Veteran author of Regency romances Sabrina Jeffries is back with the third installment of her fun Duke Dynasty series, Who Wants to Marry A Duke. I’m a sucker for a smart heroine, and Olivia Norley more than fits the bill. While she’s more interested in her chemistry experiments than attracting Marlowe Drake, the Duke of Thornwood, she eventually catches on and realizes there’s more than one type of chemistry in the world.
Nearly a decade ago, Thorn and Olivia were caught in a compromising situation, and he proposed marriage to save face after being basically blackmailed into it by her mother. But Olivia said no, because chemistry was her jam. She spent their time apart bolstering her brain with knowledge rather than the frivolous debutante details of her contemporaries, and Thorn spent his time becoming a famous playwright under a nom de plume. Meanwhile, Thorn’s mother has been losing husbands, and it all stinks of arsenic poisoning. When Thorn’s brother hires Olivia to investigate, Thorn decides to tag along, as he’s still suspicious of her motives. It doesn’t take a genius to guess what happens next.
Jeffries is an expert in the Regency era. She does, after all, hold a Ph.D. in English literature. (There’s a fabulous primer on her website on the short period of history that has sparked hundreds of years of fascination.) If you’re not familiar with the Regency period, which lasted from 1811-1820, the most important thing to know is that women were expected to be pretty, quiet and boring. The thing that makes all of Jeffries’ heroines stand out is that none of them are quiet and boring. Pretty? Often. But the women she writes are spirited, intelligent, devilish, brave, independent and politically and culturally savvy. They are true heroines; she-ros, if you will. And Olivia Norley is definitely a she-ro.
