Madeline Hunter is another author who, as impossible as it seems, simply gets better and better with each book she writes. I LOVED Lancelot and Marianne's story. So much of each of their lives have been dictated by the actions and sins of others. Lance chooses to live up to his WICKED reputation as his defense against the pain of an awful childhood and the awful things people believe him to be. Marianne chooses to be the practical, responsible one and doesn't dare give in to her own wicked side. She is willing to sacrifice everything she is and everything she has ever wanted to give the man she loves what she thinks he deserves. Two very human characters struggle against odds of their making and odds the world continues to throw at them to find a vibrant and tempestuous love. We should all be so lucky!

Bored with trying to be respectable, Lancelot is attracted to Marianne. It doesn't seem to much of a hardship when her Uncle blackmails him into proposing to her. However, it is Marianne's intelligence that might save him.

It's summer and I do enjoy Marianne's intelligence, think I'll round up.

A duke suspected of murder, forced into a courtship. A series of misunderstandings, some drama, then a happy ending. My only complaint is there's a conniving person who gets exactly what they wanted, instead of punishment.

I fell in love with Madeline Hunter’s prose in her first book, By Possession and I have been faithfully following her ever since. That lyrical and persuasive style is in evidence in the latest by this author and once again she does not disappoint. Her plotting is also excellent as is her development of very complex characters. The Wicked Duke is the third and final book in the author’s Wicked Trilogy and is, in my opinion, the best of the three. Everything in this series has been building up to Lance’s story and Madeline Hunter does a bang up job of bringing the storyline to a satisfactory conclusion without losing steam.
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The pretty flower moniker was pretty annoying. Otherwise, nicely plotted.

Copy provided by NetGalley.

This book, which reads as if it was part of a series, slides over to the cosplay end of the spectrum of Regency romances. The readership who will love it wants an alpha male with a high title, tons of dough, and an expert in bed because he and the passionate, modern-thinking heroine are headed for the silken sheets as soon as the story can get them there.

We’re introduced to our hero, Lance, the new duke, having sex with a stranger. We follow him in his crapulous, hungover state home. He’s been prowling and scowling around his estate, hiding out until the whispering settles about the mysterious death of his elder brother. He comes off like the generic dukebag, except that his brothers seem like decent guys, and they like him, so . . . appearances deceive?

Our heroine is Marianne, who is the champion of her frail cousin Nora, to whom something horrible happened when she was fifteen that has nearly unhinged her mind.

Marianne’s uncle is going to force either Nora or Marianne to marry the new duke out of a sense of revenge; meanwhile Marianne’s mother is ambitious for her daughter. (Marianne is said to be on the shelf, though her mother is only thirty-six. I have to admit that puzzled me; for everyone to consider Marianne “on the shelf” her mother would have had to marry at, what, ten?)

But the readers who like sexy regencies will finesse that pretty much the same way the rules of English society are finessed, as the narrative hustles Marianne and Lance to make a marriage of convenience.

Once they do get married, the story really takes off, as Marianne overcomes her dislike of the wicked duke and throws herself into solving the mystery surrounding the previous duke’s death. Lance’s happily married brothers (indicating this was part of a series) are there to tease him and cheer him until the mystery is solved in a surprising way. I did not guess the outcome in the least, but the tracks were nicely laid.

There’s a lot of energy to the story, with some flashes of wit, and of course plentiful descriptions of hot passion; comedy-of-manners purists might wince at bobbles with titles, customs, and language, but readers who don’t care about those things should thoroughly enjoy this story.

Very interesting plot and the characters are likable.

An okay read ... it did keep me interested, but was as easy to put down.