Your Wicked Ways (Duchess Quartet, #4) in Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn

Oct 02, 2012 Stephanie D added it

Worst book I've ever read. Hello? It's supposed to come from Eloisa james, a rather safe book where you always expect to read a masterpiece. But no, this book is sooo bad. I stopped while reading it. Every time I turned a page, i'de scratch my head in pain. Hello?!?! Is anyone that desperate to live in a house with your husband's mistress?!?! And you just want to pay her off?? What kind of wife does that? She's supposed to fight for her right and kick the mistress's ass off the house. And to mak ...more

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Sep 10, 2014 Allison rated it did not like it

Shelves: love-story, bad-sequels, regency, library-book

No, no, no.
Let me just say that I've read Eloisa James' work before and have generally enjoyed it. I absolutely LOVED Once Upon a Tower and it's one of the few regency books I've rated five stars. But this book? I'm sorry, but what a total disaster.

The premise seemed promising enough so I took a dive in without reading any reviews. What a huge mistake, because frankly the characters were some of the worst I have ever read. Both Rees and Helene were complete pricks and nearly as unlikeable as any No, no, no.
Let me just say that I've read Eloisa James' work before and have generally enjoyed it. I absolutely LOVED Once Upon a Tower and it's one of the few regency books I've rated five stars. But this book? I'm sorry, but what a total disaster.

The premise seemed promising enough so I took a dive in without reading any reviews. What a huge mistake, because frankly the characters were some of the worst I have ever read. Both Rees and Helene were complete pricks and nearly as unlikeable as anyone can possibly get. Both of them were way too stupid and made countless of dumb decisions.

First off, Helene should have never taken Rees back because he cheated on her. What a piece of scum. Probably the worst regency hero I have read thus far.

And then there's Helene. She was so uptight about everything. I mean come on, loosen up a little bit. She honestly had no sense of humor whatsoever, and while her stoic character might've been intentional, it was incredibly boring.

Also - I've played piano for years, but the amount of focus in this book on the piano and music bored me to tears. I mean honestly, who cares if an E flat will sound better than a D minor. I want a good story, not a lesson on music theory.

Upsides - The writing itself wasn't too bad. Some of the words used seemed too modern for the time period, though. Also, the other supporting characters were decent minus the two mains, Rees' brother Tom, and Rees' mistress Lina. Hated the Tom and Lina side story. So bland. But I really liked the Earl of Mayne, and what we saw of Gina and Cam.

Maybe I should have read the books in order, but I've read other Eloisa James series not in order so I figured that this one would be fine too. I think I grasped most of what was going on fine, honestly my biggest complaint is the sucky protagonists.

Tl;dr DON'T READ THIS BOOK. Go read another Eloisa James book like Once Upon a Tower.

I'm typing this on my phone and didn't realize that this thing was so long. Sorry for the rant but I just wanted to vent out my frustrations of this book. ...more

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