Review by Veronica

Series Name: Bluestocking Booksellers, # 1 

Each first time she laid eyes on him, the urge to muss his pressed and starched edges grew. To run her fingers through his tamed waves and kiss him until his cravat was hopelessly rumpled. If ever there was a hero who needed a good unraveling, it was him. 

Good Duke Gone Wild is a charming and delightful read.

Dorian Whitaker, Duke of Holland, needs an heir after his so-called “fairytale marriage” ended in disaster. When the intriguing bookseller he’s hired to liquidate his late wife’s library finds love letters revealing an affair, he is drawn into a mystery alongside a lady whose sharp intellect dazzles him and dares him to imagine a new adventure outside the gilded cage of the Ton.

If anyone found out Caroline Danvers writes erotic novels under a pen name, she’d face utter ruin. Except her latest hero inspiration is none other than the Duke of Holland—a man with the power to destroy her family’s bookshop. And yet the real man proves to be so much more than the character she created. Even as they expose the dark secrets of his past, she knows he can never discover her own. But the more time they spend together, the more tempting it is to rewrite their ending and turn fantasy into reality. 

I have mixed feelings about this book. A part of me loves the concept of this story, and I adored the characters. But there is another part of me that didn’t like the style and structure of the overall story. Let’s quickly talk about what didn’t work for me regarding this book. The overall flow of this book felt jarring at times. For some reason, it felt like the story abruptly stopped at different times and picked up at a different place. The transition from one scene to the next was not always done smoothly. It made for an unenjoyable reading experience at times. Another thing I don’t know if I loved is that this novel has a stronger contemporary vibe. I didn’t mind it, but sometimes I felt those contemporary vibes were too strong. 

Now, on to what I liked. I really loved the characters in this book, both secondary and main. They were all so wonderful and fun to be around. I enjoyed the playful relationship Caro had with her cousins. These three women are strong, smart, and so supportive of one another. It was so great watching them interact with one another on the page. Caro is a likeable character, and I was instantly drawn to her and excited to see how her love story would unfold. Dorian has some of those typical characteristics of a male Regency hero. He appears to be very reserved and rigid, but he has a softness that just draws you in. I loved watching these two interact. It felt like there was this forbiddenness to their feelings and lusty interactions, which only heightened my enjoyment of the story. Dorian definitely is a pinning hero; he knows he is falling hard and fast for Caro but doesn’t know how to act upon those feelings. What I loved about this story is that Caro isn’t the one who has to change or grow; it’s Dorian who is the one who needs to grow as a character. He is the one who is broken, and he isn’t in the right frame of mind to act upon those feelings. It is when Dorian realizes that he could lose Caro that he sets out to make himself whole again and become worthy of Caro’s love. 

Good Duke Gone Wild is a Regency romance bursting with delightful and unforgettable characters.

Thank you, Forever Publishing, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.