Determined? Yes. Spitfire? Not so much.
Never Have I Ever With a Duke (The Spitfire Society #1)
by Darcy Burke.
This first in Darcy Burke's new series, The Spitfire Society, just didn't grab me. I quite liked Graham Kingsley, the new seventh Duke of Halstead, as the unacknowledged relative who became a Duke only to find everything mortgaged to the hilt. There is a deeper story behind this, but it's like looking through a dusty pane of glass trying to pull it all together. The former Duke had not only gambled heavily but had made suspect investments that never came through. Graham has to marry an heiress to bring everything about.
Arabella Stoke is in the same boat. Her father's gambling habits and less than stellar investments means she has to marry for money to save the family's fortunes.
Of course they fall for each other. However this is expressed in chancy illicit liaisons in doubtful places, not in declarations of love and marriage. It seems Arabella Stoke has had her previous moments of anticipation but too me it's all a bit too Thoroughly Modern Milly for the times.
Together Graham and Arabella pursue the identity of the swindler who'd beguiled their desperate relatives into ruin and things come to a HEA if somewhat differently to what they'd anticipated. The getting there is painful (for the characters and me as the reader). Despite the foundation for more depth, in the end I found the story somewhat thin.
A NetGalley ARC
**
by Darcy Burke.
This first in Darcy Burke's new series, The Spitfire Society, just didn't grab me. I quite liked Graham Kingsley, the new seventh Duke of Halstead, as the unacknowledged relative who became a Duke only to find everything mortgaged to the hilt. There is a deeper story behind this, but it's like looking through a dusty pane of glass trying to pull it all together. The former Duke had not only gambled heavily but had made suspect investments that never came through. Graham has to marry an heiress to bring everything about.
Arabella Stoke is in the same boat. Her father's gambling habits and less than stellar investments means she has to marry for money to save the family's fortunes.
Of course they fall for each other. However this is expressed in chancy illicit liaisons in doubtful places, not in declarations of love and marriage. It seems Arabella Stoke has had her previous moments of anticipation but too me it's all a bit too Thoroughly Modern Milly for the times.
Together Graham and Arabella pursue the identity of the swindler who'd beguiled their desperate relatives into ruin and things come to a HEA if somewhat differently to what they'd anticipated. The getting there is painful (for the characters and me as the reader). Despite the foundation for more depth, in the end I found the story somewhat thin.
A NetGalley ARC
**
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