Series: Designing Debutantes, #1
Traits & Tropes: unexpected inheritance; hero is titled; lessons
Publication Date: 05.24.22
Genre/Setting: Historical; Regency; London, England, 1811
Heat Level: 3
Rating: 3/5
Geoffrey Brookhouse has worked hard to become a successful civil engineer, but he doesn’t quite know what to make of the dukedom he’s just inherited. He’s also inherited bigger problems than the title Duke of Grenwood, namely a secret that could potentially destroy his family. To mitigate the potential for damage, he hopes to see his shy sister married to a proper, preferably titled, gentleman, the sooner the better. As London gears up for the Season, Geoffrey seeks the help of Elegant Occasions to organize her debut. Fashion focused Lady Diana Harper is not at all what the duke expected, but she is working wonders at bringing his sister out of her shell. Geoffrey isn’t prepared for how successful they seem to be, receiving social invitations along with Diana’s efforts to turn him into a proper duke, when he’s more interested in getting to know her on a more intimate level.
Diana is perplexed by the slightly unkempt new duke, but she won’t let his lack of societal savvy jeopardize his sister’s season. Diana can’t help wanting to get a rise out of Geoffrey anytime their paths cross, but even his societal faux pas are somehow endearing to her, and it turns out they may have more in common than either expects.
I really liked this premise, this idea of three sisters working together to make their way in the world in an original and unconventional manner, thumbing their noses at a society that has spurned them for a scandal not of their making. However, Diana doesn’t really do this. She talks a good game when it comes to picking and choosing who to associate with and not being bothered by societal cuts, but really, she’s incredibly aware of appearances and is a high stickler for following all of society’s dictates. I think a lot of the time she was also pretty unfair to Geoffrey. He’s dealing with an unexpected inheritance that completely changes his life and has settled him with a lot of debts and she starts off being judgmental of him from the start and critical of him for wanting to be careful about spending too much money. He’s just trying to be sensible and deal with things he’s clueless about and she comes off as haughty and bossy. I was glad to see Diana’s younger sister was willing to stand up to her and make her reevaluate sometimes, but a lot of the time the two sisters were also just very nosy and their incessant need to butt in too away from a romance that was already struggling to feel realized. I also questioned their sisterly bond when Diana worried about the possibility of one of her sisters tattling to their father if her changing feelings for the duke were known. I would rather have seen her confiding in them than her having to hide things from them and only telling them things when they harangued her to no end about it. I don’t have sisters myself, but if this is how it is and it means you have no privacy for your feelings then I’m kind of glad I don’t. Along these lines, Geoffrey’s younger sister was also quite vapid, which I think was intended, but I wish Diana had realized this more, instead of always criticizing Geoffrey for trying to take care of his sister.
I guess my main issue here was just with Geoffrey feeling a bit flat at times and Diana’s character hopping all over the place when it came to her feelings about marriage and her treatment of Geoffrey. In fairness, he was utterly clueless, and he kept secrets for way too long instead of trying to solve his problems as a team, though he did have a lot to be getting on with all at once and he at least did eventually realize he had friends and didn’t have to do everything all alone. Diana just annoyed me with her tendency to jump to conclusions. There are a couple of instances in which she does not allow Geoffrey any opportunity to explain himself, which she acknowledges, but she ignores her own culpability in this spat and remains angry with him anyway. In fact, there are several times where she chalks up something he said without fully thinking it through as him deliberately misleading her and never gives him an opportunity to explain. I just wanted more mature communication instead of this little tantrum. I was also super annoyed with her when she became angry with Geoffrey for mentioning marriage after their physical relationship progressed. She’d been teaching him all the nuances of society’s rules and he was just trying to follow that, and she couldn’t fathom why he might think she’d expect marriage from him. Then in the next chapter she’s back to berating him for ignoring society’s rules. This sort of behavior just made her seem wishy-washy and out of touch with reality, especially when she tried to say that her responsibilities running a thriving business with her beloved sisters was somehow equivalent to Geoffrey’s trying to right a flailing dukedom he’s just inherited, look out for his mother and sister, deal with debts he didn’t incur, and run his engineering firm. This just made her seem ludicrous and, though Geoffrey was by no means faultless, made me feel kind of bad for him.
Diana was charmingly uptight at first, but she did grate on me after a while. She kept wanting Geoffrey to confide in her, but then when he finally started trying to, she threw it back in his face without even seeming to realize what he was doing. She just went from being unreasonable to using sound logic then back to going off the deep end with nonsensical anger at Geoffrey and made it difficult to get a read on her. Their relationship seemed a bit flat just because it was bogged down by Geoffrey’s secret and all this erratic behavior and lack of communication. It made it hard to know where things stood with this couple, and yet as I was reading, I just kept wanting them to get together already and have a meaningful, uninterrupted conversation. They eventually realized they belonged together despite all this, and I was happy for that. I did enjoy the ending scenes and I liked this setup so I will still be looking for Eliza’s book. Even though I had some mixed feelings on this one, it was still a solid story with a unique premise.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/1478310844
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4275720027
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