The Tipsy Girl and her Wicked Duke

The past few months have been pretty dull in the historical romance department. Except for Untouched by Anna Campbell, there has been no historical romance that has caughy my interest. And this is coming from a person who would only read historicals in the past. But when The Wicked Ways of a Duke by Laura Lee Guhrke came out this past week, I had to sweep it up because I was such a big fan of And Then He Kissed Her.

The Wicked Ways of a Duke is the second book in Guhrke's new Girl-Bachelor series about normal everyday women trying to make ends meet in London in the mid-1890's. I am so happy that Laura decided to pick this time period. It gets quite old when I keep reading over and over about 1820 London and the fun in the Ton.

Prudence in the heroine of this tale who lived in the same boarding house as Emma did. Emma was the heroine of And Then He Kissed her. Prudence is a steamstress who works long hours for basically nothing. She also thinks she is chubby and tends to not eat and tries for a 21-inch waist. But Prudence tolls along, enjoying her work and taking the time to have tea with her girlfriends. Prudence makes a wish that she would suddenly have a lot of money to make her life easier.

Her wish comes true! It seems Prudence's father who boinked her mother and than ran for the hills, became quite rich in America. Prudence is the sole heir of one million pounds. But she will only receive this if she marries in a year. This plot device is getting quite old IMO. Must be married before you can have our fortune is the in thing to do! At least it is a year and not three months.

This where our duke comes in. Rhys has the name and the title but he doesn't have a pot to piss in. He drinks, sleeps with any woman he can get his hands on and uses his friends for his own personal means. Something so horrible happened in his past and he hates his mother because she let this something horrible to go on. But neverless Rhys enjoys life to the fullest. He actually has met Prudence before she became rich and flirted with her for a bit. But alas, she is a poor seamstress. That is until he finds out about Prudence's fortune.

Even though Rhys is redeemable, he is so sneaky and quite the liar. Heck, if I was Prudence, I would have fallen for him also because he is smooth. He even has this cute nickname for her- "Tipsy Girl." But before you can despair and think that they get married and then Prudence finds out, that is not the case. She finds out before and well.... she acts accordingly.

Overall Guhrke has written and cute and lovely book. The ending is a bit too pat and I am still not sure if I am pleased with the results but if I were to give this a grade , I would give it a solid "B".

And in other book news, I am almost done with My Fair Captain by JL Langley that Lisabea was so nice in letting me read. Talk about one gay romance that blew me away (har har I said blew)! Come Monday I will give my review along with another wonderful ebook author, Samantha Kane who can also write incredible gay romance. I am stating this now, but in the next few years these two authors will break into the mainstream and watch out, because after such other breakout authors like Sarah McCarty and Lisa Marie Rice, the romance world will never be the same way again.

Katiebabs