* I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.**.
Oh do I love a good redemption story. I love when I despise a character in a book and then I see they are the focus of a future book and I think “ugh I am never going to like him/her” and then I’m wrong.
Paul was a jackass. He’s made a lot of mistakes. Mistakes that many are reluctant to forgive. His past was awful and he brought it forward with him.
Daphne is an amazing character. I loved how she cake to see Paul in a different light and worked to show her family who she saw.
I enjoyed this book and need to go back and read the earlier books in this series.

This was cute, but forgettable too. I think I enjoyed the more recent book in the series more and I might not seek out the first few, but overall, cute storyline with fun characters.

It was a cute historical romance novel. However, I became bored quite early stage. The writing is not as good as popular authors in this genre. You need to have something special, different from other authors to break into this already crowded genre.

I loved this story. I thought Daphne and Paul were a great match from the very beginning. Paul was a bit hard in himself for the thing he did while he was hurting from his father’s treatment. I don’t like how they threw into the story Paul true father. I felt there was enough going on with that

A fabulous historical enemies to lovers story, and the redemption story to our dark hero is phenomenal! I was on the edge of my seat trying to figure out how it was all going to work out, but the ending was great! Fabulous chemistry. Great couple. Great storyline!

A good love story that you can curl up to read on a lazy Sunday. Exiting twists and turns keep you turning the pages till the very end.

The characters and emotions of this story really draw in the reader. Daphne was very obviously devoted to Paul and it was so touching to see the extent of her feelings for him. And Paul's character was perfectly dangerous - like the historical "bad boy." The story line ended up getting a little cliched towards the end for me but overall it was a sweet and romantic story and I enjoyed it! I'm looking forward to reading the next one in the series this month.

The Good, the Bad, and the Duke by Janna MacGregor- Both this series and this book are totally delightful. The characters are very relatable. There’s a depth to the storyline that makes this a page-turner. Highly recommend this series and this book for historical romance fans.

I am a sucker for Christmas-themed romance, and this is a pleasant one. The plot here is relatively novel for the sub-sub genre of Christmas historicals: it's Home Alone! The heroine has been left behind accidentally while the rest of her family celebrates Christmas away from London, because Christmas in London is just hilariously unfashionable I guess. With naught but servants to guard her honor, she ropes a local bad boy into protecting her for Christmas. The hero is the foil from previous books in this series (which I have not read, I picked this out solely for the Xmas Sexmas factor) and this is his redemption story.

Unfortunately the similarities to a modern classic film stop after the left-behind plot, for the conflict in the story is sadly not based on comedic booby traps, it is based on a rather lame stolen-diary plot. The heroine is TSTL enough to not only write down facts which would RUIN her family if they got out, and then just twit around with it in her handbag all day, so it gets stolen. The hunt for the diary requires H and h to squirrel around town at disreputable and sexy spots, and spend all sorts of compromising time with each other, and fall in love etc. etc.

I feel like this one was stretched to pass the 300 page mark to get the full ebook price out of buyers, because the plot was a bit too thin and pushed to really work. Would have made a more charming novella with the dumb diary plot removed and more focus on natural H/h interplay. Still worth a read if you're jonsing for that Christmas historical fix.

Janna MacGregor created a scenario I'd never read about in Regency HEAs. I enjoyed this fresh look at the spinster sister. Don't leave this one behind!!

This book, like its title, has the good, the bad, and well, of course the duke.

The good:
I enjoyed the book enough to want to read the others (the previous ones) in this series;
and did like the story of redemption;
as well as the 'home alone' theme (though felt it was one of those implausible things - see 'bad' below);
liked the sweet, tender romance that made it's way into the story part of the times;
and breakings and mendings and friendships as well.

The bad(or well, not so good):
It was not unputdownable, as in I did not mind putting it down and definitely was not in a hurry to get back to it;
It's wordiness was a bit much;
and well, though it is fiction, some things were still implausible

Overall, a good HR but not my favorite in this series.

disclaimer: thank you to NetGalley for the original digital review copy (i ended up reading a library copy for this review)

It’s Christmas and Lady Daphne is ready to celebrate but her family leaves her home alone. She decides to use her time to work on her dream of opening a home for unwed mothers. Soon she is battling the family nemesis for the same property and her diary is stolen. Daphne has always had feelings for the Duke of Southart in spite of her family’s scorn for him. They make a deal to work together to find the diary and change her family’s opinion of him. Is love the answer of are they doomed? A well written and enjoyable story from Janna MacGregor

I enjoy Janna’s style of storytelling - and this story was great! Loved the characters and the emotional ending.

Loved the characters and different storyline then most historical books. Definitely addressed issues back then and helped set the stage of life back then

This one was absolutely my favorite of the series. I loved Paul. He was sweet and kind and should be protected at all costs. Daphne was a good heroine, I liked her in the previous books and I liked her here. But for me this book is all about Paul. I hated that he had so little self worth and was glad he had Daphne to help him realize how wonderful he is. I also loved the kitten. I really hated the nickname Moonbeam though.

Lovely writing and swoon worthy romance!! I loved every second of this. I will be reading more from this author for sure!

I started reading this book and sort of unintentionally moved on to other reads--I haven't been in as much of a mood to read historical romance for a while, so I probably shouldn't have requested this at the moment.. It's honestly the perfect Christmas historical romance read, though! I'd definitely recommend it to readers of historical romance who can't get enough of Christmas books--especially spins on Christmas movies (Home Alone).

Previously having read the story of Lady Daphne's best friend and her brother, I was excited to see how her story would end. I was pleasantly surprised at the storyline and how everything unfolded. Sometimes the ones you think are bad, are just good guys lost and needing the right person to help them see more of themselves.

I have not read the other three previous books, and I didn't need to. I liked this book and I plan to go back and read the others. I really enjoyed the concept of the protagonist left behind by her family with time to figure out what she wants to do with her life. I also liked the redeemed main love.

This is book four of the series, and while it helped immensely having read the first three books, I suppose it isn’t entirely necessary. The author has such a tangled web of characters that familiarity helps.

I’m in the minority and not usually a fan of “reformed bad boy” stories, but something about our hero’s backstory drew me in. The heroine’s determination to stand by her man was a pleasant surprise as well, especially after I found her to have little depth in the first half of the book.

The biggest surprise of all is that this is a story of grief. Whether losing the loved one to a prolonged death or a shocking suicide, this story deals with how those deaths affect those left behind. And it’s not always pretty: there’s plenty of anger and guilt and regret and angst. But that made the story all the more real to me.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.