Amelia Grey is a masterful author. I was extremely fortunate to receive an ARC of Yours Truly, the Duke, from Netgalley.
The Duke of Wyatthaven and Fredericka Hale
have a marriage of necessity. Wyatt needs to marry to protect his inheritance, and Fredericka to gain custody of her orphaned niece and nephew. The witty conversations and electric sparks that flew between the characters made my heart beat so fast it wqs exhilarating... I couldn't wait for them to finally acknowledge their true deep feelings for one another. A truly fantastic story!

I began reading and I instantly started enjoying the book. The characters were great and their personalities worked with each other. The story was interesting and engaging, which I thought was a new and fresh storyline. I highly enjoyed it and highly recommended reading it.

I want to thank Netgalley for allowing me to read this ARC for an honest review. All thoughts on this title are completely my own.

Was this book the worst thing I've ever read? No. Was the premise so very interesting but ended up being disappointing? Unfortunately, yes, and why this book is getting two stars. Not only was the writing completely stilted and bland, but the plot of the book moved at a snail's pace.

The characters in the book were intriguing in the beginning, but as we move further along in the book, we find out that they're totally one dimensional characters with only a couple character traits to their name. Also the chemistry between the two main characters is almost entirely non-existent. There was no sexual tension or any romance to speak of, when this book is supposed to be a historical romance book.

It was also fade to black, which is something that rarely happens in the historicals that I've read, so it came as a bit of a shock. Anyways, I don't think I'll read this author again. Their writing does not vibe with me, I don't care for fade to black, and the characters were so boring and uninteresting that I almost had to DNF this book. And this was the first book of the year for me!! Happy 2023 to me, am I right? Damn it.

Though I will say that I could see this working for some readers, it just wasn't me. If you don't like smut in your historical romance, then I might give this one a try! It was mostly clean.

Fredricka is trying to win custody of her niece's and nephew but is running into several obstacles. Along come Wyatt with a solution. Unfortunately both are stubborn and opinionated and don't express their feelings well. This was a good book but did have a couple sections that seemed to ramble, so I skimmed them.

Fredericka is in need of a husband in order to fend off a custody petition from her cousin. The Duke of Wyatthaven is in need of a wife to retain his inheritance.

I enjoyed the development of the relationship between Fredericka, Wyatt and the children., as they enter in a marriage of convenience until it isn’t.

I received an advance reader copy from the publisher. All opinions are my own.

2-2.5 Stars! I honestly wasn’t crazy about this one. This is the first book in a new series, ‘Say I Do’, and can be read as a standalone. The main characters were Wyatt & Fredericka. For the most part, I liked Wyatt, though he did seem selfish in the beginning but he seemed to grow throughout the book. Fredericka was a different story. She seemed too strict and too babying of the children and took EVERYTHING Wyatt said the wrong way. She gave ME a headache with all the misconstruing she was doing. She came off as a harping, nagging, know it all ‘female dog’ & I just didn’t like her. That these two opposites seemed to fall in “love” wasn’t believable. It seemed more like it was just lust since they were mostly arguing when they did talk & lust alone does not a strong, happy, healthy relationship make.
A lot of poetry and talk about poetry. I’m not a big fan of it but I digress.
*I received this at no charge & I voluntarily left this review.*

The premise of the book is that a Duke, who can literally marry anyone, marries this lady who needs a husband to keep her sisters children. After a series of unfortunate events lead to a lot of regency era embarrassment for the Duke and his new wife they wind up in danger of losing the kids. It’s not a bad read overall, almost no spice so if you’re wanting that move on, but I found the Duke to be a bit whiny and the relationship between him and the female mc to be confusing more than anything. Cute story but lacks depth.

An historical romance about a woman named Fredericka and a Duke named Wyatt. They’ve never met but got married because he needs a wife for an inheritance and she needs a husband to continue to be a guardian to her late sister’s children. This is a sweet story about a man and a woman falling in love and about raising children. A must read!

The miscommunication tropes in this book were unsatisfying, the semi-reconciliation at the end felt rushed and unhelpful, and it was frustrating watching adults making stupid and selfish mistakes especially regarding children for several hundred pages. Unfortunately, I will not be recommending this book for purchase at my library.

2.5 stars.

I wanted to like this book but I found Fredericka to be too annoyingly prim to actually like. Wyatt seemed to grow and become better but she was just a giant stick in the mud.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Amelia Greg brings another impeccably written regency romance with Fredericka and Wyatt, who enter a marriage of convenience and soon find that there’s nothing simple about their marriage. As the two navigate small children running amuck, a nemesis attempting to take away said children, and their own feelings for each other, Yours Truly, The Duke maintains a well written story alongside the romance.

2.5 stars (round up to 3)I was intrigued by the description of this book and the unique circumstances of Fredricka and Wyatts marriage. I felt the storyline was interesting and Wyatt was a very enjoyable hero. I thought Frederickas constant nagging at him about the children got old and I hated how she let her rude cousin walk all over her everytime she recieved her at a visit. Seemed inconsistant that she would talk back and admo ish the duke at every turn but would not stand up to her cousin. Overall I would have preferred the heroine to have been less prickly and less uptight. Parts of this novel dragged on for me and I felt myself skimming here and there. Overall the romantic build up in the relationship was well written and it was a good slow burn. While this was not a closed down romance for all the build up to their first night together it was skimpy on the details. This is the first book I have read by Amelia Grey and I would probably read another one. If it weren't for some pacing issues and repetitive sections I would have scored it higher.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and St. Martin's Paperback Publishing for allowing me to read an ARC of this novel by Amelia Grey in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

<b>Characters:</b>
<b>Fredericka</b> is a strong-willed, modest, unmarried woman who is looking for a husband in order to maintain guardianship of her nephew and nieces. I absolutely loved both her and the kids. Fredericka knew what she wanted and who she was.

<b>Wyatt</b> is a duke with a wild reputation who with plans to put marriage off for as long as possible. These plans are dashed by his late Grandmother's who's will requires him to marry in seven days. Wyatt had the mark of my least favorite MMC's which is what I like to call a 'love-phobia'. Character's like this either have incredible arcs or give me the ick. Wyatt fell into the ick category for me a lot because was so bad at thinking about what he said before he said them but also angry she couldn't read his mind. He was judgmental, argumentative, and stubborn with no charm nor enough groveling to fix it. (And no, the sad childhood incident was not enough.)

<b>Plot:</b>
I love marriage of convenience stories especially when both parties are on the same page and both get something they need out of it. I also love stories with children in it, especially since these children were adorable and well written. The pacing was great and didn't linger from plot point to plot point. I wished the real romance came sooner, 50% through the book they still had no real emotional connection to each other just physical. There disagreements on how to raise the children frustrated me to no end. Wyatt would be more valid if Fredericka was more extremely strict but she wasn't at all. He also was gone most of the time and when he was there he criticized her methods and somehow thought he knew what's best. Even at the most critical parts of the story he's gone. Their issues after that are magically solved in one argument.

<b>Secret Sauce:</b>
I thought their banter was good at first but the longer they kept have disagreements on almost everything the more it made me think they were just simply incompatible. But alas they are supposedly in love.

<b>Rating:</b> I give this book a <b>2/5🌟 rating.</b> This book frustrated me to no end. I had hope in the beginning with the children and my love of marriage of convenience stories but this was not a good read.

Yours Truly, The Duke is a solid historical romance about a marriage of convenience that is minimal in steamy scenes. There aren’t really any plot holes, so the things that I struggled with was Fredericka (in general) and the way she and Wyatt solve the custody issue of her nieces and nephew with her cousin Jane. I like the fact that Fredericka cares about the children, and isn’t afraid to stand up for them or herself, but that is pretty much where my appeal for the female protagonist of this book ends. She regularly presumes the worst of Wyatt, despite agreeing to marry him. After agreeing to live apart, she shows up in London so they can have more of an appearance of a “real” marriage and then gets mad at Wyatt when he isn’t at her beck and call. She makes him feel like everything bad that happens is his fault, and unlike her a majority of the time he is able to see how he could have handled things better, despite the fact that he’s the “rake” in the story. She’s overly strict with the children and pitches a fit any time Wyatt does something with them that doesn’t meet with her approval (which usually means letting them act like the children they actually are), and at many points in the book, her reasons for wanting the children seem to be just as much about proving to her dead sister that she has value as it is about actually loving the children. That is not a good reason to want children around. Despite there not really being plot holes, the secondary story about Wyatt hating poetry and Fredericka loving it felt forced and not a natural fit. The backstory about why Wyatt is more lenient with the children could have been better done instead of using that. The same for his involvement in gambling and sporting events. There isn’t really anything in this story that makes it really bad, but it isn’t great either. A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

There's a great premise here and the main characters are so incredibly appealing. Fredericka is trying to raise her dead sister's three children and needs a husband to fend off a custody petition from her cousin Jane. The Duke of Wyatthaven (called Wyatt, we never learn his real name), needs a wife to satisfy a codicil in his grandmother's will, which will allow him to retain his inheritance. They come together in a marriage of convenience and the expected relationship grows as they attempt to raise the children and fend off the cousin.

There are some issues here.
1. Politics are a major part of the plot, but the author shies away from assigning parties to the characters. Wyatt and his friends are obviously Whigs and the cousin is obviously a Tory. The dancing around this is distracting when anyone who reads historical fiction set in England knows the major parties and how they operated. The hesitance feels like a modern attempt not to offend, but it's distracting.

2. The removal of the children was a thoroughly modern scene that was out of left field. It would have made more sense for Jane to steal the children than for a troupe of constables to show up at a Duke's home. The year isn't specified, but we are at some point after the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815). A formal police force like the one described didn't exist until the 1830s and wouldn't have taken children from a Duke's home. I honestly thought we'd be getting a scene with the hearing where Wyatt would disclose his secret funding of the hospital to thwart the proceedings.

3. Jane's redemption arc...or non-redemption arc. Jane is a thoroughly rotten character and Wyatt bringing her into his home for reconciliation baffles after the horror she put Fredericka through. It's out of character for Wyatt. Even during her final scene, Jane is terrible to Fredericka. The agreement made between the three boggles the mind in light of what this woman did. This does not contribute to a happily ever after.

4.The poetry. There was such an opportunity for Fredericka's love of poetry and Wyatt's aversion to it to be a more elegant vehicle throughout the story. The use of poetry was clunky. A little more editing and it could have been a lovely aspect of this story.

5. The romance. I'm fine with closed door, fade to black, even no details at all. I'm also fine with full details in a bedroom scene. What is a little odd is when you have omniscient narration for the entire book, but the bedroom scene has allusions and gaps. Fade to black would have been less jarring than what we got here.

I loved the premise. I loved Fredericka and Wyatt (especially Wyatt) interacting with the children. I loved the marriage of convenience evolving into something more.

I have been provided with a copy of Yours Truly, The Duke from the publisher via NetGalley for an impartial review. This is the first book in the brand-new Say I Do Trilogy series and this was just a great way to start off a new series. This was such a cute story. I was drawn into these new characters' lives and I felt so much for these characters and everything that they had been through. It was just so easy to get lost in this interesting story. The only drawback I had was at the beginning of each chapter there was some poetry that I thought was unnecessary and didn’t help the story move forward at all. Other than that I really enjoyed this story and I look forward to reading the rest of the books in this series.

Yours Truly, The Duke is book 1 in the Say I Do trilogy by Amelia Grey.
This is an excellent story, extremely well written and very entertaining.
Yours Truly, The Duke is one historical romance set I'm looking forward to continuing.
It is definitely a story worth reading and one I would highly recommend.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I requested to read and review this book for free from St. Martin Publishing Company. This book has romance, mystery and drama. This book is a great read for anyone who likes history and romance. You will meet some fun characters. Wyatt is a Duke that has done things his way for many years but plans have to change. Can he rolls with those changes. Frederica has had things happen in life that don't make it easy for her to trust. But can she open herself to what she needs to her and what she needs in life. Life can sometimes throw us a curveball but what defines success is what we do about it. This book is for mature reader and can be ready anywhere.

Ms. Grey pens an excellent tale of a pair of injured souls, that overcome their insecurities and find salvation with each other. Both carry regrets for things beyond their control and both need to forgive themselves for those things. Add three adorable children and what appears at first to be a villain for an intriguing tale. I found it enjoyable and recommend to Historical Romance lovers.
I requested and received a NetGalley ARC and offer my opinion gratis.

Thank you to the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

For most of this book it was a solid romance and I was really enjoying it. You can't go wrong with marriage of convenience and adorable kids. I loved how the relationship between the Duke and Fredericka was developing. The pacing of the story was great and the way the relationship between the duke and the nephew and neices was growing was a delight to read. However, the third act resolution really ruined it. It just soured the whole book and left you wondering was there no better way to solve the problem?