This is my first Christy Carlyle book and I really enjoyed my time with it.

It's got some beauty and the beast vibes. A headstrong female character and a hero who doesn't want his title. So basically right in my wheelhouse for historicals.

Recommend it if you want something fun to read!
Video review here

poor traumatized man. but also i really just didn’t like the dude. the woman was also kinda just off for me

This was fine not great. But I’m interested enough to try another book in this series

A 4.5, perhaps! I didn't know what to expect, trying an author I hadn't heard of. This book was poignant and well-written. The MMC had horrific abuse in his background, and the FMC's discovery and treatment of it was lovely. I enjoyed both of them and their growth together. They got to know each other through long conversations, and he always wanted her to make her own choices and preserve her independence. He never doubted her, only himself. Beautiful.

Life and love requires some tough decisions to be made. How do you choose between the things you want and the people you need? Nick and Mina find themselves caught in the the middle of their heart's desires and their life's ambition in A Duke Changes Everything. In a world full of people blessed with pretty things, sometimes it takes surviving the ugliest of circumstances to help make the right choice. Carlyle takes readers through the good, the bad and the painful to get to the meant to be.

4.5 stars

I do love a good historical romance with a woman in pants, just bucking traditional gender norms all over the place. Thomasina Thorne (Mina to her friends) is smart and not afraid to take charge, and she sees the sense in wearing trousers instead of dresses to get things done around the estate. She also cares about people (and very pregnant cats), and while maybe she longs for fairy tales and a wider world, she's also sort of glad to be bound by her duty to Enderly because it means nothing needs to change... Until Nick comes to the estate...

Nick, like most hot dukes in Regency romances, has a tragic backstory that have turned him into a beast. Between his mismatched eyes and the scar on his face, he's sure that his hideousness is only matched by what lies within. But sorry, Nick, some of us have been dreaming about fairy tale princes with mismatched eyes since primary school (maybe it's a girls who read fairy tales thing?) and anyone who cares about your scars beyond wanting the blood of whoever inflicted them on you isn't worth the breath to dismiss them anyway. In reality Nick's built up this wall around his heart and his spirit so he can't be hurt again.

“I’m not afraid of seeing your scars.”
He settled her with infinite care on the edge of the enormous bed, not quite meeting her gaze. “I am.”

Nick and Mina together are amazing. Nick's behavior in confronting the place where he was basically tortured is at times bizarre and erratic (especially when you don't know why he's acting the way he is) and Mina does a fairly good job of soothing the crazy new duke while he, for example, escapes through a window to burn a portrait in a leaf pile in the middle of the night. (Stark raving bonkers, this one...) They're great for each other, even though Nick is terrified to stay and Mina is terrified to leave. (But what kind of plot would there be if there was no conflict?)

A Duke Changes Everything is wonderfully written in the alternating third person limited past tense POV. It's first book in the Duke's Den series, though it's written as a stand alone and Mina and Nick's story is wrapped up within the single book. This was the first book I've read by Christy Carlyle, but I'll definitely be reading more.

I really enjoyed the story and the characters!

4.5 stars! Sometimes just wandering the library stacks will net some winners, sometimes you'll get some losers... and you'll never really know until you take the book home (at least if you're in a rush, like I always seem to be). Luckily, this one was another winner from an author I'd heard of, but never read.

Nick owns one of the most notorious gentlemen's clubs in London and is known as a monster, due to a slash on his face and a tendency to not extend credit to titled gentlemen once they've proven their worthlessness. He receives word that his brother has passed away and he has inherited the ducal title he never wanted. All he wants to do is destroy the place where he experienced some of the worst moments of his life, but he's presented with a distraction: his steward, Thomasina Thorne. Mina is determined to show the new duke just how wonderful Enderley can be and hopes to change his mind about tearing it down piece by piece. She doesn't know all of his history with the estate. She just knows that she's got a hell of a job ahead of her - and she can't afford to give into those feelings between them, can she?

Man, this book... it's a slow burn with so much tension between our H/h. When Nick meets Mina and realizes that she's his steward, he's more upset that she kept her sex to herself by signing letters with her first initial and last name than he is with the fact that she's a woman in the first place. I couldn't hate that, I just couldn't. Hell, when presented with a man from Mina's past who throws around a lot of accusations, he's mad but not at Mina. He's mad at the thought that anyone would think poorly of her and would fight the world to protect her. Yeah, a damaged, I'm-never-going-to-fall-in-love-until-it's-too-late, I'm-going-to-protect-you guy is totally my book catnip. So, no wonder this was a win, right? And Mina - she deals with all the opinions of the men in the village and of the gentry: how she's not ladylike, how she is a steward of an estate, how she's unlike most women, how she's a *gasp* spinster (!), and she is completely and unapologetically herself. She has the devotion and respect of the staff at Enderley (who all just want her to be happy) and she devotes herself to them as well. At no time did I ever think she was TSTL - a competent heroine is complete catnip for me.