Trope:different class/second chance/rags to riches

This is book #2 to the series Once Upon A Dukedom but can be read as a standalone.

This book was a winner for me! I love seeing two people of different backgrounds and station come together as one. I especially enjoyed Penelope's character. She's intelligent, kind, passionate, but most importantly she's a survivor and can stand on her own. Hugh's character is also very likable too. What I loved about him is that he's a considerate man and a fair person. He believes a woman is just as capable as a man. Hence that's how he meets Penelope, and how she became his secretary. She was not what he advertised for but she convinced him and he gave her a chance. They both have secrets of their own and surely it starts to comeback and hunt them. Together they work as a team and is there for eachother.

Penelope has been secretly in love with Hugh for the longest. She knew she loved him without a doubt but kept her relationship with him very professional. She also felt she had no chance because he was her employ, and she viewed herself as a staff member.

Story starts off with Hugh feeling he's getting older. He needs to settle down and procure a heir. Therefore he sets up a task for Penelope to find him a duchess. Also he expects her to choose the right woman. Anyhow That's how their love story began. Soon enough he realizes how attracted he is to her, and how much she means to him....

Their love story was well written and focused. There's cute banther between the characters, sexy, and well worth the read.

Lorraine Heath is a master of emotional and tension-filled romances that always provide a satisfying end. The Duchess Hunt includes a heroine with a mysterious past and it was so hard not to flip ahead to find out more about her story. This book was the perfect addition to Heath's latest series and provided such a nice escape.

This was a difficult book to review. The best part of this book was the last third. The beginning through then was BORING. However, like I said things really got good when things started to actually happen to the characters. Before it was all dull dialogue and the characters walking around each other like newbies to lust, desire, attraction and love. I thought it felt a little ridiculous that the main characters were in there late 20's and early 30's. Yet they somehow managed to act like young adults just hitting 20. But getting back to the last third of the book. WOW!!! I was really impressed. Both had really dark secrets. I would never have been able to guess. Their secrets were unpredictable and original. The author was extremely creative and realistic. I did feel bad for both of them that they had to suffer. But when all was out in the open between them it was a much lighter burden to carry. I loved how the main male character started treating his younger brother better and gave him direction in life. The epilogue was wonderful. It amazed me that the lead female character's secret carried on way into the future that the future generations continued to do everything they could to keep the secret. It was that profound. An amazing finish.

Loved loved loved this story. Strong heroine, great love story with a fabulous build up. Kept me turning the pages longer into the night than was wise for getting up the next morning but we’ll worth it. Lorraine Heath fans won’t be disappointed, newcomers will have found a new to them must read author.

I have read about a Duke falling in love with the governess in the past but have yet to read a historical that involves a secretary...until now. I found I quite enjoyed this one. Hugh, Duke of Kingsland, is coming off a fail in trying to find a Duchess when the woman he chooses, picks someone else. Having lost confidence in his ability to find someone, he turns to the person he trusts most to help him. Penelope has been Hugh's secretary for 8 years and has secretly loved him the entire time. While she knows that it will hurt to find Hugh a Duchess, she has yet to turn down a request for help from him and so sets out to find the perfect match.

I really liked Penelope. She is strong and independent. I loved that she worked her way into a predominantly male environment and holds her own, garnering respect from those she works with. She is a professional through and through. Hugh is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the way he cares for those he loves and the easy camaraderie he has with Penelope. Their friendship is easy and it's completely believable how they never really approached the idea of them with one another. There is never a point that feels unbalanced, despite his rank and their working relationship. The chemistry is great and their backstories original instead of easy to guess.

This is a fast read and a well-written book. I'm really enjoying this series by Heath. I would recommend this to anyone who is a fan of a friends-to-lovers romance.

To say I enjoyed this story would be an understatement. This book is about The Duke of Kingsland, who is also called Hugh and King. Hugh thought it was time for him to marry, so he decided to advertise for a Wife. He tried this once before but the woman he picked left him, so this time he decides to have his secretary pick him the perfect wife. Penelope Pettypeace was Hugh’s secretary and secretly in love with him, but because of her past she thinks there is no future for her with the Duke but decides she will find him the perfect wife. The attraction between the Duke and Penelope was strong and it was wonderful reading about the Duke falling in love, when he thought he would never love. I did not want to put this book down. I would like to read about the other Chessmen and Hugh’s brother.
I received an ARC copy of this book from NetGalley for my honest opinion.

5 Stars — loved this story and watching Hugh realize his perfect Duchess was right in front of him. Cannot wait for the next books!!

Full RTC

The Duchess Hunt features a hero who considers himself heartless and a heroine who has had to do whatever she had to do to survive. The hero, the Duke of Kingsley, went against the norm and hired himself a female secretary years ago. He has respect for her opinions so much so that he has commissioned her to find a wife for him. Penelope, his secretary, will do whatever she can to ensure his happiness, even if it means finding him the ideal wife who isn't herself. What wasn't expected by either party is the Duke's shift from seeing Penelope as Pettypeace, his stalwart secretary, to Penelope, the woman he desires and cannot live without.

Lorraine Heath is a brilliant writer and it certainly shows in this book. Both characters are perfectly crafted because they're flawed in very realistic ways. Kingsley (Hugh) has a tragic backstory that well explains his emotional numbness and provides a great frame for why he acts as he does and makes the decisions he does. Penelope's backstory is just as well-crafted and her "secret" isn't as easily guessed as the heroines of other stories with similar tropes. In fact, it had me thinking deeply about a controversial topic and seeing it from a different light. I have to be honest, the last few chapters of this book had me in tears, it was that will-written. I can't say enough good things about this story and would highly recommend it to anyone.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and unbiased review. This ARC did not influence my review in any way.

I had a lot of fun readying The Duchess Hunt- to me it felt like a regency equivalent of a modern day “bang the boss”. I liked how Lorraine makes you feel really invested in Penelope Pettypeace who is the secretary to Duke Kingsland. She really tried to set boundaries- but in the end who can resist the smoldering boss?

Pettypeace was also charged with also finding a new Duchess for Kingsland. I loved the bachelorette feel of the book where Pettypeace went interviewing all the candidates. I also felt for the lovely recluse who wanted to write novels and be left alone- made me feel like the world was sorta plausible because not everyone was searching for a husband.

I loved the twists and turns- especially Pettypeace and and Kingsland past. Great surprises, did not see either of those coming. I was left intrigued. I read this under 24 hours! Definitely would recommend if you also like a little drama and suspense with your romance.

I’m sorta sad we didn’t get to see more of Knight, whom is apart of Kingsland’s man squad. He was super sexy and I sorta wished Pettypeace paid more attention to him. I hope we get a spin-off for him! I would rate this a 4 out of 5. This Netgalley ARC was provided to me in exchange for a fair review. Definitely would purchase for my library!

I probably shouldn’t have liked this book as much as I did because the whole storyline is slightly disturbing. But what can I say? I like a little darkness twisted into a HEA...makes it seem more believable somehow.

The reason I ultimately gave this book 4 stars versus 5 was because of the books hero Kingsland. Let’s just say he has NO self-awareness and it was driving my disgust meter up every time we got his POV. There is a scene where he is clearly having a moment with Pettypeace and then deserts her to head over to his mistresses. Um no, sir. Not okay. And then the ending…he almost didn’t come out with his secret to Pettypeace. He was basically put in the situation of having to confide in her. Then he becomes angered when he discovers she has kept her past secrets close to the chest and didn’t confide in him? I can understand him being upset but what pushed me over the edge was how unsupportive and judgmental he acted towards her. Again, um no, sir. Not okay.

What made this book for me was the fantastic writing, creative storyline and the heroine- I just loved Penelope. I love a character that doesn’t let life's challenges impact them, she rose above and got everything she deserved in the end.

SIDE NOTE: Where has Lorraine Heath been my whole life?1? I remember reading and loving Waking Up With the Duke… but somehow Heath fell off my radar. I fully intend to seek out all of her books and read them. I will definitely be reading book 1 of this series as soon as possible!

I did enjoy Penelope and Hugh in this book however, it took forever for the romance to start. Penelope has been the Duke of Kingsland's secretary for 8 years so they have an established relationship. Much of the beginning of the book showed this and it took a while for them to get together as a couple. It wasn't so much a slow burn as just slow.

Both MC's had secrets. Hugh's was really big but Penelope took it in stride and not much was made of it. Penelope's secret wasn't as big a deal but Hugh could not take it and lashed out at her. I thought his reaction was over the top especially as he was planning to marry someone else and their affair was just an affair.

I did love the epilogue and that was what moved this from a 3 -star to a 4 -star review.

I enjoyed this more than the previous book. For the first half it was pretty much perfect. I loved Kingsland and Pettypeace's working relationship and their repressed and unacknowledged feelings for one another. I loved how he valued her as his secretary more highly than he would most men. I loved his relationships with his mother and brother. I was ready to give it a glowing 5 star review.

Then... I got to the sex scenes around the 50% mark. And... they made me cringe. They weren't written nearly as well as the rest of the book and they went on for far too long. Now, keep in mind that I'm very picky about sex scenes (honestly I prefer a fade-to-black 99% of the time) and they are usually where my criticisms for a book can be found. But. Some are definitely worse than others. At this point I adjusted my mental rating to 2 stars. Maybe 3.

And then it got good again. Hence the 4. But there are definitely aspects that are well worth 5 stars.

Penelope Pettypeace is as clever and determined and brave as any character I've come across and I love her. She deserves all the good things and I love how her secret from her past is resolved. The Duke of Kingsland genuinely cares for people and I love how when he discovers Pettypeace's tiny room in the servants quarters with its hard chair he 1) gives her a much better chamber (coincidentally near his own) and 2) buys all the servants plush wingback chairs to replace the hard wooden ones. He's a good man. He's done some not-so-good things (for good reasons), and he's convinced he doesn't have a heart, but he cares.

There was a good bit of angst for poor Pettypeace, tasked with choosing his bride when she secretly loves him, but it's not overly much and I love how she sets about it.

Overall it's a fun, enjoyable read and I recommend it, for the first half and last quarter if nothing else.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Avon & Harper Voyager for providing an e-arc for review.

As always I enjoy Lorraine Heaths books and that includes this book. I liked the story based on Hugh who projects coldness and Pettypeace who is his very efficient secretary. I liked the vulnerability of both of them and the love that can save both of them. The book can be a little slow in spots but overall it’s a good book.

The Duchess Hunt was a fun and relatively fast-paced read, another excellent addition to a series I love!

Pettypeace (Penelope) and Kingsland (Hugh) are characters easy to love for their intelligence and determination, but Kingsland you want to smack upside the head for being so obtuse when it comes to Penelope. She's been in love with him more or less her entire years-long tenure as his Secretary, yet she remained determined to focus all of her energy on being indispensible to him as his employee, never letting it get in the way of her work.

We discover they both have at least one BIG SECRET of varying gravity, and each is eventually outed with very different results. You can't help but empathize with them over the reasons for those secrets since the author revealed them in their own ways, equally as compelling.

I couldn't put this one down!

Thank you Avon Books, Harper Collins Publishing, and Lorraine Heath for the ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the book overall (I had not read a Lorraine Heath book in several years, but I will need to get back into her work). The book (especially the first half to two-thirds) was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the heroine's competence and the hero's recognition of it very much. I also tend to enjoy when the characters are obviously in love and everyone knows it but them. I did find the treatment of their secrets a bit odd - she often worries about hers and his barely rates a mention before the reveal when his is a way bigger deal than hers (scandal versus actual crime, however justified), so the pacing seemed odd, in my opinion. The end was a bit of a letdown, however - I was disappointed in how the hero reacted to her secret. She reacted with kindness and empathy to his secret and he reacted with judgement to hers even though he already knew her family was in dire financial straits in the past. I assume this was to set up the separation/conflict at the end of the book, but I would have preferred him to be a better person than that.

*I received a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

Huge fan of Lorraine Heath. She has once again delivered an enjoyable regency romance. I love how the author revisits previous characters from her other novels.

Great story of the heroine loving from afar and the hero opening his heart to love.

Hugh Brinsley-Norton, the Duke of Kingsland, is a laser-focused, analytical, moneymaking machine. When he became duke, the title was in a total mess with no money in the coffers and debts running out its ears. He knew it was his job to protect his family, protect his tenants, and protect the duchy, so his one focus became that of making money. Fortunately, he was very, very good at it and he is now one of the richest and most powerful people in England. What he is not good at is emotions – because he has no heart. At least that is his belief. His father was a cruel and hateful man who used Hugh’s mother and brother to keep Hugh in line. So now, at the ripe old age of four and thirty, it is time for him to take a wife and set up his nursery. Fortunately, his requirements for a wife are very simple – she needs to be quiet and not bother him – and she needs to provide him with his heir and spare. He doesn’t plan to fall in love – or even like – and doesn’t expect his wife to love him either. It will be strictly a business arrangement and therefore he’s set his secretary to finding and choosing his bride. Goodness, goodness, goodness – will these men never learn?

Penelope Pettypeace is every bit as bold, intuitive, organized, efficient, and focused as Kingsland and that is why they work so well together. She was amazed when he hired her as his secretary about eight years earlier. She had boldly walked into his office and proceeded to convince him that she was the perfect secretary for him even though she was NOT what he had advertised for. Now, he’s assigned her the most daunting task yet – she is to choose his wife. That is going to be a very, very difficult thing to do because she has come to care deeply for the man. She knows he doesn’t reciprocate those feelings – and even if he did, nothing could come of it. So, she’ll do her best to find him a bride who will make him happy – even though he doesn’t know that is what he needs. Penelope’s past has caused her to reinvent herself time after time, but she’s been Penelope Pettypeace longer than she’s ever been anybody else. She knows there will come a time when her unsavory past will catch up to her again and she’ll have to move on – but not today – please not today.

Penelope and Hugh both have some very deep, very dark secrets. Secrets they share with absolutely no one else. Those secrets are much too dark to share – for anyone else to know. Yet, just as they have come to realize they share an interest in each other, those secrets threaten to come to light. Is it Hugh’s secrets or Penelope’s that are about to come to light? They’ll have to find out and deal with the threat of exposure. Will their fledgling relationship survive?

We met Hugh and Penelope in the first book of the series, Scoundrel of My Heart, and I couldn’t wait to read their book. You don’t have to have read that book to enjoy this one, but it is such a good book, why wouldn’t you want to read it? This series is actually a spin-off of the Sins For All Seasons series – which is also a great series.

I definitely recommend this book! While Penelope had known for a long time that she cared for Hugh, it was wonderful to see Hugh come to the realization that what he really needed had been under his nose all along. I hope you’ll read and enjoy this book as much as I did. Now, I can hardly wait for Marcus’s book!

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

The Duke of Kingsland needs a wife since his potential fiancee ditched him in the last book. His secretary, the stalwart Penelope Pettypeace is tasked with finding him a duchess. Pettypeace is determined to find him the perfect wife even though it will break her heart since she has been in love with him for years. But she's resigned to unrequited love because not only is she a commoner but she also hides a terrible secret and a scandalous past.

I love Lorraine Heath. She's one of the few authors I still auto-buy. I like her authorial voice, her prose is clean and not flowery, her books are romantic, her heroes sexy and she has a wicked way with a plot twist. All of these things are present in this book. I loved the dialogue, the humor, and the revelations that even after reading most of her books I didn't see coming. I liked Penelope. I loved her strength, her directness, and the way she just told it like it was. She was also a virgin but she wasn't shy about what she wanted and it came across as genuine and organic to her character.

But, I hate to say his book fell a little flat for me. I devoured the first book but this one I put down and had to force myself to pick it back up. The first half was a slog. I couldn't understand why after eight years of working alongside Penelope Hugh had a sudden hard-on for her. What made him change his mind and see her as an attractive woman and not just an efficient secretary? This is never satisfactorily explained. I'm normally trash for the unrequited love trope but I felt I was being told and not shown Penelope's pining. The longing and yearning that LH shows so well in other books were missing here.

This brings me to the big secret. Penelope has a huge secret and this is set up to be the conflict. Then halfway through it turns out the duke has an even bigger secret and that one is uncovered and resolved within a few chapters. Penelope's big revelation gets dragged on until the very end and then everything is rushed and we get a HEA. The pacing was way off and I disliked Hugh's reaction to her revelation which seemed out of character for him.

I liked the second epilogue though. I love when I get a glimpse, no matter how small, at modern-day descendants.

So in the end this wasn't bad it great. It was just okay. Recommend if you love slow burns, friends to lovers, and plain-speaking heroines.
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⭐⭐⭐/5
🔥🔥/5

Once Upon a Dukedom is one of my favorite Lorraine Heath series even though we're only two books in. I definitely recommend reading book one first although it's not absolutely necessary.

The austere Hugh, a Duke with a family reputation in ruins is your typical broody male, clueless about love. He's the definition of a perfect gentleman and determined to find a wife who will bring honor to his family name. Falling for his secretary is definitely not planned and makes for a sweet, Cinderella like story with a friends to lovers feel.

Penelope is basically a saint, extremely smart and puts up with Hugh and keeps his life in order. She's also in love with him. I fell more and more in love with Hugh, myself, as the story went on and was rooting for their HEA big time. These are two very serious individuals who deserve love and happiness and they have a true partnership.

I can't say this was the most exciting book I've ever read but a strong heroine and satisfying love story made me really enjoy the book.

I absolutely loved this book. Although it can be read as a stand-alone, it really added to the story that I read the Sins for All Seasons series and the first book in the Once Upon a Dukedom series and knew the backstory and side characters. I think the author did a fantastic job of cross referencing in the books.

The writing was top notch, and I did feel the deep connection between the Hugh and Penelope. Even though Hugh realized his feelings for Penelope late, there were signs all along of his feelings over the past years of her working for him and how deep they were, I don’t feel it came out of no where. Their friendship and understanding of each other made their chemistry hot.

Where The Duchess Hunt went wrong were in the secrets and personal dialogue. It was hard that the secret wasn’t revealed to the reader until later in the book, yet there is a ton of repetitive angst surrounding it. I pushed through it though because the chemistry was so awesome between Hugh and Penelope, and I couldn’t wait to know what happened next.

Once I started the book, I was unable to put it down and wanted to swoon when Hugh was on his knee. Penelope was my favorite kind of heroine, her independence and intelligence was refreshing. I absolutely loved Hugh’s mother and brother. It is not often that there is a mother who meddles only when needed and is so supportive. I enjoyed Lawrence’s transformation, his love for his brother, and his support for Penelope. I hope he gets his own book.


Thank you Avon Books, Harper Collins Publishing, and Lorraine Heath for the ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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