I’ve enjoyed a number of historical romances by Sarah Mallory and she’s one of the few authors writing in the genre I continue to read, so it pains me to have to say that her latest release, Hastily Wed to the Duke was something of a disappointment. The use of several tired tropes in addition to a Big Mis that goes on for far too long and characters who never transcend those tropes all combine to make this a book I can’t, in all honesty, recommend.

Jason Darvell, Duke of Rotherton, is making a rare visit to the home of his childhood friends, the Carlows, in order to stand up with Barnaby Carlow at his wedding. He hasn’t been there for several years, but it doesn’t take him long to notice just how very taken for granted Barnaby’s sister, Angeline, is by her family members. She takes it all with a very good grace, of course, looking after her nieces and nephews, fetching and carrying when asked to; he can see likes being useful, but dislikes the subtle change in her character whenever her family members appear on the scene. For a young, intelligent woman to have been already relegated to the role of spinster aunt and companion does not sit well with him.

Jason, who has been a widower for six months, and is already fed up of being asked when he’s going to remarry and of having suitable brides constantly suggested to him, comes up with the perfect way to kill two birds with one stone. If he marries Angel, he will stop the constant matchmaking and will release her from the demands of her family, and provide her with a home of her own. He’s upfront with Angel about his expectations; he needs a wife and (eventually) an heir, and this visit has reminded him just what good friends they used to be and of how much he always enjoyed her company. Angel isn’t at all sure and rejects him at first, suggesting that he will, at some point, fall in love again, but Jason protests that he doesn’t want that and argues that marrying a friend offers a much better prospect of marital happiness than falling head-over-heels in love. Angel allows herself to be persuaded and they are married as soon as can be.

So Angel is a bit of a Cinderella figure, and she and Jason enter into a marriage of convenience between old friends, which Jason has basically designed for his own comfort while telling himself he’s doing a good thing for Angel. It’s only after they’ve arrived at his home in the country that Jason starts to think that perhaps he has done Angel no favours by insisting on such a hasty marriage. But Angel steps up to the plate as duchess and begins to win the respect of servants, tenants and peers, all the while realising her childhood crush on Jason has come roaring back – but that that he will never love her because she can’t hold a candle to his stunningly beautiful dead wife Lavinia – with whom he is obviously still very much in love.

Sigh.

There are several points in the story where Jason actually thinks to himself that he needs to tell Angel the truth about his first marriage – that his wife was regularly unfaithful (she’s even rumoured to have slept with Prinny), ran up debts and basically took him for everything she could get, and that when the scales at last fell from his eyes and he realised what was going on, Jason’s youthful love died and he began to detest her. But he’s too embarrassed to tell Angel what an idiot he’d been, so he allows her to continue in her belief that he’s still in love with Lavinia. To some extent, I could understand where he was coming from – nobody likes to admit they’ve been made a fool of – but to deliberately allow Angel to be unhappy just because he can’t bring himself to admit (thanks also to some Daddy issues) the truth makes him come off as a bit of a wimp.

Angel is much more likeable by comparison. She possesses a quiet strength and resourcefulness that slowly blossom into greater confidence, determination and resilience, and she knows how to get what she wants without riding roughshod over anyone or resorting to tantrums. I honestly felt Jason didn’t deserve her – he keeps pushing her away when all she wants to do is be a good wife and duchess. But after the truth of his disastrous marriage dawned on him, he closed himself off emotionally and has held himself apart from everyone around him ever since. Coupled with his very traditional father’s exhortations that real men never show weakness or emotion, Jason decides he should keep Angel and anyone else he could care for at arm’s length.

There’s a secondary plotline about Jason’s daughters – Rose (his step-daughter), who is seventeen and Elinor who is ten – who don’t live with him; Lavinia insisted they be set up on their own establishment because she didn’t want them underfoot and cramping her style (my words) so they live in Kent with their governess. Angel is surprised to discover this and wants to bring the girls to live with them – but Jason is very resistant, which, on learning that Lady Rose greatly resembles her late mother, Angel takes as further evidence of her husband’s continuing love for his former duchess.

As I’ve already said, the Big Mis goes on for way too long, and the tropes – the closed-off hero with Daddy issues who Does Not Want to Love Again, the slutty, gold-digging dead wife, the heroine rescued from drudgery – are more than tired, they’re exhausted. I remain a fan of Sarah Mallory’s but unfortunately, Wed in Haste to the Duke isn’t one of her best.