Review: Scandalizing The Duke by Leslie Knowles

Well, that was fun! A lively heroine, a duke with Daddy Issues, and a nice but not over-detailed look at the season with a slowly developing romance, this one doesn’t push the boundaries at all but it’s an enjoyable read.

Here’s the premise: Charlotte Longborough is embarking on her first season, alongside sister Elizabeth, who’s still single after her previous season. They are being brought out by their aunt, who turns out to be surprisingly well connected, for Charlotte soon finds herself awash with lords of one sort or another. In fact, there were so many titled gentlemen swilling around that I lost track of all but a handful early on. The principal one, and the top of Charlotte’s hopeful list of eligible men, is Lucien, the Duke of Wolverton, but their first meeting doesn’t go well. While out walking her very large dog, Charlotte is dragged into the path of the duke’s horse, and ends up almost trampled into the mud. A couple more incidents of the same type convince Charlotte that she’s blown any chance she might ever have had with him, and makes Lucien see her as nothing but trouble. Naturally, with such an inauspicious beginning, the two immediately have the hots for each other (because of course they do).

I found Charlotte a difficult character to get to grips with. She’s very likable, with her penchant for rescuing stray animals and her straightforward manners, but I never got a good sense of where she was coming from. Like any good Regency matchmaker, the interested reader needs to know the precise social standing of the heroine, but with Charlotte the only information I had was that her dowry was modest, and there was some slightly disreputable family history regarding an aunt. I have no idea of the rank of her father, who might be anything from lower gentry up to viscount level (but not beyond, or she’d be Lady Charlotte). Where do they live? Are they connected to any of the great families? Why does she have a duke on her list at all if she’s slightly dubious with only a modest dowry? I don’t even know whether her father is still alive. Maybe I missed the answers to these questions, I don’t know, but it made Charlotte feel rather unrooted.

One thing that bothered me is that Charlotte never sees Lucien as a potential husband. Considering he was top of her list, and therefore she sees herself as (presumably) duchess material, and he treats her in a friendly manner, and considering she’s very drawn to him, it surprised me that she never shows any signs of her attraction. At their first dance, she cheekily asks him to introduce her to some of the other names on his list. Was that a subtle form of flirtation? Or just not particularly caring what he thought of her? I couldn’t make her out at all. And later, after they’ve been sharing passionate kisses, even though she responds to him, I never had the sense of her falling head over heels in love with him, or starting to dream about him. She just seems to dismiss the possibility.

Lucien, on the other hand, felt like a much more solid character. It’s easy to see precisely how he got to where he was and behaved in the way he did, and his past (and his father) provided a solid foundation for his character. I think he may have been intended to be a bit unlikable at first – his own aunt calls him priggish and it’s hard to disagree. Nevertheless, I always found him a sympathetic and very interesting character. My only grumble is that, considering his defining characteristic is his determination to behave with the utmost propriety at all times, he gave way to improper impulses at pretty much every opportunity. From lustful thoughts, he progressed to passionate kisses in rather short order, even when Charlotte is staying at his house. There’s no graphic sex, but the kisses are described in some detail.

The villain is a particularly nasty character, and I was relieved that Charlotte persuaded the duke to get involved in the situation and that the matter was resolved satisfactorily. The resolution was a pretty breath-taking page-turner, but more than that I won’t say. Of the side characters, younger sister Sarah is a very useful plot device, sister Elizabeth seemed to fade into the background and I’d have liked to see more of Lucien’s half brother, who interested me a lot. However, this is the first book of the series, so he might get his own story later.

The romance… well, it was obvious these two were made for each other, but quite why it took them so long to realise it is a mystery. Their encounters in deserted libraries and the like were lovely, if a little too sexy for propriety, but then that was the book’s basic premise, the unravelling of Lucien’s priggishness. But the ending left me a little flat. After all that lusting and build-up of sexual tension, I felt there needed to be an actual sex scene to clear the air, or else an over-blown super-flowery emotional scene, and instead the book just stopped. Which was a bit of a disappointment.
Leslie Knowles is a new author to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed this. The first part of the book was slightly choppy, and there were a fair few minor typos, but nothing to spoil my enjoyment, and I just galloped through it. Four stars.