Ladies (and gents) - this made the list of my 2017 favorites. I knew after the first couple of pages that this book would be special but the more I advanced the more it became obvious what a wonderful story Tessa Dare has created with The Duchess Deal.
For once I'll forgo the summary because the blurb says it all...
Emma is a spirited young woman with a huge capacity for love and compassion. When she arrives at the Duke's house all she wants is to be paid for her labor that went into the creation of the wedding gown for Ash's former fiancée. She is facing a man covered in burn scars who proposes to marry her because he needs an heir.
He had to be joking. “You can’t be asking me to marry you.” He sighed with annoyance. “I am a duke. I’m not asking you to marry me. I am offering to marry you. It’s a different thing entirely.”
Ash can't stomach the hunt for a bride - he can't even stomach his own face and body in the mirror. When the young seamstress enters his house he knows she is the solution to his problems. He doesn't want this cousin to inherit the title and all that it entails so he needs an heir of his own. It is supposed to be a marriage of convenience and as soon as Emma is with child she is to live in a house in the country. Neither of them anticipated how their mutual attraction would change the course of their lives.
These two characters were made for each other. Both of them have ulterior motives for the marriage, both of them try to stay detached. And of course both of them fail. Emma is a wonderful heroine who does what the thinks is right. She isn't intimidated by the duke which Ash finds rather curious and his admiration for the young woman grows. Emma finds beauty in everything, and especially in the bitter, cynical young duke. I loved how she accepted him, how there was never a question that she desired him for the man he was with all his flaws, physical and character-related. With her selfless, kind and sweet mind I was completely charmed by her. Her sass, the endearments she found for Ash were comical.
“Would you like more sauce, sweeting?” His fingers strangled the stem of his wineglass. She could practically hear the grapes calling for help. She hoped that was a good sign. “If you don’t cease that nonsense,” he said, “you will regret it.” “Is that so, my heart?”
“What about ‘precious’?” she suggested. “No.” “‘Angel’?” “God, no.” “‘Muffin’?” In response to that, he hit the shuttlecock so hard, it sailed all the way to the back wall and thwacked one of his ancestors right in the powdered wig. She cheered. “Well done, my precious angel muffin.” “This stops,” he said. “Now.”
Ash...can I say that he is probably one of my all-time favorite HR characters ever? The retorts he volleys back at Emma had me laughing out loud so many times, I stopped counting at some point. Life wasn't kind to him until the sweet little seamstress entered his life. He suffered horrific injuries during war and the scars make women and children run from him terrified so it's only natural that he keeps people at arms' length. But when Emma comes into his life she shows him that he is desirable and good and soon he knows that if he lets her go his life will become darker again. He wants to protect her and hold her close.
“You are wet, and you are cold. You don’t like being cold. Therefore, I despise you being cold. I would go about murdering raindrops and setting fire to the clouds, but that would take slightly more than an hour. Perhaps even two. So we’re here, and you will cease complaining about it.”
Emma tries so hard to make him believe her that he is more than his scars and it was incredibly sweet to see the ice wall around his heart thaw. His indignation, arrogance and snark but also his big heart, deep hurt and vulnerability make him one of my most favorite and swooniest heroes in Historical Romance.
“You’re here,”he repeated, taking her hand and drawing it against his chest, right above his pounding heartbeat. “In my heart. Somehow you crashed your way into it when I wasn’t looking. The same way you barged into my library, I suppose. But you’re here now, inside. Emma, you’re the very life of me.”
One thing I need to mention that was incorrect (and I do that because of my Viennese ancestry) - Wienerbrød isn't an Austrian pastry, it's Danish. However, that's no biggie, I just wanted to mention it for the sake of authenticity.
Tessa Dare really brought these characters to life. I could feel the whole range of emotions these two went through in every word and it's a testament to this author's writing abilities. I have read some of Ms. Dare's books before but I think this is my favorite so far. The smart banter was one of my highlights. There is a whole range of potential future heroines, all of them with their own quirks and I am already salivating for the next book in this series!
When it comes to Penny Reid's books I associate words like warm, smart, wonderful and one-of-a-kind. These are her stories. These are her characters. And with each book I'm becoming a bigger fan. I have no idea how she does it but her stories draw me in, grab me by my black heart and won't let go. With each story I learn something, something that makes a substantial difference in my life and that's how I love my stories.
In Beard in Mind we get Beau's story. You see, he reeeaally doesn't like Shelly, his new co-worker who was hired by Cletus while Beau was on a business trip. She's rude, stand-offish and tells him that his face is crooked. Now, the charming Winston brother DOES NOT like to hear that and he's fuming and contemplating a plan how to get rid of her...but somehow...this woman sneaks under his skin and he finds himself completely charmed by her quirks. When he learns about Shelly's condition he is nothing but supportive and helpful. He comes up with solutions that might help this amazing and strong woman deal with her lot in life.
“Do you feel sorry for her, Beau? Is that why you want to help? “Hell, yes, I feel sorry for her.” “That’s not a good basis for—” “But mostly, I feel sorry for everyone else. Because from what I’ve seen, the glimpses of herself she’s shared with me, it’s a damn shame no one else gets to see it. It leads me to suspect that what we see of her on the outside has nothing on the beauty of the inside.”
But Beau also has some burden to carry. One of them being his twin brother leaving for a long journey - he really struggles with that. Plus, with almost everyone in his family having somebody to lean on he feels like he is being left behind.
Oh Shelly...Her isolation and loneliness caused by her condition is heartbreaking. She has learned to put an impenetrable facade in place that keeps her from getting hurt. Too much emotional pain comes from her disorder. She works so incredibly hard to learn to live with it, to improve her life's quality. And then Beau comes along and lifts her spirits and becomes a fixture in her life and gradually teaches her that the OCD doesn't define her as a person. He is somebody she can lean on and who lifts her burden. Who also learns in return that she is strong enough to be there for him when he needs it. Shelly was such an amazing heroine - she made it to one of my top favorites.
Shelly and Beau's love story is full of warm, tender moments but also some very steamy ones.
“Shelly.” “Yes?” “Look at me.” “Why?” “I love how it feels.”
I loved that they didn't want to change one another. Especially Beau was completely accepting of the woman he loved, he saw perfection in her disorder, her quirks. Talk about quirky, we get to see the whole bunch of Winston brothers and one of the funniest laugh-out-loud-scenes came from, who else could it be, the ingenious Cletus Winston.
I have so much love for this book. As always we get an unorthodox, singular story with a lot of cleverness and humor from Penny Reid. She is becoming one of my favorites fast and, God, can we have Billy's story soon? I will not so patiently wait for this author's next release and while I do I will go through major withdrawals because that Penny Reid? Totally got me hooked.
“I love you, Shelly. I’ll love you when you break. And I’ll love you when you put yourself back together.”
Astrid - The Bookish Sweet Tooth
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