To Desire a Wicked Duke by Nicole Jordan

April 1, 2011

And the nomination for the heroine most likely to be strangled by an
irate reader is...
http://www.nicolejordanauthor.com/

Yes, fellow readers I found the heroine of To Desire a Wicked Duke - Tess - to be one very irksome, unpleasant woman.

I'm not sure what happened to Tess. She went from a gentle, nice secondary character in the previous novels, to a scornful, mean, snotty woman in this one. I believe her motto may have the word "emasculate" in it somewhere. How or why she felt the need to resist Ian I'll never know. Ian is quite a hunk! He's rich, he's kind, he's handsome and sexy. Everything a sane woman could want! Her resistance to his appeal made no sense. And, while we are on the subject of not understanding - she was such a mean-spirited person, always digging that knife a little deeper - why he lusted after her, let alone loved her was beyond my comprehension.

And then there's the recurring character Fanny, the bighearted whore, never been kissed, adviser to virgins, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound...whoops wrong character! She's in love with a bookish fellow, and she's writing a novel so she can become respectable and her childhood sweetheart will kiss her and want to marry her and "wiv wif her foe-evah and evah". Oh yes, I forgot, she's also there for the scooby-doo ghost tale that was thrown into this book. Thank goodness the ghost plot didn't last long!

Needless to say I was disappointed in this last of the series of "courtship wars". The characters were one dimensional, the plot lines rushed, the heroine spiteful and the hero in need of a better story.

Now does this mean I won't read Ms. Jordan's next book? Nah. I of course plan on reading the next new series...with my fingers crossed.

Time/Place: Regency England
Rating:
Sensuality Rating: Extremely Hot!