The Duke's Disaster by Grace Burrowes

Author:  Grace Burrowes
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Sourcebook Casablanca
Date published:  7 April 2015
Rating: 3.5 stars
Buy on: Amazon, Amazon UK

Noah Winters, Duke of Anselm, spent months sorting and courting the year's crop of debutantes in search of an ideal bride. When the sweet, biddable young thing he selected accepts another's proposal, Noah decides to court her companion instead.

Thea Collins, though, is anything but biddable. She has learned the hard way that men are not to be trusted, especially the handsome ones. When she reluctantly accepts, Noah rushes Thea to the altar before she can reveal her deepest secret. Can she finally move on from her past, or will it come back to haunt her?

Review: 

This is the story of Noah and Thea. Noah is a duke in need of a wife; Thea is a lady's companion and the daughter of an earl. Her parents died some years ago and hard times and the need to support her family forced Thea out to work. 

At the end of the season Noah finds himself with no fiancée and so he decides to offer for Thea, the two marry soon after and this is where something goes mildly wrong. 

You see, Thea did not make it to the wedding night virginal. Ooops. 

Being married slowly Thea and Noah come to terms, getting other her lack of virginity, her troubled family, his challenging cousins, his family history and one man they both managed to annoy plenty. 

Slowly their match that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with mind becomes a match of two friends and even lovers. Like most regency novels the two fall in love in the end. 

Thea and Noah were good together and I liked how their relationship developed even though I did not like the fact that some things seemed to drag for far too long. Also, the writing was fairly done but sometimes I felt as if I was reading something and I didn’t understand what the conversation was about. This made me a tiny bit annoyed- sorry but I could care less if the farmers managed to grow their whatever or not. 

The passing of time was also not very fluid. But what annoyed me the most was the way Thea's past was handled. You see- quite early you learn of the possibility that Thea lost her virginity unwillingly. However, it is hardly ever addressed. She doesn't seem to have a problem having sex with her husband, her husband is too afraid to know the truth and when the truth comes out in two pages everything is resolved and that's it. Which also means the ending felt too rushed for me. 

This was a good regency book, and I liked the characters. I especially liked the development of the relationship between Thea and Noah and how they both grew into their roles- she the one of a duchess, he the one of a husband. 

So nice story and well worth the read. It just fell a little short compared to my expectations. 

An ARC was kindly provided by Sourcebook Casablanca. Thank You