Review: How (Not) to Hate a Duke by Jennifer Haymore

                                                         

Print Length: 273 pages

Publisher: Entangled, Scandalous (February 19, 2024)

From Goodreads.com: Georgiana Milford may be a wealthy heiress without title, but even she has her limits. It’s vexing enough to be courted by every fortune-hunting noble during the Season—goodness, you’d think she was hiding a gold mine beneath her skirts! But this is not to be condoned. Because during a merry two-week party at a lord’s country home, she’s forced to endure her father’s greatest enemy and the most wretched duke in all of England: the Duke of Despots.

Theo St. Clair has hardly been the Seventh Duke of Desborough long enough to straighten his cravat, yet the ton are already nipping at his bootstraps. Starting with the Milford family who are convinced he’s exactly like his blaggard of a father. Unfortunately, nothing tempts the scoundrel in him more than the prospect of kissing the prim-and-proper-ness right off Georgiana Milford’s lovely lips...

Now they’re trapped together, forced to wear polite smiles while they trade acidic barbs and pretend to ignore the growing tension charging the air between them. But while there is danger in ruin, it’s the devastating secret her family has been hiding that will shatter Georgiana’s world…

  

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My Rating: 1 star out of 5

This book too me way too long to finish reading, and at times I asked myself why I didn't just DNF it and be done with it. To be honest, I kept hoping that things would get better, but sadly they did not, and in fact at one point (for me anyway), they took a turn for the worst. 

You see, we spent the first half of the book watching as Theo and Georgiana get to know each other beyond their preconceived notions of what they thought the other was like. And for awhile, it seems as though they were forming a genuine connection going so far as to declare their love for one another. As a matter of fact, Theo proposes to her knowing that her parents hate him.

In fact, throughout the book that is something that we are consistently reminded of. Her parents (her father especially) hate him to the point her father goes out of his way to turn people against Theo. But Georgiana is determined to stand up to her parents. And she does. At least until she's standing at the alter with Theo and he doesn't speak up and defend himself when her parents storm in dropping a bombshell regarding his father and younger brother. And I mean, I get it. You want your man to deny these allegations. You want him to declare his love for you. But you could have also stood up to your parents the way you did that day in the country.  But she doesn't. In fact, she leaves with her parents. Where she mopes and sulks around their house missing Theo. 

Meanwhile, off the page, Theo returns to his family estate and begins making all sorts of positive changes (something he claimed he had no idea how to begin while he was at he house party). This is all well and good, except I can't understand if he loved Georgiana so much why they weren't doing these things together as husband and wife. Considering her father was their neighbor, I feel like he would have come around either way once he say Theo actually making an effort. For all that Theo claimed he wanted to be the kind of man worthy of Georgiana, all I saw was a coward who was still running at the first sign of trouble. What happened the the man who proposed to her because he couldn't stand the thought of them being separated? If he had returned to the village, and his estate with the daughter of his enemy as his bride, surely that would have helped pave the way to the villagers seeing he was not the devil Mr.Milford had made him out to be. 

Speaking of her father, I felt his intense hatred for Theo due to the sins of Theo's father were absolutely unwarranted. And the fact that he had the audacity to complain about a new barn Theo built on his land because it could be seen from his attic window was simply juvenile. Even this "devastating secret" regarding Georgiana's older sister and Theo's younger brother was underdeveloped and nonsensical. I am also still unsure how Mr. Milford was able to hold such sway over the villagers and tenants considering he was a merchant living nearby, and Theo was the Duke to which the tenants were beholden. 

Overall, I think with a few edits and some more depth added to the characters this story would have been more of a hit for me. However, I would give this author another chance in the future.