The Dastardly Duke

This is a very readable book, from a writer with great talent and who understand the Regency era. I certainly enjoyed it very much and will keep it to read again. However, it does suffer from a lot of credibility issues, and had the book not been so well written I would have been seriously jolted out of the story and would have stopped reading.The review below makes all the points I wanted to make about this book, and more. It is just not credible, in the circumstances, that Jared and Charles could possibly have thought Hannah was a common prostitute from the stews of London; there was far too much evidence to the contrary, and in any case no woman from that background could have learned to behave as an aristocrat in a couple of days.There were later issues which were just glossed over, such as the aftermath of Hannah's real background being discovered; and the elopement seemed a little too incredible for words.Having said all that, this book does have the advantage of being well written, in an entertaining style, and it contains some wonderfully romantic and erotic scenes which I enjoy re-reading.

Eileen Putman has written a book in which, while there are some large plot-holes, certainly indicates a talent both for writing and for the Regency genre. Her writing style is a welcome relief from that of a couple of other authors I read recently, whose style and vocabulary are, at best, immature. Putman has an impressive command of language, sentence structure and overall novel structure, and that alone made the book immensely readable.She also has a skill in drawing readers into her characters, earning our sympathy for them; and unlike some other writers she does not neglect her secondary characters. They too have their stories, which in many ways become as important as those of the hero and heroine. She also, bit by bit, allows us to find out about the past of her characters, which then reveals some of the reasons for their present state. This is especially well done in the case of Claridge's Aunt Eleanor.Putman gives us a heroine who has been deaf since the age of seventeen, and shows how despite that disability Hannah copes with life and manages to win the respect and love of those around her. The intriguing twist which makes this story out of the ordinary for a Regency is that Hannah at first appears to be no lady - the Duke finds her in a hospital for sick prostitutes.Questions Putman fails to answer satisfactorily include just how Claridge and his friend Sir Charles fail to realise that Hannah cannot possible be low-born. They simply assume that her speech and intonation are assumed; but in that case, how come she never drops the facade and speaks roughly? She also 'learns' to be a lady too quickly: it must be apparent to Claridge that she knows the rules and habits of polite society. No common woman from the streets, unless she was a very high-class whore indeed, would know how to behave.And when the truth about Hannah's background emerges, that she is not the orphaned daughter of Sir Charles' uncle, how on earth was that kept from the ton? There was no explanation of any attempt to convince Charles' uncle to keep quiet, and certainly Hannah's real relatives would have boasted of their connection with her and denied any suggestion that she was related to anyone else.It is unfortunate that these gaps exist in the plot, since otherwise this is a very entertaining and extremely well-written book. However, if readers can suspend disbelief over those aspects of the plot, it is well worth reading.Incidentally, why 'Dastardly' Duke? He is hardly that; the title seems to have been chosen for effect rather than for its suitability.Just one further nit-pick: not only is the construction 'the both of us/you' grammatically incorrect, but it is also completely wrong for the location and would never have been used by Regency aristocracy. It would not even be used in contemporary Britain.

The Dastardly Duke is easily one of the most touching regency romance novels on the market. The Duke of Claridge is as jaded and bitter a hero as they come, but his realization of his love for the heroine is sweet and honest and tender and written in a fresh way. This book features the absolute most moving love scene I have ever read. No purple prose, no explicitness; just simple honesty and raw emotions that make for a very believable and emotional read.