The Duchess Deal

The danger of falling in love with a new genre is that it adds so many books to your TBR list. It's easy to do a bit of research and zero in on the authors that seem up your alley. And then suddenly you have to read everything that author has ever written. Romance is particularly dangerous in that most authors are pretty prolific.

Which is a long way of saying that I loved my first Tessa Dare book. And now there's another 10+ books I need to read. It also makes me that much more eager to try the other authors I've seen talked about in the same articles: Julia Quinn, Courtney Milan, Lisa Kleypas. At least I'm already most of the way through Sarah MacLean's work.

The Duchess Deal is about an arranged marriage, sort of. The Duke of Ashbury was severely injured in the war (what war? It doesn't really matter). His fiance was horrified by his scars and refused to marry him. But the Duke needs an heir, so he proposes marriage to the first halfway respectable woman he meets, promising that as soon as she's pregnant she can retire to the country house and a life of (secluded) luxury.

It's too good a deal for the struggling seamstress Emma to turn down, but she also doesn't want to be just a broodmare. So she insists on dinner and conversation in addition to her wifely duties. And it's really no surprise when the two fall head over heels in love.

There are overtures of Beauty and the Beast, with the disfigured hero and a houseful of servants whose main goal is for him to fall in love and therefore lighten up a bit. The duke also has a bit of a vigilante streak. All of which adds up to absurd and delightful situations that keep pushing the married couple closer and closer together.

Emma also befriends a group of wallflowers, each of whom will presumably be getting her own book. And I'm excited to learn more about each and every one of them.

The good thing about romance novels is that they're very quick and easy to read. I'm planning to spend my upcoming maternity leave focused on them (assuming I have the brainpower to read anything more complicated than Green Eggs and Ham), which should help me make a dent in my backlog. Or more likely it will expand until it's truly out of control.

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