ARC Review: What a Duke Dares by Anna Campbell

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
 
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“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

Book 1	Book 1.5	Book 2
Book 3	Book 4

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

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Suzanne

Blogger/Reviewer at Under the Covers Book Blog

Gosh, we all seem to be admitting our ages…and I hate that I am at the point in life when admitting my age is a “thing”…whodda thunk it? I was kind of hoping I would remain 21 forever. However, I have moved out of that New Adult stage of my life and am now strictly in the Contemporary Romance age zone of 28. I would prefer to be in an Urban Fantasy arena, but I don’t think I own enough black leather. However, I could probably squeeze into some PNR, I am fully prepared to give a horn job to my favourite demon, or suck on my sexy vamps…fangs and I am definitely up for some heavy petting with some fine looking shifters. Than again their’s always Sci Fi…I am fully prepared to do the right thing and help some poor alien race with more 6 packs than a supermarket repopulate their planet. Not that I am loose woman or anything.

Annnnnd I will stop myself there, before I start waxing lyrical about my love of historical romance and fantasy as well; no one needs to know about my elf fantasies. As you can tell, I adore and day dream about most romance genres, and my three big loves are 1) reading about romance 2) writing about romance and 3) talking about romance with my gals. Which, is why I love Under the Covers so much, I get all my bookish needs satisfied and don’t get judged when I talk about my favourite characters like they are real people. Which they are right?

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