t know what to say. I did that thing where you go to find other reviews to see if they agree with you, and nobody did! Most reviews I saw adored Stuart because he is kind and charming, while Edie was a little too reserved and negative, and not nice enough and why did she have to be so against poor Stuart, couldn’t she see that he was good for her etc., etc.
It may be that I was predisposed to dislike the book because of the prologue with its noble/mystical/mysterious tribesmen. I admit I rolled my eyes. That led me to view Stuart not as a Boy’s Own Adventurer but as an Imperialist Colonial Dog.
The other factor is that this is the second of Guhrke’s inside-the-marriage books that I have found very difficult to read, even though I love her work generally. The other was The Marriage Bed, I think, and I found that one also annoyed me in that although the fault seemed more to lie with the hero than the heroine, in the end it is she who must apologize/give in. (I’m hazy on the details, as I have never reread it, unlike almost every other Guhrke).
So it may be that my baggage is coloring the way I read this, but it genuinely left me shaking with rage at several points. BUT – I hope I don’t put you off reading it. It is, as always with Guhrke, very well written. Clearly I was deeply emotionally engaged ;-)
@Shaheen:
I totally agree with you about Joanna, and I forgot to mention I didn’t like her. She’s a spoiled brat and I hated that she skipped out on school by jumping off the train. I get twitchy when people break rules like this so from the start, I was not a fan of her. I also didn’t like how she teamed up with Stuart to betray Edie’s confidence; that was legitimately frustrating.
I hear what you say about the Mystical Tribesmen(tm) thing, but I didn’t think it was too pronounced. I genuinely liked Stuart and I can understand why he broke his promise. He nearly died and his valet and dear friend did die. In the face of that, he needs to connect with the other significant person in his life. He saw his own mortality and he missed her. He was also unaware of why she insisted on these rules and years had gone by. I’m not excusing him, but it’s a logical explanation for why he wouldn’t put as much weight on this agreement as she did.
I’m surprised that other reviewers didn’t like Edie (I haven’t read any other reviews on this book) because I loved her completely. To anyone who wonders why she is too reserved or too negative, I have to respond, 1) she isn’t your perfect little cupcake to form as you like, and 2) her experiences are such that being outgoing or positive all the time would be stupid. Defaulting to being reserved and untrusting are both defense mechanisms and they make perfect sense to me.
Thanks for the comments; it’s really interesting to see it from that perspective.
@Suzanne: I did understand why he came home, I even empathized. I didn’t understand why he didn’t see that this was a huge breach of contract and he should grovel for it. In a way, this is probably completely historically appropriate – breaking this kind of promise to your wife was probably not viewed as dishonorable (possibly making the contract in the first place was?), nor was the fact that he just calmly expected to keep using her money, but it struck this very modern reader as dishonorable and therefore requiring some kind of expiation, which the book didn’t give me. Not enough grovel!
I agree with you about Edie, I really liked her character, and I thought her reaction to being raped was skilfully and respectfully drawn.
@Shaheen: True enough. I think I remember he did offer to have her cut him off, as he’d invested the money she’d already sent him and was fine on cash for the rest of his life even without another penny from her. But then she threatened to cut off all his extended family as well, whom they’d been supporting since the marriage, and that’s where he hesitated.
And for sure, I would have been fine with more groveling. Still, I liked him as a person–not for his charm, because almost every historical romance heroine has charm, unless he purposefully is not supposed to have any (I’m really partial to The Dangerous Viscount by Miranda Neville).
Charming isn’t really interesting to me anymore because so many writers can claim their heroes are charming without its being so. (One with true charm: Sebastian from 10 Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn.) I guess I was interested in Stuart’s psychological profile, if that makes sense. It’s always the ones with the complexes that attract me. I probably need to take a pill for that.
After reading your review I bought this one as audiobook and really liked it. I haven’t enjoyed a historical romance for a long time and was pleasently surprised.
Like others, the one thing that bothered me where the ten days thing. It felt unrealistic to me that they fell in love in only those roughly 14 days in the end, especially with Edie’s background.
As I’ve only listened to it, can someone please tell me how to spell this place Edie always referred to when she was thinking of the rape (was it something to do with horse racing?) ?
@ClaudiaGC: Hi Claudia. It’s Saratoga.
@Suzanne: Ah. ok. Thank you! And thanks for your lovely review!
No problem. :) Thanks for the compliment! I do have fun with these reviews.