Of all the dukes in all the world, why does it have to be him?

Lady Alice Ancaster needs a husband, and fast, because her reckless brother is going to get himself killed, leaving the dukedom—and her future—in their repellent cousin’s clutches.

The Duke of Blackwood has known Alice since childhood, and they’ve always had a special connection. But years ago he broke it, when he chose a riotous life with his two best friends instead of a reasonable one with her.

The trouble is, the tall, dark, sardonic rogue keeps turning up exactly when needed, and ready—though he sometimes needs a push—to play the hero, if only for as long as it takes.

Being irresistibly drawn to the Wrong Man is not convenient, but when events come to a crisis, Alice has to make a choice. The question is, can she live with it?

We’ve waited a looooong time for this final instalment in Loretta Chase’s Difficult Dukes series, and Caz and Dabney are here to share their thoughts.

Caz: My Inconvenient Duke is the third book in Loretta Chase’s Difficult Dukes series, although it’s first chronologically, as it takes place a few months before the events of book one, A Duke in Shining Armor. We know Giles, Duke of Blackwood, as the only married one of their Dis-Graces, the three dukes known throughout society for being irresponsible, totally outrageous, and not giving a damn; his wife, Alice, is Ripley’s sister. The bulk of My Inconvenient Duke is the story of how Giles and Alice came to be married, with the final quarter delving into the reasons for the estrangement we’ve witnessed between them in the other books.

I know – as does every historical romance fan on the planet, probably – that the wait for this final instalment in the series has been a long one, so before I started writing this (as a quick refresher), I looked back at my review for book two, Ten Things I Hate About the Duke – AND IT WAS RELEASED IN DECEMBER 2020!! (we’re writing this review in August 2024). Which makes the gap much longer than I thought! So I suppose the question potential readers want answered is – was the wait worth it? Was it worth it for you, Dabney?

Dabney: Well… sort of. Honestly, given that, for the past seven years (A Duke In Shining Armor was published in 2017), we’ve been told that Alice and Giles are estranged, I think it’s reasonable to have expected this to be about a marriage in trouble. Which it is not in any way, shape, or form. Additionally, we already know lots about all the characters in this book but here, because this is Alice and Gile’s backstory, we have to forget what we know about them from the first two books. Both of those things frustrated me, especially in the first half of the book.

Caz: I absolutely agree with you about the book not quite being what was expected. In the other books, it’s clear the Blackwoods are estranged, so like you, I thought this was going to be a marriage-in-trouble story. (And I can’t help wondering if perhaps the fact that LC couldn’t get that to work is the reason for the long delay). But I really liked their origin story once I’d adjusted my expectations – Giles and Alice are well-matched and are very obviously pretty far gone for each other right from the start. So on balance, I think it was worth it, especially as NOBODY does historical romance like Loretta Chase. All her hallmarks are here – likeable, intelligent characters with oodles of chemistry, and quick-fire banter to die for.

Dabney: I liked but didn’t love their origin story. For starters, there’s so much about the other two dukes that I kept getting dragged away from our leads. And the whole approach–given that we already know they’re married–took far too long. They spend so much time remembering the one kiss they shared as teens–I found it repetitive.

Here’s the thing: Having the third book in a series be, for the first three quarters of the book, what is essentially a prequel is a bold choice. And, yes, Chase is one of the strongest historical romance writers of all time. But here, it means the first twenty-three chapters are retelling times we already know the outcomes of. It’s well done, for sure, but it’s not gripping.

I’m also over several plotlines that are woven into other Chase books. I am done with the street urchin Jonesy – he’s appeared in so many books now – as well Uncle Frederick’s possible love affair with Aunt Julia, AND the constant rehashed bad behaviour of the Dis-Graces. I wanted to read about Giles and Alice and all the others as we’ve seen them as they are, not who they were back in the day.

Caz: See, I didn’t mind the ‘prequel’ nature of the first part of the book. Yes, we already know Alice and Giles are married, but, as with any romance novel, what matters is the getting there rather than the final outcome, so once I’d adjusted my expectations as to what the book was going to be, I liked it – from the sound of it, a bit more than you did. I didn’t think the appearances by Ashmont and Ripley were too much – they’re a necessary reminder of what Blackwood has been and show his move towards change, but like you, I wasn’t wild about the Jonesy storyline. I get why he’s there – he’s symbolic of the street kids Alice wants to help, and I suppose it’s natural to want to save who you can save. But the storyline goes through the whole book (I think they end up having to rescue him three times?), and then too much of the final twenty-five percent is taken up by Jonesy, and Alice’s charitable work, and foiling the evil cousin – when I wanted more of her and Blackwood working out how to, for want of a better expression, find a better work/life balance.

Dabney: Yes! And while I respect Alice for wanting to make the world a better place, I wanted her – because this is a romance – to be as committed to her marriage as she was to Jonesy and the other street children. (I also side-eyed Alice’s backstory about her horrific experience in childhood. It seemed unlikely.) I came into this book wanting a luscious Loretta Chase love story. Instead, for too much of the story, I got Alice working to reform London’s education system for the poor and Jonesy needing a rescue. It almost felt that if Jonesy hadn’t needed a rescue and Alice hadn’t needed an exceedingly intimidating, badly-behaved Duke, she wouldn’t have ever fallen for Giles.

Caz: I think it’s pretty clear that Alice is already in love with Giles – or at least, is on the way to being so – and I can think of lots of historical romances that use a similar premise; that of the handsomely brooding hero who arrives just in the nick of time to save or help the heroine in some way, so I didn’t have a problem with that aspect of the story – although I agree I could have done with less of it. I’m glad you mentioned the horrific backstory (at the age of nine, Alice was sent away to a terrible school where she was badly mistreated, and remained there for three months) because it struck a false note for me, too. Amid the current fad for Heroines Who Must Do Something About X (the poor, orphans, ‘fallen women’ etc.) Alice is a more tempered example – she’s not meek and biddable, but recognises the need to operate within the constraints of society – but somehow, her involvement with Good Works (as Blackwood would no doubt think of it!) seemed to take more page time than was given to Cassandra’s crusading outspoken-ness in Ten Things I Hate About the Duke. (Which was, incidentally, a longer book.)

Dabney: Yeah. It’s obviously the zeitgeist to have leads who want to change the world. But, in a weird way, I’m over it. I feel as if this book, as in many I’ve read in the past year, believe that the way you make someone desirable is primarily by what they do outside of their romance. I find myself longing for romances where the way the hero/heroine (and we the readers) fall for their true loves is because of the chemistry the leads share. In this book, Giles and Alice are admirable people outside their love affair – OK, fine – but not so compelling in it.

Caz: I’ll have to bow to your wider experience on that, because I’ve only really come across it in m/f historicals – and it’s one of the reasons I’ve pretty much stopped reading them.

Before we wrap up, I’d like to talk about the estrangement.

Dabney: Without getting into spoiler territory, I’d just say “What estrangement?” Again, I came into this book with a set of expectations that were inaccurate.

Caz: Maybe “estrangement” is the wrong word, still, I agree that the…erm… not-togetherness of Alice and Giles is much more of a secondary thing than I’d expected. But I liked that the reason behind it was something so… ordinary? because it had more impact than if it had been some melodramatic blow-up.

Dabney: To be fair to Ms. Chase, I think my take on this issue would be different had it not been built up in the way it was in the first two books in the series. So, yes, I agree that it was refreshing just to see two people trying to work out what to prioritise in their marriage.

I liked this book, I did. But I didn’t love it in the way I do Ten Things I Hate About the Duke or Dukes Prefer Blondes. I’d give it a B as a part of a series and a B+ as a novel standing on its own.

Caz: I’m giving it a B+ and for similar reasons. I’m trying hard not to make a judgement based on the fact that My Inconvenient Duke wasn’t the story I’d expected, and after adjusting those expectations, the first part verged on DIK territory, but that last quarter – too much everyone else and not enough Alice & Giles – means it doesn’t get there. It’s worth reading and any Loretta Chase historical romance is up there with the best of them, but it’s definitely the weakest of the Difficult Dukes series.