How To Catch A Duke by Grace Burrowes

Miss Abigail Abbott desperately needs to disappear, and the only person she trusts to help her do that is Lord Stephen Wentworth, heir to the Duke of Walden. Stephen is brilliant, charming, and—when he needs to be—absolutely ruthless. So ruthless, that, he proposes marriage instead of a pretense of murder, to keep Abigail safe.

 

Stephen knows that Abigail has the dignity and determination of a duchess and the courage of a lioness. When she accepts his courtship of convenience, he also discovers she kisses like his most intimate wish come true. For Abigail, their arrangement is a sham to escape her dangerous enemies. For Stephen, it's his last, best hope to share a lifetime with the lady of his dreams—if he can convince her his love is real.

 Series: Rogues to Riches #6 | Publisher: Forever | Genre: Historical Romance | Source: Publisher | Rating: 3.5 Cups

"I have come to ask you to kill me, my lord."

 

How could I not dive into a Regency Romance when that’s the opening line?

 

Here’s what’s going on. Needing to disappear to protect herself, Abigail—an inquiry agent—seeks Stephen’s aid in ‘killing her off’. Although Stephen has another plan, one that includes a marriage proposal, which Abigail sees as the perfect solution to protect her but Stephan wants more. Now he must convince her to be his future duchess.

 

It’s been a minute since I’ve read Grace Burrowes and, I must say, that I’ve missed her writing style. Her character’s always have a flawed realness to them and it’s something that I’ve always enjoyed.

 

Stephen and Abigail have met in a previous book (that I’ve, sadly, not read) and there seems to be an attraction that they’ve been carrying around.  So there’s a ton of chemistry at the start of the book but as the plot progresses and things start to move and get revealed I feel as though they lost some of that chemistry. It was almost as though so much was going on in the romantic connection was lost.

 

I’m on the fence about this book. I liked characters and I liked that they were very unique—he’s disabled and she’s built like a warrior queen, you don’t see that often in Regency romances—I liked the essence of the plot and I did like them together, most of the time. I struggled with how much of the character’s past relationships were brought to the forefront of this one. It bogged the current romance down and had me questioning their feelings for each other.

 

There’s also some things in the book that had me questioning how they went unobserved for so many years yet Abigail spotted them right off the bat. There’s also some things in this book that I felt was added just to make the book feel current but didn’t add anything to the plot.

 

Overall, I liked Abigail and Stephen—they were brilliant together—but I wish there had been less of their past included. I still enjoyed this one and found it to be an easy, quick read but there wasn’t that extra spark that I expect in Grace’s books. 

Rogues to Riches Series

1-My One and Only Duke

2-When a Duchess Says I Do

3-Forever and a Duke

4-A Duke by Any Other Name

5-The Truth About Dukes

6-How To Catch A Duke