Desert Isle Keeper
One Duke Down
One Duke Down reminds me of some of my favorite older romances. A heroine hiding away in a small town, a sweet small town romance, combined with dazzling seascapes bring this love story to life.
One sunny day, Miss Poppy Summers catches a man in her fishing net. An extremely handsome man with long hair. This might be a boon to any other young lady, but Poppy is frankly confused as to how this guy ended up stuck on her line in the middle of the ocean. While her brother spends most of his time in London chasing pipe dreams of success, she’s one to mind her own business and to do whatever she can to keep the family’s fishing business together and tend to her ailing father’s aches and pains while she does so. Nonetheless, she takes her mystery catch back to her seaside home in Bellehaven Bay.
Andrew Keane – known by his surname – happens to be the fellow Poppy fished out of the drink. He’s the Duke of Hawking, and he ended up in the water following a murder attempt on his life. He offers Poppy a lot of money to lie about his death so he can figure out who tried to kill him, something she does reluctantly, even though she’s not sure he’s a duke as he says he is. But as she helps him recover and they investigate the crime together with the help of his loyal valet Diggs, they come to admire, like and love each other. But can they find Keane’s enemy – and when they do, will he bear a connection to Poppy?
This one is quite out of the ordinary, and it plays and twists tropes with complete skill. You will not expect the answer to its mystery in a billion years, and in the end you’ll be surprised.
What’s not surprising is how resourceful Poppy is, and how grumpy Keane is. I really liked the romance between these two, which is crafted carefully, growing from from admiration, attraction and commonality. But I really did wish that Keane had a deeper background to speak of; it seems as though he’s emerged as if from a dream to make Poppy happy, which is well enough but he really ought to have had more friends.
I deeply loved the small costal English fishing town that Bennett gives us, and the people who inhabit it all make sense to the locale. One Duke Down is a worthy romance that’s perfectly tender and sweet.
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Lisa Fernandes is a writer, reviewer and recapper who lives somewhere on the East Coast. Formerly employed by Firefox.org and Next Projection, she also currently contributes to Women Write About Comics. Read her blog at http://thatbouviergirl.blogspot.com/, follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/thatbouviergirl or contribute to her Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/MissyvsEvilDead or her Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/missmelbouvier
Buy One Duke Down by Anna Bennett:
Book Details
| Reviewer: | Lisa Fernandes |
|---|---|
| Review Date: | January 25, 2023 |
| Publication Date: | 01/2023 |
| Grade: | A- |
| Sensuality | Warm |
| Book Type: | Historical Romance |
| Review Tags: | Rogues to Lovers series | small town romance |
Duke of Hawking????? That’s a sport, not a proper sort of title! He should have a falcon on his wrist. Or be wearing bedouin garb.
My mind immediately went to gobbing up phlegm and then I couldn’t un-picture it!
Yuck…………..!!
Heh!
Is it just me or is there some serious cognitive dissonance between details in the review (which is excellent, Lisa!) and the cover?
Well… the cover has got the sea in it?
What disconnect are you seeing?
She doesn’t look like a woman who makes her living fishing. I got the impression from the review that she – not just as the owner of a business – was on a ship, hauling in a catch, when she pulled up a wounded man in a fishing net. A woman who spends her time that way – in a small town – doesn’t spend her daylight hours in a party dress, hair down, etc. etc. It just threw me.
Yeah, publishers know pretty dresses are gonna sell, though she does do the fancy gown thing later in the book.
Wasn’t there one where the heroine was a blacksmith, but on the cover, she wore a ballgown?
I remember that!
Yep, a Tessa Dare one. Not the author’s fault of course but dumb nonetheless.
Sounds intriguing. I’m up for a plot that plays with tropes, especially when so much of the romance I’ve been reading lately is so predictable. (Or maybe I’m just stuck in a rut?)
I think that may be why this worked for me; it’s pretty unusual.
Fun note: I’ve given Bennett a D and now an A. Drastic improvement? Am I just a sucker for lady fishermen?
She wrote a series that I enjoyed about 10 years ago, under the name of Anne Barton, but I stopped reading the books she wrote as Anna Bennett I didn’t like them as much,
OK that’s interesting – I wonder if different editors might be afoot here.