Category: Spicy🌶️

By Sophie Jordan, Pub Date Oct 23 2023

5 Stars, 3 🌶️🌶️🌶️ . This was my favorite installment in the Duke Hunt series!

Publisher’s Synopsis:

“A duke with secrets. 

Lucian, the newly minted Duke of Penning, has much to prove— to himself, his family and the ton. Craving spotless respectability, he must find an aristocratic wife. Unfortunately, he can’t keep his eyes—and thoughts—off his deliciously distracting housekeeper. Such a dalliance can only mar the facade he’s constructed to protect his sisters’ future from the demons of his past…but this fiery passion is a temptation he cannot resist. While Susanna may not the bride he needs, she is everything he desires. 

 A woman with a past.

As the housekeeper to one of the grandest estates in England, Susanna Lockhart has worked determinedly to become all that is proper and efficient, and she never steps over the line. Romance is an indulgence for the upper class, not for her—and most especially not with her employer. But every smoldering glance from the surly, handsome duke calls to the long-buried reckless wanton inside Susanna. A love between them can never be, but will Lucian and Susanna risk being together…Even if it starts a scandal…”

My Two Pence:

The Duke Hunt was a great Jordan series. I am a sucker for spicy historical romance, and this entire series was less of the Ton and set in a provincial town. That did not at all detract from the story or time period. If anything, that made it feel far more delicious.

This installment – unfortunately, the final one – was especially tasty and had a healthy dose of my favorite enemies-to-lovers trope. The story is based on the actual duke arriving to the estate and finding a housekeeper that has been employed there for quite a while. The country manor has been under her care since the last (actual) duke was in residence, as is basically the only home she has ever known. Then the two start butting heads with how the house should be run. But at some point, that animosity turns into something far more delicious, and the risks reap their own rewards.

The spice is great and Sophie Jordan is definitely one of my autoread authors. She never sacrifices plot for spice and the tension in her books is absolutely mouth watering. I highly suggest her to anyone, and The Duke Hunt series in their totality as well!

Thank you to Sophie Jordan, Avon Harper Voyager, and Netgalley for the advanced copy!

By Eloisa James, Pub Date July 25, 2023

4.5*s. 4 🌶️. Excellent bookish romance with great spice.

Publisher’s Synopsis:

“The Duke of Huntington has no interest in an eccentric redhead who frowns at him over her spectacles…until he realizes that she is the only possible duchess for him.

Bespeckled and freckled, Lady Stella Corsham at least has a dowry that has attracted a crowd of fortune-hunting suitors—which definitely doesn’t include the sinfully handsome Silvester Parnell, Duke of Huntington, who laughingly calls her “Specs” as he chases after elegant rivals.

And then—The worst happens. Marriage.

To the duke. To a man marrying her for all the wrong reasons.

How can Silvester possibly convince Stella that he’s fallen in love with the quirky woman he married? Especially after she laughingly announces that she’s in love—but not with that duke. Not with her husband.

Review:

First of all, yes–of course I loved it. Eloisa James put a lot of herself into this one and I’ve never felt more connected to one of her characters. Short? Check. Curvy? Check. Freckled and bespeckled? Check. Super bookish? I have a book blog. Not sure who would argue with that one, so check. …Secretly lusty? It’s possible.

Second – the publisher’s synopsis leaves so much out. This was such a great, spicy book. Yes, there’s sort of an enemies to lovers situation going on, but it’s more of an enemies to friends to lovers situation.

Stella has been made to feel like a sore thumb of the ton since her debut. With her freckles and spectacles, only her dowry seems to be attracting anyone. However, she’d honestly rather be by herself living next to a bookstore than married to a man who doesn’t care for her in some way as a person. Especially Silvester Harwood, the most eligible bachelor in Britain – and a duke. But she knows that wouldn’t pan out as he seems to be in love with Yasmin, a gorgeous French debutante with easy, infectious smiles.

Silvester is very fond of Yasmin, even though his eccentric mother has set her cap on him marrying the sharp witted and also somewhat eccentric Stella. He truly does not have designs for her, though he does find her to be quite intelligent and good for a conversation. However, when they go for a picnic and Stella falls in the water trying to get help his mother out Silvester is met with Stella’s unexpected curves that have been hidden behind what has previously been deemed fashionable but didn’t even hint at the luscious creature in front of him. This is all completely unbeknownst to Stella.

Silvester and Stella soon become friends with the help of her kitten, Specs, and neither knows the depth of lust they feel for one another. And secretly, Silvester’s thoughts of Stella are less chaste than anyone might expect.

This book gets pretty spicy at times. I gave it four chilis because the scenes were written very well and the fact that Silvester was basically reduced to a primal being in his lust for Stella. This also got me in my chest a few times. I really felt the feelings Stella had regarding not being first for Silvester. Everyone wants to be somebody’s someone, and just because she wasn’t conventional didn’t make her any less deserving of feeling beautiful and loved. She felt inadequate, but she had no idea how untrue that was.

Thanks to Netgalley, Eloisa James, and Avon and Harper Voyager for the advanced copy in exchange for this review.