Lady Vesper Lyndhurst and Aspen Drake, the Duke of Greydon, were childhood friends until the day he snubbed her during her first season. Since then, Vesper has sworn off love and instead focuses on what she thinks she’s best at – matchmaking. After being away from England for years, Aspen has finally returned and he and Vesper will cross paths once again.
I haven’t read a historical romance in a while and this book caught my eye (despite the horrendous cartoon cover). I’m so glad I read it because I thought it was super cute. This book is part of a series but you could totally read this one as a standalone (as I did).
I loved (almost) all the characters. Vesper and Aspen are childhood friends turned enemies and I enjoyed the banter between them. It was snarky without being too mean and you could see the underlying affection they had for one another. I also loved all the representations of friendship in the book. Vesper is friends with four other ladies and this group of women had each other’s backs. Aspen also has a group that he is friends with, which happens to include Vesper’s brother as they all grew up together. All the characters had healthy friend relationships, which really should be in more books.
The things I didn’t like about this book were minimal. As with most historical romances, when someone is a Duke, the author frequently switches between calling them by their first name and their Duke name. I always find this so confusing and it takes me a while to figure out who they are talking about. The book also discusses some serious and dark themes, like asylums, torture, and blackmail.
This book is the second book in the Taming of the Dukes series. I am assuming that each book is about one of Vesper’s friends finding love. I definitely want to read the first book in the series now and will be on the lookout for the rest when they come out.
When I was reading other reviews for this book I saw that it has been compared to/is a take on the movie Clueless which, I have to confess, did not even come up on my radar when I was reading this book. I didn’t see much similarity between the two, other than the fact that both main characters in the book and movie are matchmakers.
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