It’s never pleasant to write a critical or negative review of a book by an author whose work you’ve previously enjoyed, but I have to do that now, because Kate Bateman’s Second Duke’s the Charm (book one in her new Charlie’s-Angels-in-the-Regency Her Majesty’s Rebels series) was a big disappointment. With one exception, the things I usually enjoy about her books – such as sizzling sexual chemistry and genuinely witty banter – are absent, and what’s left is a bunch of hackneyed tropes and stereotypical characters faffing around in an uninteresting and somewhat peripheral plot.

After the elderly ducal husband her father forced her to marry kicks the bucket on their wedding night, Tess Townsend, the nineteen-year-old (and still virginal) Dowager Duchess of Wansford is left with the kind of independence she’d never dared dream of. For the next couple of years, she divides her time between Wansford Hall, where she does a much better job of managing the estate than the previous dukes ever did, and London, where she and her two best friends, Ellie Law (whose father is England’s top barrister – Law by name, Law by nature, eh?) and Daisy Hamilton have established King & Co., an agency that has become known for its discretion in dealing with “sensitive matters” for members of society’s elite, whose proprietor, Mr. Charles King, is entirely fictional.

After two years of widowhood, Tess has begun to realise that while she may be content to remain a widow for the rest of her life, she doesn’t particularly want to remain celibate. But she can’t seek a lover from amongst the ton because then word will spread that, contrary to what she’s allowed society to believe, she and her late husband did not, in fact, consummate their union, and this would, for reasons that made no sense, be a problem.

So Daisy comes up with the idea that Tess should attend one of the famously lascivious parties hosted by Thomas Careby at his Bedfordshire estate. It’s unlikely anyone of her aquaintance will be there, and anyway, it’s the kind of affair where people are masked, so she’ll be able to remain incognita while indulging in some “passionate experimentation”.

Justin Thornton, owner of Thornton Shipping & Trading in Bristol, is not particuarly impressed by the news that he’s the new Duke of Wansford. It’s taken nearly two years to find him, thanks to Justin’s very distant connections to the dukedom, but there’s no doubt about his right to claim the title and all that goes with it. Viewing the whole thing as a massive inconvenience and disruption to his business, he agrees to go to London to receive his letters patent, set the duchy’s affairs in order, and find a wife he can bed, then leave at Wansford while he continues with his business in Bristol. Justin decides to blow off some steam on the way to London and makes a detour to the party being hosted by his friend Thomas Careby, whose parties are always reliably debauched and where there is always plenty of female company available in the form of bored wives, widows and courtesans.

No prizes for guessing that Tess and Justin meet or that Justin is the one to give Tess her first kiss – and several more. (Plus – her first experience of giving a hand job.) Justin has no idea who the siren in the red dress is, of course, and Tess is unaware of the identity of the tall, dark and handsome stranger whose kisses make her knees weak and her blood pound. Neither of them expects to see the other again – although, of course, they do.

And when they do, it doesn’t take Justin long to work out that his partner in that memorably passionate tryst was none other than the Duchess of Wansford or to decide that she’ll suit his purposes perfectly. To that end, he proposes a marriage of convenience, but one in which sex is most definitely on the table; being wed will keep the match-making mamas away from him, and seeing Tess has already made one marriage for money and position he assumes she will have no problem making another one, especially as his terms will leave her even better off financially than she already is. He makes it very clear that he has no time for love and that his business is his sole interest and occupation, then suggests they spend three months together after which they will go their separate ways – that should be long enough to prevent boredom setting in for each of them.

Second Duke’s the Charm is predictable, the pacing is off, the characters are bland and barely two-dimensional, and there’s no chemistry or sense of emotional connection between them. Justin is your stereotypical Self Made Man who Does Not Want to Become a Duke, and who Will Not Love because of how devastated his father was when his mother died. Tess is the Virgin Widow Who Longs to Experience Physical Pleasure, and who is Fed Up with being Judged On Her Looks, and Daisy and Ellie are the sequel-bait friends, one the Clever, Bookish One who is prone to coming up with Interesting Facts at the drop of a hat, and the other the Hellion who doesn’t give a Fig for Convention. (Apologies for all the random capitalisation!)

There’s a tacked on mystery plot – two, actually – neither of which is particularly well executed. The first is the more interesting, when King & Co. is approached by none other than Queen Charlotte herself who requests their help with tracking down a blackmailer; the other appears in the second half when it becomes apparent that someone is out to kill Justin and/or Tess. The blackmail plot provides the opportunity for a bit of jealousy on Justin’s part when he notices Tess behaving suspiciously, but that seems to be its sole purpose, really, and I don’t know why the second subplot is even there – Justin solves it and deals with the perpetrator off-page and for all the impact it has, it might as well not have been there at all.

I normally love a darkly brooding hero, but Justin is basically a walking trope with no real personality. I liked that he appreciaties Tess for more than her looks and is impressed with the job she’d done running the estate, but I never saw him actually falling in love with her; his volte face about love is whiplash-inducing and his grand gesture at the end is completely ridiculous. Tess is likeable enough, but again, I never saw anything but lust between her and Justin – he’s such a personality vacuum that I couldn’t understand why she fell for him other than his looks and skill between the sheets.

The one thing I referred to at the beginning as being present in this book is a decent sense of time and place – the author knows her history. The trouble is, that most of the information imparted comes in the form of info-dumps from Ellie, who knows something about pretty much everything, from marriage settlements to divorce to seduction to racehorses to romantic poets and their tolerance to opiates.

I’ve enjoyed this author’s work in the past and had hoped for more of the same here, but Second Duke’s the Charm is tanked by poor characterisation, a lack of chemistry and a weak plot. Kate Bateman is capable of much better and I hope to see a return to form soon.