Blog Tour: Review of Duke Darcy's Castle by Syrie James

Author: Syrie JamesGenre: Historical Romance, Victorian Romance
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Length (384) pages
eBook ASIN: B07DCD1HYB, (February 25, 2020)
Mass market paperback ISBN: 978-0062849717 (March 24, 2020)

Lance Granville, the Tenth Duke of Darcy, was none too happy to give up his career in the Royal Navy to inherit the family title, complete with an ancient castle he needs to renovate. When an architect arrives on his doorstep, Darcy is astonished to discover that she’s a woman.

Kathryn Atherton has one goal: to become the first woman architect in Britain. Marriage doesn’t figure in her plans. Despite the odds, her schooling is behind her. Now she needs experience. When she’s sent to a small tidal island in Cornwall to remodel a castle, the last thing Kathryn wants is to be attracted to its roguishly handsome owner.

Kathryn is determined to keep things professional, but the sizzling attraction between her and the duke quickly blazes out of control. When Darcy learns that Kathryn is an heiress whose fortune would save St. Gabriel’s Mount, he wages the most important battle of his life: to woo and win the woman who’s captured his heart. But (in an homage to Austen), the Duke’s first proposal is so Darcyesque, he is refused. In any case, duchesses can’t be architects. And Kathryn has worked too long and too hard to give up her career for anyone ….

Duke Darcy's Castle is the third book in the Dare to Defy series about three heiress sister who find love with British dukes.  This is Kathryn and Lance's story.  Even though it is the third book it definitely can be read as a stand alone book.  Kathryn is determined to prove that she can be a woman and an architect in a profession filled only by men.  Lance's castle remodel is her chance to do just that. 

For the most part, I enjoyed the romance between Lance and Kathryn.  I liked each character well enough and thought they had great chemistry.  I also enjoyed the enthusiasm that Kathryn had about buildings and design.  The tidbits about architecture were interesting and added to greatly to the story.  The characters were interesting. I enjoyed Lance's attempts to get to know Kathryn better and get her to fall for him.  Lance's grandmother was probably my favorite character out of them all.  She was hilarious.  

I had a few things that I didn't love about the book.  I felt like I was hit over the head with the fact that Kathryn and Lance were attracted to each other.  The internal conversations that they had with themselves all seemed to center around that attraction.  It got old really fast.  I also wasn't a fan of the "insta-love" or should I say lust.  I mean they were together maybe a few hours and then they almost have sex on a pool table.  That was a bit off putting.  There was one part of the story that I found unnecessary and seemed to be put into the story for "representation" sake.  Not that I had an issue with the content of that part of the story.  I just felt like it was out of place and not needed as it didn't make any sense to the story.  It seemed like it was just there to have the characters have a conversation about how forward thinking they are about how love is love.

If you are a fan of romances with forward thinking heroines and hero Dukes who will do anything to get the girl, then I do recommend this one.

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RUNAWAY HEIRESS BOOK SERIES:

Three American heiresses defy their family’s wishes, and social convention, to strike out and find their own happiness in late Victorian Cornwall.

Runaway Heiress: A Dare to Defy Novel (Book 1)

Brainy and college-educated, American heiress Alexandra Atherton will do anything to avoid marriage to the English peer her mother has chosen for her—even abandon the life of privilege she’s always known. But as her escape goes horribly wrong, Alexandra must invent a new identity to gain the help of a handsome stranger.

PURCHASE LINKS:

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOK DEPOSITORY | INDIEBOUND | GOODREADS | BOOKBUB

Summer of Scandal: A Dare to Defy Novel (Book 2)

An American heiress and an English earl fight against the conventions of society -- and their attraction to each other -- in the second book in the Dare to Defy series by USA Today bestselling author Syrie James.

PURCHASE LINKS:

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | BOOK DEPOSITORY | INDIEBOUND | GOODREADS | BOOKBUB

AUTHOR BIO:

SYRIE JAMES is the USA TODAY and Amazon bestselling author of thirteen novels of historical, contemporary, and young adult fiction and romance. Her books have hit many Best of the Year lists, been designated as Library Journal Editor’s Picks, and won numerous accolades and awards, including Best New Fiction by Regency World Magazine (the international bestseller “The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen”), and the national Audiobook Audie for Romance (“The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte”, also named a Great Group Read by the Women’s National Book Association). Los Angeles Magazine dubbed Syrie the “queen of nineteenth century re-imaginings,” and her books have been published in twenty languages. A member of the Writer’s Guild of America, Syrie is also an established screenwriter and playwright who makes her home in Los Angeles. An admitted Anglophile, Syrie has addressed audiences across the U.S., Canada, and the British Isles.

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