Spycraft, derring-do and hot-blooded love comprise The Duke in Question, the latest chapter of Amelie Howard’s Daring Dukes series. The romance that ensues is wallpapery, illogical, and a bit silly, but it’s a reasonably fun little ride that’s not the worst thing I’ve ever read.

Lady Bronwyn – Bee – Chase plays at being an empty-headed society girl. Desperate to escape the stifling strictures of British society and her harridan of a mother, she’s become a spy named Kestrel because she wants to make the world a better place. She’s boarded her brother’s ship (and told everyone on board her brother’s name even though she’s traveling under an assumed name which, what?), the SS Valiant, on a trip to America with a cachet of letters stolen from the British Home Office, hoping to aid the Union cause and avert a kidnapping plot.

The notoriously wicked Lord Valentine Medford, the Duke of Thornbury, is a retired agent for the Crown, but he’s doing a favor for a fellow agent (who happens to be his ex-wife) as he attempts to ferret out Kestrel, whom he believes has secrets which may bring down the British government. But Thornbury naturally feels bound and sworn to protect his friend’s sister. Will he put two and two together?

It takes some time. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever find a book by this author that I’ll like as much as I liked The Beast of Beswick. Everything I’ve read by her since has failed to be up to snuff, but The Duke in Question at least manages to entertain while being oddball.

You’ve seen Thornbury and Bee before, of course. She’s the sheltered beauty who can give an expert blow job even though she’s a virgin and can hip toss a man twice her weight with little experience; he’s the alpha who mocks her until he wants her and then after. The love between them here feels muted. They do want to bone, though, and do it in public, against walls, and any other surface they can find once they get beyond their mutual stubbornness. There’s also coach masturbation.

But Howard’s plot trips her up. There are so many little mistakes and inconsistencies of logic that grated on me, from the aforementioned moment where Bee tells people she’s the captain’s sister to several moments where Thornbury conveniently ignores the evidence right in front of him simply to stretch out the plot. Why the heck would anyone in Britain have information that would aid in the American Civil war in the first place when Britain remained neutral in the fight? But this is a very non-Britpicked book with a wallpapery flavor and Howard’s Americanisms are notable. The book does try to address subjects like social inequity and racism and does it decently.

So why isn’t this a D? Because I still admire Howard’s writing style, and at least the sex is fun and spicy. But ultimately, The Duke in Question is just more of the same wallpaper silliness.

Buy it at: Amazon, Audible or your local independent retailer

Visit our Amazon Storefront