Fun characters, a nice regency setting, an "enemies to lovers plot," and some unexpectedly steamy sex scenes make this a fun read. The facile geopolitics, creepy (if unfortunately mostly historically accurate) orientalism, instant maternalism, the timeline (especially in terms of the length of voyages to France, Italy, and Turkey), and honestly silly political machinations that lead to their marriage took away from this book. But it's a fun steamy beach read romance novel!

This book wasn’t for me unfortunately. Due to a recurring theme of an issue with consent in their sexual relationship I ended up DNF’n this one. This type of issue is problematic for me and not something I choose to read. If this isn’t an issue for you, this book may be for you.

Two Disparate Halves

I strongly dislike when an author doesn't understand a key distinction between terms, especially in a historical novel like this. Perhaps she did understand the difference but thought readers wouldn't care. I'm one who tends to be a stickler for the details. The “privateer” mentioned in the book's title is actually the heroine, which I thought was a cool twist in itself. But she really wasn't a privateer in the truest sense, though because of her friendship with Prinny that we see in the very first chapter, she could have been one. Instead, she's just a smuggler, though of fine goods from Europe and the Orient that others have a hard time sourcing during the years around the Napoleonic Wars. In case you don't know, a privateer is essentially a smuggler or pirate who is allowed to do his or her “sourcing” by the Crown of an official agency. As one person has said, a pirate with papers. The heroin was not that. I also felt like the book had two very distinct and very different parts that were not well joined. We have the first part of the book where the hero and heroine are at odds because he is one who's trying to crack down on smugglers... and she's one of the biggest, most successful ones. When it looks like all is to become undone for her, essentially, the Prince Regent strongly suggests or orders the hero to marry her to save her from jail or the noose.

After being a story about the heroine staying one step ahead of the hero (or at least trying to), it turned into a standard marriage-of-convenience, will-they-or-won't-they-fall-in-love romance. I didn't really feel like the author created much conflict or tension in this longer second half of the story, so it all fell flat. I was at turns annoyed by and enamored by the hero. There were moments of questionable consent, which I never like to see in a romance. Yet, on the other hand, he could be very romantic as he tried to woo his wife. I loved the rose petal scene at the end. All in all, I found this an uneven story that had incredible potential but didn't quite make it. I did like the subplot about the heroine's father. We first see him lost in his own world because of what we would now call PTSD. Fortunately, the hero and one of the father's old crewmates are able to slowly bring him out of his misery. It was a beautiful little subplot. By the way, I listened to this as an audiobook, and while the British male narrator did a decent job giving each character a unique voice and manner of speaking, I always find it odd when a man narrates a romance. To me, as a romance reader and lover for decades, romance is an inherently female subgenre of fiction. I much prefer to hear them with female narrators.

Such a cute historical romance book! Definitely hard to really get interested in at the beginning, but I did enjoy the ending. Thank you to NetGalley and Oliver Heber Books Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Audiobooks for a copy of this book for an honest review.

The Duke's Privateer was a first for me by this author and series, pair it up with the narrator and you have quite the enjoyable read. I managed to finish this book while painting my bedroom. And since I don't read historical romance that often, I kept things pretty open-minded for this one.

I must say that I liked both MCs quite a bit especially Eleanor. She's fully capable of taking care of herself and I loved that she had a bit of a one up on Sher. And the chemistry between them was perfect. Despite what he was working towards and how he comes off, there's definitely some decent character development for him.

It is a bit of a slow burn, which I was surprised that I managed to stick with it since I struggle with that trope. But we can definitely owe that to the narrator, Loved their voice and how they told the story, they kept me engaged the whole time.

Truly a good read and I'd definitely pick up another audiobook from this series.

This review will not be posted online.

I decided to DNF this book at 33% of the audiobook. Initially, I was enjoying the book and was at a point where I was starting to really feel the relationship between Duke and Eleanor. However, there was an instance of questionable consent that took me out of the story. Eleanor explicitly tells the Duke to 'stop' during their encounter, however he ignores this and continues.

I read a couple of other reviews where this is mentioned as a recurring theme in the book.

Consent is a massively important thing in romance for me, and for that reason, I chose not to read any further.

This book was okay, but it dragged on a bit too much in my opinion. Nothing much happened in the middle there. But I liked the fact that the lead character was a strong woman with a spine - not every woman in historical books are incapable and dainty and only able to cross-stitch, pour tea and make small conversation with people.

I downloaded this book as part of the beta test for NetGalley's new audiobook playback and therefore only listened to a couple of chapters. I did enjoy what I listened to as it seemed like a very nice setup and the narrator did an excellent job distinguishing voices and matching the pace of the novel.

This is my first read in this genre. The Duke’s Privateer is the third book in the Devilish Dukes series, but I read it as a standalone.
This is the story of a spinster, Eleanor Kent, who turned to smuggling to aid her family after they became deeply in debt upon her father’s return from war and the Duke of Danby, Sherborn Price, who has been charged with finding out who the smugglers are by the Prime Minister. This story turns into a marriage of convenience and eventually enemies to lovers.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this book and leave an honest review.

No privateer. I really hate it when the title of a book is based on a total lie. For what? Publicity? Ugh!

It has been a while since the last time I read a historical novel and this one was exceptionally good. I really enjoyed the story the narrators. Just everything. I couldn't put the book down or to be more precise I couldn't stop the audiobook. I loved it!

I received this for an honest review from Netgalley. This was a book I listened to on audiobook. This is a story of a women left destitute after her father is injured in battle. She takes to smuggling to make the money to keep her home. There is a duke she was interested in, but she had a terrible coming out season and swore off marriage. The Duke is investigating smuggling for the King, but the heroine is the smuggler being investigated, This is a wonderful tale of how everything works out in the end.

Amy Jarecki is one of my go-to authors when I am looking for some historical shenanigans. These two characters were no different than any of the others I have enjoyed so much. The characters were the story under the goals of the two. Eleanor was strong and independent, but hid behind a mask.

Philip Battley was the addition that allowed for the story to play like a movie in your mind without turning pages or tapping a screen.

This was my first novel /audiobook of this genre, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.
I must say the listening was easy and entertaining, the narrator does an excellent job of impersonating all the characters with different tones of voice and different accent.
I didn't care much about the sex scenes, I felt they weren't necessary and made me cringe a little.
All in all the book is enjoyable, and does a very good job of transporting you in another period of time, with beautiful descriptions of palaces and attires.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Woo, okay. I haven't reviewed in a couple of days and I feel weird about doing this review. I also feel like I haven't read a lot lately but I hope to change that in a bit. But today I finally finished this audiobook. It's an historical romance between a Duke and Eleanor, a privateer. I had no idea what that word meant and it's pretty much a legal pirate. She was described as a smuggler but I didn't really feel like I learned a lot about that which is something I was curious about.

The romance was the focus of the book obviously but unfortunately this one didn't really work for me. Some of the things the characters said had me cringing a little bit. And I noticed a couple of times that the hero kept kissing/touching her etc when the heroine told him no or pulled away but then seemed to like it. It felt a bit icky which made me uncomfortable even if she seemed to like it or whatever. This wasn't my favorite historical romance but it wasn't all terrible and the audio was easy to listen to though.


<i>(Thank you for letting me read and review an ARC via Netgalley)

Really enjoyed this book. Beautifully read by Philip Battley with very distinct voices for each character.
After just one season, Eleanor Kent had to set up a privateering business to stop her family from becoming destitute after her father was left disabled after the war. After many successful years, it looks like it may come to an end as the Prime Minister has put together a taskforce, lead by the Duke of Danby, to stop smugglers.
Sherborn Price, the Duke of Danby is fascinated by Eleanor when he meets her at a party held by the Prince Regent. He also knows that her family have a shipping business which may be involved in smuggling. He decides to employ her to redesign a room in his house so that he can ferret out if there is anything going on.
A very will they/won’t they story with both characters unsure of the attraction they feel for each other. There are some unexpected elements thrown in which don’t really add to the story and seem unnecessary. Its seems like a long listen (29 chapters) but the lengths vary. Overall a interesting read/listen.

The Duke's Privateer by Amy Jarecki was a slow like for me. I wasn't so sure about it when the book started and I wasn't sure what was keeping me from falling in love with it. It took me a few chapters to actually get into it, but once I did, it was amazing!!! I loved the story and the slow burn romance, the whole will they/won't they/when will they kept me interested. I loved the characters and how perfect they were for each other, but they just couldn't/didn't want to see it. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good historical fiction/romance.

I am unable to get to this title and won't be able to leave a review in a timely manner due to health issues.

I enjoyed this audio book and believe the narrator Philip, is quite perfect!
We find Eleanor, a young self-named spinster, and a smuggler helping the Prince of England decorate his home. Meanwhile, the Duke is heading a task force to stop the smugglers! Eleanor is a very strong and caring woman who turned to smuggling to save her home and family, and the Duke is a kind and honorable man who is trying to right the coffers of Britain!
I won’t tell you the tale, but I think you’ll enjoy it!

The Dukes privateer was a good but very interesting listen. To start off the titles a little misleading. Before even before starting this book I looked up the definition of privateer since I didn’t originally know it and per the definition it gave a privateer, basically, is a pirate with papers. They are people who have privately owned commerce ships fully equipped with weapons that would be contracted out by the governments to attack vessels. Now in the Dukes privateer the main character did have a privately owned commerce vessel that was fully equipped with cannons though it was not being used to attack enemy lines or enemy ships it was basically just a ship under her name. Smuggler would have been a much more accurate description of what Eleanor did and it would’ve been just as captivating as privateer for the title. Now going into the contents of the book it was fairy well laid out had a very engaging plot line. It could’ve gone without the vivid descriptions of erotic encounters between the main characters or at least warned of the content. The ended was sweet and heart warming
I did enjoy the narrators voice. It was very smooth and pleasing through it all. I would suggest this as a nice light listen so I would be suggest carefulness of where you listen to it as it is not appropriate for all locations.