The Duke I Once Knew (Olivia Drake)

Overall

This is one of the books that you like while you’re reading it, but that you can’t entirely remember all that much a week or so later. In fact, I was trying to remember the lead characters’ names and I simply couldn’t. It’s been like two weeks since I read this and I had to flip through it to remember the details.

I mean, I liked this book. I always like these stories where the leads fell in love as teenagers and are separated by circumstances to find each other as adults. This is probably my second favorite trope after marriage of convenience. I liked Max and Abby and most of the supporting characters — I definitely hope this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Max’s sister and Abby’s cousin.

I’m not entirely sure why this book isn’t going to stay with me. I guess maybe I’m just tired of daddy issues being the only thing that drives male protagonists. Max is a horrible rake who doesn’t ever come home to see his sister because of his father? Eh. It’s just over done.

I’ll probably reread this book, but only because I like rereading books that I don’t remember that well. They always feel new again 😛

Bella and the Beast (Olivia Drake)

Overall

Of all the books in this series, this is the one that closely aligns to a specific fairy tale and features references from the Disney 1992 movie, down to being forbidden to go into the west wing. That 1992 movie is one of my favorite movies of all time so I was already predisposed to like this story.

The characters and the romance make up for a little bit of a lukewarm plot. I love the heroine–Bella is incredibly self-sufficient and her own person. I liked Miles a lot — there are few things I did not love him about him, but they’re more about the plot. I liked the way they worked together, I liked watching them get to know one another. They just worked.

I think my main problem with the plot of the story is that there are a few extraneous characters who don’t serve a purpose and the murder of Miles’ father happened more than two decades before the book opens, so it feels a little dusty as a motivation. When you find out who the villain is, it’s hard to believe it could have stayed hidden for so long.

But all the pieces line up and I like the romance so much that this is one of my personal favorites to reread.

Abducted by the Prince (Olivia Drake)

Overall

Objectively, this is not a stellar book. It’s fine and everything works for the most part, but there’s nothing here that should blow me away or that’s special. Yet, for some reason, I love rereading the second half of this book from time to time. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.

Ellie is a spinster poor relation who has spent her whole life tending to her younger cousins because of her gambling father. Damien is an illegitimate gambling club owner who has a childhood connection to Ellie’s cousin, Walter, who stole something that relates to Damien’s murky past. To get it back, Damien decides to kidnap Beatrice, Walter’s cousin, but ends up with Ellie. They don’t know that until they’re up in an isolated Scottish island.

There are a lot of readers, particularly these days, that would be turned off by the kidnapping trope. It’s not really a deal breaker for me–it usually depends on the context and the way it’s written. It’s not great, but it’s not as bad as others I’ve read.

The romance is actually pretty good — I buy the slow build and the reasons these two come together, their bumps in the road. I like both the characters, but I think the overall plot is pretty weak and the supporting characters are cardboard and one-dimensional.

I think it’s a good book that’s worth reading once, maybe twice. With a tighter plot and better supporting cast, it would have been much better.

Stroke of Midnight (Olivia Drake)

Overall

There’s something about this book that I just don’t connect with. All of the elements should be there, but something is missing — I think it’s in the characters and the romance after a certain point. This is one of the books that does the setup just right but misses the dismount.

Laura Faulkner returns after ten years abroad–she and her father were once the toast of the ton but forced to flee when he was accused of stealing one of the most valuable diamonds from a leading hostess. Until then, Laura had been courted by Alex, the Earl of Copley. It was Alex that found a set of earrings and publicly accused her father. Laura cut his cheek, scarring him, as she and her father left. She returns after her father is killed in London, and wants to clear his name. Through Lady Milford, Laura becomes the companion to Alex’s aunt and that’s how they run into each other.

I think maybe I wanted more from Alex and from the romance after the middle of the book. Alex is supposed to have a tragic backstory, but I never quite felt that. I like this book, but it just left me meh and I usually skip over it when I reread the series.

If the Slipper Fits (Olivia Drake)

Overall

I really like this book, and it serves as a really good introduction to the series (which lasts another five books). I think it was my first Olivia Drake book and I’ve been relatively happy with her all along.

There’s a bit of a fairy tale element with this series and with this book specifically. Annabelle is an illegitimate orphan left to rot in a boarding school where she now teaches. She’s given a position as a governess to an orphaned duke by a slightly mysterious benefactor, Lady Milford, who also gives her a pair of elegant shoes. It’s the shoes and Lady Milford that ties all six books together rather than the characters. She’s sent to Cornwall where the duke, Nicholas, is living with his guardian, his uncle Simon. It’s very much a Cinderella story.

I really like Annabelle and Simon for the first 80% of the book. Simon is a bit of a bitter soul–Nicholas’s mother was a woman Simon had courted but married George, the duke. He didn’t speak to his brother again before George and his wife died. He went into the army, had plans for his life–but now he’s guardian to a little boy that he resents.

And Simon is unlikeable for the first third of the book. He really resents his nephew. I applaud Olivia Drake for actually writing a guardian who doesn’t like his ward rather than paying lip service. It gives Annabelle something to do when she shows up.

My main problem is that Simon’s POV disappears in the last part of the book, leading up to the climax. He does an about face that we don’t get to see, only experience when Annabelle does. I expect my main leads to do equal heavy lifting in my romance novels, and Simon’s epiphany happens off screen. There are a couple of things that happen this way towards the end. The background plot with attempted killing and whatnot — it happens in a bit of a hurry, and I think that’s why it feels rushed at the end.

It’s an overall satisfying read, but if Simon had just showed up at the end of the book, it could have been one of my top favorites.