How to Love a Duke in Ten Days
Devil You Know #1
By Kerrigan Byrne
ISBN # 9781250318848
Author’s Website: kerriganbyrne.com
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Omar
Summary:
These men are dark, bold, and brave. And there is only one woman who can bring them to their knees…
Famed and brilliant, Lady Alexandra Lane has always known how to look out for to herself. But nobody would ever expect that she has darkness in her past—one that she pays a blackmailer to keep buried. Now, with her family nearing bankruptcy, Alexandra strikes upon a solution: Get married to one of the empire’s most wealthy eligible bachelors. Even if he does have the reputation of a devil.
LOVE TAKES NO PRISONERS
Piers Gedrick Atherton, the Duke of Redmayne, is seeking revenge and the first step is securing a bride. Winning a lady’s hand is not so easy, however, for a man known as the Terror of Torcliff. Then, Alexandra enters his life like a bolt of lightning. When she proposes marriage, Piers knows that, like him, trouble haunts her footsteps. But her gentleness, sharp wit, independent nature, and incredible beauty awakens every fierce desire within him. He will do whatever it takes to keep her safe in his arms.
Review:
It all starts at L’Ecole de Chardonne, a school for girls were Alexandra Lane meets Francesca Cavendish and Cecelia Teague, all three aristocrats with flaming red hair who become inseparable friends. The goal of all three, at almost seventeen, is to graduate and leave L’Ecole de Chardonne and pursue a University degree, but evil is within men with power and Alexandra is forced to save herself. In one moment, her life is changed forever and with her two other friends, they are forced to bear a secret that would destroy them if it ever comes to light.
Years later, after exploring the world and earning her doctor in archaeology, Alexandra receives an invitation to her friend Francesca’s wedding. This is the first sign of danger, the women swear to not marry, but with the invitation came a note asking for her help signed by Francesca. As Alexandra arrives to Devonshire station and waits for her friend Cecelia to arrive, she saves a woman and her child from a rampage of horses and in the process meets who she believes to be the stablemaster of Castle Redmayne. A spark ignites in both of them, but Alexandra’s fear of men makes her flee to her friend’s safety.
The next day after reuniting with Francesca and learning the reason for her sudden wedding, Alexandra meets Francesca’s future husband, the man she tough to be a stablemaster, but instead is Piers Gedrick Atherton, the Duke of Redmayne. In a turn of events, Alexandra ends up marrying Piers instead.
I liked How to Love a Duke in Ten Days, it was a good story to take your mind off of things and was interesting to find out who was the mystery blackmailer. I liked Alexandra and Piers, their first meeting was a little bit cliché, but it still gave the reader a good shocking moment you didn’t see coming. Alexandra’s character shows a woman that has tried to move from the events of her teenage years and got an education in a time were it was frowned up. She has a problem, well many problems, but she does her best to find a way to resolve them.
The other characters that I liked were the other Red Rouges, Francesca and Cecilia, who by their own means are characters that I would like to know more about or see them have their own adventure. Both of them have secrets that were revealed to the other two and would be a good plot story to follow, at the same time, smart women that would change the mind of any person they meet.
The story had some funny scenes and interactions among different characters that give the reader a good laugh. It made me laugh. I did find Piers family interesting, but I felt that the author was building up the importance of the ancestry more and how they came to be, and at the end it was just forgotten.
Like any other romance genre story, there are enemies or villains in the shadows, but the majority were easy to spot since the beginning and others were truly a surprise.
The end of the story gives us an idea of what to expect next with the rest of the red Rouges and who might be the men they end up with.
If you are a fan of Kerrigan Byrne and her work, then I recommend you How to Love a Duke in Ten Days. In this story, a woman that has guarded herself all her life comes to the end of the road and she has to make the decision of marrying a man she just met or suffer the consequences of her secrets coming to light. Because, what’s best than having the Terror of Torcliff on your side.
