ARC Review: What a Duke Dares by Anna Campbell

 

“It had the right  mix of romance, humour and heat that had me glued to my kindle avidly turning the pages and I highly recommend you give it a try.” ~ Under the Covers

What an unexpected and entirely wonderful surprise! If you follow Under the Covers on Facebook you will have noticed that I have been splashing quotes around for this book for the last couple of weeks, I wanted to share some of my favourite bits of this What a Duke Dares and get everyone else excited about it as well!

Essentially it takes one arrogant duke who doggedly suppresses his feelings due to a difficult childhood and awful parent and throws him at his old childhood friend and the woman who dared turn down his proposal of marriage nine years earlier. The woman in question just happens to be outspoken, eccentric and slightly scandalous, everything he doesn’t want in his future duchess. Add a shipwreck, a besotted younger brother and a few London balls full of vicious gossips, then you have What a Duke Dares.

The romance between Cam (the repressed duke) and Penelope (his tormentor) was contentious, full of tension, mainly of the sexual kind and unsaid feelings. This made the book both exciting and threaded through with heat right from the start, but also a frustrating. I very much wanted them both to get over their fears and just be happy together, instead they bickered and have fantastic sex.

This also contained something else that I love; a secondary romance. This took place between Pen’s younger brother and Cam’s enemy’s beloved younger sister. Already you can see disaster brewing. I loved the contrast though between both the romances, Harry and Sophie’s was sweet and straightforward, the only thing holding the back were their impossible circumstances; a penniless younger son from a notorious family doesn’t marry a rich sister of a duke. Whereas Pen and Cam had a carnal, passionate and emotionally complex relationship, but had perfect circumstances, they were already married.

However, as much as I did enjoy it, the reason it is a little shy of 5 stars is that I found at times the pacing to be rather slow, it seemed to take a while for the book to make any progress. This is part of the reason I enjoyed the secondary romance so much, it gave you timeout from the main couple and added some movement to the book. It also did the same thing a lot of other romances do, the hero and heroine didn’t come together properly till the last part of the book, all in a large and grand gesture, and suddenly all their problems were solved.

I really enjoyed this book, it managed to surprise me after being a bit underwhelmed by the previous book in this series. It had the right  mix of romance, humour and heat that had me glued to my kindle avidly turning the pages and I highly recommend you give it a try.

*ARC provided by publisher

Seven Nights in a Rogue’s Bed: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads | Our Review
Days of Rakes and Roses: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads 
A Rake’s Midnight Kiss: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads | Our Review
What A Duke Dares: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | GoodReads
A Scoundrel by Moonlight: Amazon | GoodReads

[about-author author=”Anna Campbell”]

 

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