By: Sally MacKenzie
Publisher: Zebra
Published: March 4, 2014
Genre: Historical, Romance
Length: Novel
Heat Level: Spicy
Reviewer: Toni
Date: June 22, 2014
A Little Misunderstanding. . .
Kit, the Marquis of Ashton, is in a sticky wicket. He married young and for love—how naïve. He discovered his mistake the very day of his wedding, but he is saddled now with a wife he's reluctant to trust. And however much evidence he gathers against faithless Jess, he can't seem to prove her guilt to the final judge—his foolish heart.
Jessica knows she's bobbled her marriage, however innocently. A fairytale wedding makes no difference if she hasn't got the marquis charmed to show for it. Well, she's had enough of accidental encounters with naked gentlemen and near misses explaining things to her husband. It's time to buck up and go win her man back—even if she has to fight very dirty indeed.
If you have been with the Duchess of Love series from the beginning you know about Ash, the unhappily married Marquis. We get tidbits that something terrible happened early on in his marriage, but we never quite know. He shuts down, doesn’t want to talk about it and his wife’s name is rarely mentioned. Now we get to find out what really happened.
I’m very happy to finally know the whole truth and to revisit the whole Valentine clan, but this one didn’t stack up to the rest. You have two people, who had feelings for each other, but they can’t manage to make it work and they both suffer terribly.
This is one colossal mess of a marriage. While one of the excuses is that they married young. They were not that young for the time period; she was twenty and he was twenty-two. There was no real excuse for this marriage to have lasted eight years with neither trying to work things out or to finish it. When you find out how much each had suffered in those years, it is beyond unacceptable. Ash’s lack of trying or will to end it bothers me. If it had only been a few years I think I could have accepted it better, but in my eyes he’s a scared wimp. Here we have the future Duke of Greycliffe and he can’t confront his wife about something he seen with his own eyes? Then you pile on years of rumors and gossip, yeah I don’t buy it. I enjoyed that the story was finally told, but the reasoning and excuses didn’t do it for me.
Ms. MacKenzie’s writing was wonderful and she was able to convey the pain, anguish, love and devotion into their tale, but I wish it was more realistic. We already have a marquis marrying a groom’s daughter and then you add in the misunderstanding that would make any man in his position run for the hills. I still devoured the story because I’m totally in lust with the series, but this one didn’t stand up to the other two and a half novels.
I really adore the Valentine family and I’m going to miss them. Farewell Duchess of Love; you have been a joy to read about. Great job on a lovely series Ms. MacKenzie. No matter how I felt about this final chapter, I still loved the journey.
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