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Book Review of The Heir (Duke's Obsession, Bk 1)

The Heir (Duke's Obsession, Bk 1)
The Heir (Duke's Obsession, Bk 1)
Author: Grace Burrowes
Genre: Romance
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
warbler43 avatar reviewed on + 83 more book reviews


I was not impressed with this book nor could I give it the same glowing reviews and accolades as others here have given it. Note: lots of my points will sound nitpicky to some but these are points that I just cant overlook:

The heroine, while a virgin of perhaps 22-23 years old, seemed to be very knowledgeable about sex, more so than the usual Regency miss would be. She wasnt shocked by what the hero wanted to do and didnt deny him anything. She took the initiative several times and did things that an inexperienced, unmarried woman of her time would not know about let alone know how to do. Later, she didnt recognize the fact that she was pregnant. Didnt in fact, acknowledge said pregnancy until the Duke dropped a few blatant clues during a visit at her home.
I felt the book was about 100-125 pages too long. All of the aforementioned sex scenes didnt add that much, if anything to the story. IMO, the number of sex scenes could have been reduced to maybe 2 or 3.
Too many times I felt as if I was reading book 2 in a series. Too many characters in the heros family were being dropped into the story with no explanation as to whom they were, their relationship to the hero or why they were being mentioned. Its like I walk up to someone I barely know and start talking about people I know by first name only and expect my listener to know what Im talking about. Eventually, the reader will figure out who some of these people are but it just seemed like the author placed these people in the story and there was no real reason for them to be thereexcept to confuse the reader. But there are still a few people I havent been able to identify withto me they are just names with no reason to be there.
The plot against Anna by the villains was allotted too little time. Again, IMHO, more time should have been spent developing the danger against Anna and Morgan. Nothing is mentioned or even hinted at throughout the first half of the book. We only know that Anna and Morgan are hiding from someone for some unknown reason. Of course Windham is curious and wants to know what her troubles are. He enlists his brothers to investigate her. Soon, we start to get a glimpse of danger when the stables at the house Windham purchased for his sister were set on fire just after the Earls parents hire a private investigator to discover who Anna and Morgan are and what they are running from. This investigator is followed back to London by the villains henchman thereby disclosing Annas location to villains
The excessive consumption of lemonade heavily sweetened with sugar seems unbelievable to me. Lemons were not that easy to come by unless the homeowner had a glasshouse or orangery. Nothing like that was mentioned in the book and it is unlikely that even with the capability to grow the fruit on premise, the yield would be high enough to produce the massive quantities the Earl drank in the story. Not to mention the use of sugar. Sugar was an expensive commodity in those days and was used sparingly.

As I mentioned earlier, a lot of this will sound petty to most readers, but the flaws in the book were enough to pull me from my enjoyment of the story and make me decide Im not going to give her other books a chance. I had to drag myself to finish this oneIm not going to subject myself to more of the same. I gave this book 2 out of 4 stars.