Loved by a Duke by Christi Caldwell
Also by this author: The Love of a Rogue, Seduced By a Lady's Heart, My Lady of Deception, The Heart of a Scoundrel, To Wed His Christmas Lady, To Trust a Rogue, To Woo a Widow, To Redeem a Rake (The Heart of a Duke Book 11), The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1), Along Came a Lady (All the Duke's Sins, #1)
Published by Independently Published on April 27, 2015
Genres: Historical, Regency, Romance
Pages: 271
Format: eBook
ASIN: B00WT0H42G
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For ten years, Lady Daisy Meadows has been in love with Auric, the Duke of Crawford. Ever since his gallant rescue years earlier, Daisy knew she was destined to be his Duchess. Unfortunately, Auric sees her as his best friend's sister and nothing more. But perhaps, if she can manage to find the fabled heart of a duke pendant, she will win over the heart of her duke.

Auric, the Duke of Crawford enjoys Daisy's company. The last thing he is interested in however, is pursuing a romance with a woman he’s known since she was in leading strings. This season, Daisy is turning up in the oddest places and he cannot help but notice that she is no longer a girl. But Auric wouldn’t do something as foolhardy as to fall in love with Daisy. He couldn’t. Not with the guilt he carries over his past sins... Not when he has no right to her heart...But perhaps, just perhaps, she can forgive the past and trust that he’d forever cherish her heart—but will she let him?

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~Karen’s Two Cents Worth~

“I never wanted a Duke, I only wanted you.”

 

I have an affinity for the heroines in Christi Caldwell’s historical romances as they are more twenty-first century woman embedded into a historical romance. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the reality of Regency England and my reader’s view is definitely at odds.  I have degrees in history, but I never go about reading a historical romance as a treatise in history; for if I did I would find most all, but a very few writers lacking. Just as I would not read a pirate romance for insight into how to sail a boat. Romances in general are escapism, those readers who think they are reading real history will be highly disappointed in most all authors; those reviewers who review them as historical treatises are asses or arses; if you want to give the English dialect it’s due.

Now that I have said my peace, you will be enchanted by Caldwell’s books. In Caldwell’s book you have witty banter, fun   escapism and of course the Happily Ever After as required in a true romance.  Plus there is plenty of angst and longing in book four of Daring Hearts series. The series revolves around pretty young misses looking for the Heart of a Duke, a magical gypsy necklace.  In book four of the series Loved by a Duke, Lady Daisy Laurel Meadow, the girl of the flowers, has been in love with Auric, the Duke of Crawford, who happens to be her brothers best friend. She has loved him since she was a girl and he was the gallant older friend who was always quick to laugh and smile.  Time changed Auric into the paragon of decorum, never willing to laugh or smile to quickly now that he is a Duke.  The story revolves around Daisy’s quest to find the gypsy necklace, and a chance to claim Auric’s heart.  The story is romantic and amusing, and as a reader I was pulled into the book from the prologue, which is of a young Daisy, and her not fitting in.

I do wish that Daisy not being embraced society, which was set up in the prologue, would have been expanded on in the plot of the book.  Daisy’s isolation has impacted her view on life. I believe that the girls who were shown to ridicule her as a child would have continued that into adulthood.  Especially since Daisy because of  circumstances in her life feels that she is invisible and passed over.  It would have been a good foil for the romance of Auric and Daisy.

Because of mistakes in Auric’s past he feels that he needs to be the standard of grace and manners, and he has hid his own personality behind being a Duke.  He is such a wonderful hero in this book, and tries to fight his attraction for Daisy, as she is the young sister of his best friend.  He feels protective of her, but at the same time unwilling to become overly close to her since he became Duke.

Caldwell writes a lovely romance full of heart and it made me sigh in places.  Caldwell has become my great pleasure.  I can’t wait until her next book comes out.

The fifth book in the series To Love a Lord will be releasing on July 17, 2015

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