Review: The Duchess Hunt

The Duchess Hunt by Lorraine Heath
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

If there existed a more unpleasant task in the world than selecting the woman who was to marry the man you loved, Penelope Pettypeace certainly couldn’t imagine what it might be. 

For eight years Penelope has been secretary to Hugh Brinsley-Norton, ninth Duke of Kingsland, and while outwardly he has only been “Your Grace”, he's grown to be so much more. When the woman he was going to propose to (the first in the series) decides to follow her heart, Hugh is on the search again for a wife and decides this time to put it into Penelope's capable hands. Penelope is determined to find him a wife he can love, even though he claims not to have a heart, while keeping her own feelings hidden. 

Her respect for him knew no bounds, and her heart had followed. 

Second in the series, I had no problem jumping in here, the ground covered in the first is relayed fully. However, I did miss seeing Penelope and Hugh's friendship start and develop. When the reader comes into the story, they already have a solid friendship, Penelope knows she loves Hugh, and Hugh is just awakening to the fact that Penelope is more than just an essential part of his business life but of his heart, too. 

He viewed her as he might a man he respected, a man whose opinion he valued. And for her, who had never known any of that before him, it was an aphrodisiac. 

The beginning has a lot of Penelope alluding to some massive secret from her past that would destroy not only her reputation but Hugh's if it ever came out, her roadblock to thinking they could never be together. The reader isn't let in on it until around 80%, just a little before Hugh finds out, too. It felt a little stretched out for how long Penelope would bring it up as a harbinger for it to appear so late in the story and then have a fairly quick wrap-up. What made it feel even less, even though the secret does have weighty consequences, was that Hugh has his own secret and it honestly feels like it could be a bigger deal than Penelope's but his character never mentions it in thought or fear until it suddenly appears as a reason to get the two to travel together to Scotland. The plot points in this felt awkward to me for some reason, Penelope's bemoaned secret that doesn't show up until very end, Hugh's secret that was huge but barely shows in his character, and then Penelope being blackmailed and dealing with it as if the blackmail letter was meant for Hugh when this whole time she's been scared of her secret coming out. Heath's writing is always smooth and readable but there was some awkward fitting plot points in this for me. 

He’d taken her for granted, this woman who was such an important part of his days, who had begun to haunt his dreams. 

As I mentioned, I missed seeing Hugh growing to find Penelope indispensable to his life, this was more admitting that he already felt that way and Penelope already loves him when we come into the story. Around 60% they decide to meet each other needs, Hugh because this is the first step to admitting he loves Penelope and Penelope because she does love Hugh and at twenty-eight is ready to have all her needs met. Of course, this only brings them closer together and we have some ignoring denial from Hugh and Penelope saying she doesn't want to get married anyway because she'd lose all autonomy, even though she loves Hugh. These two were a nice couple but I wouldn't say the showing and telling of their emotions went beyond or even made it to memorable. 

Knight drew on his cheroot and blew out a series of smoke circles. “You might want to comb down your hair before going inside. You look as though you’ve been ravaged.” 

He felt as though he had been, inside and out, from the moment he’d stepped closer to her and she’d looked up at him with something akin to longing. 

Awkward fitting plot points, pretty sedate tone, and the faint praise of nice relationship between our main couple, made this into an ok read for me. Hugh's Chessmen friends and some debutantes we are given short intros through Penelope's interviewing for possible wives to Hugh, peak some interest for future books. This probably won't wow you but you won't be chucking it against the wall either.

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