Review: No Other Duke But You

No Other Duke But You by Valerie Bowman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While it was for the most part an enjoyable romp, several aspects of the plot of Valerie Bowman's "No Other Duke but You" came across as rather silly and far-fetched to me. I liked the first half of the book well enough, but the story went off the rails a bit when the idea of a love potion was introduced. It strained credulity that so many people, who otherwise seemed to be relatively sane and level-headed, would actually believe that a love potion could work.

I was also frustrated with the book because it seemed that the main thing keeping Delilah and Thomas apart was the fact that neither of them would admit their romantic feelings to the other. A single honest conversation would have allowed them to settle things between them and avoided a lot of drama and heartache. I can understand why Thomas was afraid to tell Delilah he loved her before the love potion debacle, but afterwards, there was really no reason for him to have delayed telling her the truth for so long. Delilah's hesitation was slightly more understandable because she thought Thomas only cared for her because of the potion, but even so, if she had made the first move, he probably would have confessed that he had loved her all along. They still would have had to deal with Delilah's mother and Lord Hilton's scheming, but that would have been a lot less of a problem if Thomas and Delilah had already been engaged by then.

In spite of the above frustrations, I have rated the book 4 stars because the main characters were both very likeable, and I enjoyed catching up with the couples from earlier books in the series. Overall, while "No Other Duke but You" was not my favorite book of the series, it was still a nice enough way to wrap things up and say goodbye to these characters. I look forward to seeing what Ms. Bowman plans to write next.

*ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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