"A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby" by Vanessa Riley'
Yes, it took me a few chapters to get well and truly hooked on this story. But then I got caught up in the inter-play between Patience and Busick and the suspense surrounding the death of Colin, her husband, his cousin. And as they say, the rest is history. The big questions. Will Patience and Busick learn to trust each other and become a team? Will they resolve the questions surrounding Colin's death?
So, in my opinion this is a good Regency Suspense story with a side of romance. Happy Reading ! !
note: I received an ARC of this story from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

Series: Rogues and remarkable Women #1
Publication Date: 6/30/20
Number of Pages: 320
*** 3.5 Stars rounded up ***

This was my first book by this author and it was a very enjoyable read. The storyline was unique for the Regency period and it was well presented. One unusual thing in the story’s presentation was that it alternated between first and third person which may bother some readers, but not others. While this wasn’t an unusually long book, I felt as if it took me a long time to read it – even though it didn’t. I’m not sure why that was – just me I guess. The story moved along at a good clip and it was well-plotted, but I did think the villain was a bit of a fizzle. While there was both a romance and a villain, I did feel that they were subservient to the story the author wanted to tell – which was the treatment and lack of acceptance of people of color during the Regency period.

Busick Strathmore, Duke of Repington, was severely wounded and lost a limb at the battle of Badajoz. He was Wellington’s right-hand-man and dearly wants to get back to the battlefield. I did come to like Busick, but it didn’t come easily. I think that was mostly because he seemed to be a cardboard caricature of a dedicated military man. I loved his determination to care for and protect his new ward, Lionel Jordan, who is the son of his much-loved cousin, Colin.

Patience Jordan was a lovely character and I admired her courage and loving heart. I liked her as soon as she graced the page. Just after the death of her mother, she fell madly in love with Colin Jordan. Almost as soon as they married, they left her West Indies home, Demerara, and traveled to Colin’s home in England. Patience did all she could do to please Colin – she adopted English ways, she perfected her speech, but Colin always left her at home in the country while he lived mostly in London. He explained that he was doing it to protect her because as a Mulatto (or Blackamoor – I was never sure which) she would be ridiculed and not accepted.

When Colin committed suicide, his uncle, Markham, swooped in and took over. He put Patience in Bedlam and took over custody of Lionel. The story is about Patience doing whatever she had to do to gain custody of her son and to escape England. You’ll love how selfless, brave, and loving she is.

There wasn’t much time spent telling us exactly what The Widow’s Grace society is nor how it came to be. We are to just accept that it exists and that they found and rescued these two ladies from Bedlam. I really wish that there was more focus on who Patience was as a person rather than what she was. I understand that the author wanted to focus on the story as a person of color, but that isn’t all she was. I wanted to get to know and like her for who she was, and there was some of that – just not enough to suit me.

We got to meet the featured characters of the next book and I liked both of them. They are both mixed-race as well and are struggling to find acceptance within London society. Since I liked both characters in this book, I’ll give the next one a read as well.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I stopped reading about a third of the way in. I just never sunk into the characters or the story or the setting. I feel like I need to be invested in some part of the book and I was forcing myself to read. I loved the premise, but this one was just a miss for me.

A book you can read again, again, and again!
An intimate, sweet, and courageous story of Patience, a mother in a strange land trying to recover her son Lionel. She faced injustice and finding hard to love her son’s new guardian Busick Duke of Rippington.
It’s an interracial couple Patience is a mulatto from Demerara falls in love with an English gentleman who takes her to live on his England estate. Patience is thrown into a world where she is constantly trying to mold herself into a perfect wife for her husband and battling censure because of her skin color. Unfortunately her husband dies leaving her to the mercy of Lord Markham her husbands uncle (the Villian) takes advantage to wreak havoc on Patience that ultimately has her separated her from Lionel. When Busick enters the story he comes home to take Lionel into his guardianship and loves the baby like his own. He has been wounded all over his body even has had a leg amputated, but that doesn’t stop him from taking control to ensure Lionel and his soldiers are well. Patience finds support in The Widow’s Grace, a fellow hood of widows supporting each other from others that cheated them out of their lives. The Countess and Jemina St Maur are founder and fellow widows that help her infiltrate to recover Lionel and to find out the mystery of her late husband.
Throughout Patience wrestles with her feelings towards Busick while over coming her self doubt.
This book is so different from the Regency roms I’ve read before. Even after the story finished I read everything else that as a history buff I loved!
Thanks to Priscilla Oliveras for the recommendation and NetGalley for an early copy.

A Duke, the Lady and a Baby was a sweet and easy read. It has a bit of a mystery that I figured out pretty early on and highlights the ways in which women don't have authority over themselves or their offspring among other things. I enjoyed it and look forward to reading the next book in the series.

I wanted to love this book, and my problems with it definitely weren't due to the writing. If anything it was that the writing was too good and as the mother of a young son, the early chapters were so hard to read. It took me several tries because I was just feeling so much

I wanted to love this one but honestly the only reason I finished it was because it was an easy read on a non busy work day. The writing was fine and the story was okay but this is a romance. Where was the chemistry? I don't mind a slow burn but I like a well done slow burn that makes me anticipate more. Patience was strong and determined to reunite with her son but I didn't get much from the Duke. One thing that intrigued me was her being from Demerara which is now present day Guyana. But other than mentions of rum and sugar I didn't get much of a sense of that culture. It would have probably also helped if the chapters were from his pov in 1st person instead of 3rd person. 2020 romance has really been disappointing me this year.

I received a copy from the publisher for an honest review. This one is 3 1/2 stars rounded up to four. Patience Jordan has escaped from Bedlam after she was forcibly placed there following her husbands death and is secretly sneaking back into her home to see her 4 month-old son Lionel. Trying to protect him from her husband's wicked uncle, Patience fears she's gone from the frying pan to the fire when the Duke of Repington storms the castle, ejects Markham, and takes over care of Lionel as guardian. Repington is a former solider under Wellington who returned to England after being severely injured and approaches everything with military precision.

Patience finds herself falling under Repington's spell despite her unpleasant marriage; after marrying Colin, she was left in the country for months at a time under the guise of being protected from the cruel ton due to her mixed heritage. Repington's bond with her son is adorable and heart melting. Can the pair figure out if Colin really committed suicide or was there more to it? Why is Markham determined to gain control of Lionel and discredit Patience's sanity?

Overall, I liked both characters. Repington is struggling with his injuries and how they impact his and society's view of him as a man; Patience's struggle to believe in herself again after trying to conform to what she believed her husband wanted in a wife despite her own unhappiness. I did feel like the romance was a little lighter than I was hoping for, but overall enjoyed both the story and characters. If you are someone who doesn't like books told in the first person, be warned that the book is told by alternating between Patience and Reppington with Patience's being in first person. I look forward to future titles in the series especially given the set-up regarding Patience's missing sisters as well as Repington's friend.

I was so excited for this book. I’m a fan of Vanessa Riley’s flowery, high-drama writing style because…it’s flowery and high-drama. (Right?) And it’s not that I didn’t like this book…it was just the POV thing. The heroine is presented in first person and the hero is in third. And it kept throwing me out of the story. I’ve read a few books with that structure and it always throws me. So. *shrugs*

Vanessa Riley is fabulous. I still highly recommend her. Which is why I’m rounding my 3.5 up top 4 stars. If not for the POV thing I would have been ALL in. I liked this story, for sure.

Thank you Netgalley and Zebra for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby was fine. That's really all I can say. It wasn't great, it wasn't bad, it just was fine.

3 stars

I’ve recently started reading Victorian era fiction. A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby had an interesting plot. Vanessa Riley’s main female character was strong and so courageous. A character you will find yourself rooting for in all the drama.

Thank you Netgalley and Kinsington Books for this ARC. I enjoyed this light and fun read!

I couldn't finish this, I was so turned off by the writing style, it just felt unnatural and clunky. Disappointed because I was so looking forward to it based on the blurb, but maybe this author and I are just not a match.

Ultimately not for me.

Recently widowed Patience has had her home, fortune and child stolen from her, and she will do anything to rescue her child from the evil man that has her baby in his custody. Then in comes Busick, her sons new guardian who hires her to be the baby's nanny.

I love that the novel has a mixed-race heroine, I feel historical romance is a genre that severely lacks representation in a substantial way, so I like it when I see it! The harrowing descriptions of Regency racism, prejudice and sexism are well done and move the story forward.

However, I found some of the wording hard to get around. While it may be a historical romance novel, it is being published in 2020 and the purple prose makes it a little difficult to initially get into. I was also a little confused by the Pov perspectives changing.

Honestly, I found the opening line which was an homage to Pride and Prejudice to be out of place-- especially considering there are other novels of Austens that might fit in with this novels plot better, Like Sanditon, which has a black heiress, or Persuasion, which is about a more mature couple finding love. I kept waiting for Pride and Prejudice to come up, and it didn't, so I felt left down with the homage.

This is clearly the first book in a series, and I tend to give these books a little more slack because they are clearly setting up the world and characters for future books. That being said, there is a lot of exposition in the beginning of the novel.

While this book was ultimately not for me, it is a solid regency romance novel that others might enjoy.

DNF @ 20%

I tried so hard with this book, but the writing was so all over the place, I had to put it down. Patience's POV is in 1st person and Buswick's in 3rd that it was a total whiplash to switch. The writing was just so unnecessarily complicated, I do barely grasp what was happening. I love that the lead was a WOC and the book wanted to focus on widows discounted by society, but this wasn't it - at least not for me.

I truly loved reading this book! It was totally exhiliarating historical fiction. I loved the romance that blossomed between the two! When I had first read the title name, I thought it was going to be another story of a lady impregnated by a duke...lol but this one was not it. The plot was simply superb. I loved everything about this book!

The cover and description of this book really drew me in, but I didn't love this book. I found the dialogue to be clunky and stilted. I know it's a historical romance and there was a more formal conversational tone than we have now, but it just didn't flow.

I love a duel POV story, but I found that having Patience's narration in first person and Busick's in third person was confusing, especially when they started sharing chapters. It was too much to jump back and forth between the two. At some points, as well, it was difficult to tell which characters were speaking.

I did, however, love that this was a historical romance that focused on issues such as women's rights, mental health, and racism. I also loved that Patience wasn't waiting around for someone to save her, she was ready and willing to go down fighting for herself and for her son.

This was exactly what I expected - a great fun read with an original plot and a strong, kick ass heroine.

I am not at all into a first person narrative. Also, the writing quality was far lower than I was expecting.

This book was not as lighthearted as I was expecting from the cover and description (I’m used to more silliness in my Regencies), however it was still very enjoyable. It was great to read a Regency romance/adventure with more diverse characters than most I have read. The plot itself was compelling and kept my interest throughout, though it was slightly more stressful than I prefer! I thought the secret society (the Widow’s Grace) was an excellent invention, something that was definitely needed in that era, where most women had very little power.

As other readers have mentioned, I found the switching of tenses/points of view disconcerting. It seems odd to me to have one POV written as “I” whilst the other is written as “Busick”. However, other than that and using the word eminent instead of imminent (I’ve assumed that was the intended word from the context), this book is well written.

If you’re looking for a gripping Regency romance/adventure, with diverse characters, then this could be the book for you. There’s also a recipe for the much-mentioned coconut bread at the end, along with some very interesting factual notes.

I was given a free copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

Unreadable. One star rating provided below because it can not be submitted without stars. No reviews published, because I really couldn't get past the first couple of chapters.