The Duke’s Bride – Between Family Lines

That’s a wrap on another one of the 12 dukes of Christmas books. I must confess, this one was definitely the shortest of the series so far, even less than its predecessor. It was still pretty good though but I have to say, I feel like it was a bit weaker, in fact, the weakest of the series of so far in my humble opinion.

I was looking forward to Desiree’s story. The first time she appears is in the third book when Gloria is trying to set up Chris with suitable brides and that’s of course before Chris realized that he wanted Gloria for himself.

So we’ve got Jack who is a smuggler and he’s a widowed father of twins. He’s looking to get a governess for them. He happens to offer that job to Desiree because of his relationship with her two brothers, they like to compete against each other and also are involved in the smuggling. Desiree on the other hand is living in Cressmouth with them because they were forced to flee France due to the Revolution. Desiree feels like she has a dilemma where she belongs. She doesn’t know if she’s French or English. But I love the bond that she quickly forms with Jack’s children. It’s almost like The Sound of Music.

But my one gripe is that everything moves really fast in this story. Like it’s like we’re four chapters in when she moves in with them and already they’re close and Jack is already smitten with her so things are moving faster than they were in some of the previous books.

I also didn’t like Desiree’s brothers in this story. I just feel like they were way too controlling. She was trying to decide to go home with them at the end when they paid off their debt to return to France or stay with Jack and his family. I was actually happy when she finally stands up for them and says you know this is my life, let me decide what to do with it. I also enjoyed the part where she and Jack take the twins on one of Gloria’s star walks.

All in all there’s not much. I can say that because this story was the shortest of the series, that is, unless the next few are even shorter. But I am hoping that the next ones from here on are just good as the first few with plenty build up and feel-good romance. Not that this one was devoid of the latter, but still. So I didn’t hate it but I thought it could be even better than what I expected. I will also admit the cover on this book was actually the most racy! It’s just that for a character like Desiree who was introduced so elegantly in the third book, I thought that her story was going to be a little bit better than what I actually read.

Oh well nothing is perfect right? The next two books are going to focus on her brothers so that will be interesting to read, I hope.