A Duke in Disguise: The Regency Impostors (Regency Impostors, #2)

by Cat Sebastian

• ISBN10: 0062820664
• ISBN13: 9780062820662
• Publish Date: 9 April 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[llamareads]

Ash keeping hairpins in his pocket for Verity is possibly the most adorable and understated romantic gesture of all time.

[celinenyx]

Verity Plum is a printer/publisher, and Ash is her best friend and illustrator. The setting of A Duke in Disguise is fabulous, and I enjoyed reading about tradespeople in Regency era. Verity is bi, which - for once - isn't an actual problem in the book. There was a lot about the story that I enjoyed, except for one major issue: the reason the main characters keep pushing each other away doesn't make much sense.

The trope A Duke in Disguise is built on is "we're best friends and we shouldn't ruin the friendship", which... I guess is valid? But at the same time, it's a very boring push-and-pull to read about, when there is no actual reason for them not to become lovers. There is a lot of moping and sulking and other not very productive behaviour, and though they're not particularly awful to each other, I also found myself getting annoyed at their imagined difficulties. An actual barrier to their relationship is revealed when Ash turns out to be a duke (not a spoiler, it's in the title), but this was resolved too easily without much conversation. The early sex scenes were rather lackluster and random in their timing, as I didn't buy into their wild lusting after each other. On the bright side, we have a male protagonist who held out for a woman for once - Ash has never taken a lover, while Verity has.

There is a lot that I like about Cat Sebastian's writing, and I LOVED the historical background she gave to this one, but the pairing wasn't to my taste. I never felt like I truly knew Verity nor Ash, and their characterizations didn't "click" for me.

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Trigger warnings: (attempted) murder of family member, heavy domestic abuse, childhood abandonment, ableist language (the protagonist has epilepsy).

[jamiereadthis]

I’m torn. Parts of this were great. The characters. The scenario that set the plot in motion. The first third of the story.

But it needed more… something. More showing, not telling. More focus. More heat. Less withholding information. (GRRR. Talk it out, people.)

And honestly, it needed less plot. Or, it needed a higher page count to flesh out that plot. But even fleshed out, I just didn’t need the duke thing. It’s been done to death. I don’t care. Put those characters in the print shop, set a few plates spinning, stick to that smaller scope. I would have been one happy girl.