This is an entertaining, fun read. I really enjoyed Daniel and Adeline and their journey through this story. They are similar in their devotion to their passion and how it’s influenced their characters. I loved their time on page together, there was never a dull moment. It was funny seeing them grow as individuals and as a couple through the course of the story. Some of the funniest moments come from the animal side characters and I wish we had gotten more of that.

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

To begin with, I'm still a little confused as to why a Duke would feel the need to rent a cabin in the middle of nowhere when even he thinks to himself that he has countless other properties from which he could enjoy solitude and work on his inventions, but I suppose had he done that he wouldn't have gotten the chance to meet Adeline.

Speaking of those two, I liked Daniel and Adeline on their own, but when they were together, it just felt too forced. To the point that I was surprised that anyone believed their fake relationship was real. Even when Daniel supposedly realized that he was in love with her, I just didn't buy it. Maybe I just liked them more when they disliked each other, as it was during these moments that a lot of the fun banter was had between them. I feel like what made them interesting and unique in the countryside was lost when they decided to travel to London.

I also had a hard time taking Adeline's half-brother Edwin seriously. He was supposed to be the great villain of the story, but in reality, he was just a bully and a bigot who took great pleasure in belittling Adeline simply because her mother was of Arabic descent (one of many details that was repeated so often that it became annoying).

I did like the fact that even though this was the second book in the series, I was able to enjoy it as a stand-alone. I assume that two of Daniel's friends are from the first book, but they were just there as background characters, so you didn't need to know too much about their story for their presence to make sense. There were also a lot of cute moments between them that didn't feel as forced, which I think will cause other readers to enjoy this one even more than I did. I would read more from this author.

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

This is a very sweet historical romance with well-fleshed out main characters. Adeline and Warwick has their own things going on in their lives that adds depth to their personalities, however, their chemistry as a couple was lacking in my opinion. The first half of the book was very compelling and engaging to read but as Adeline and Warwick goes back to join the Season, it became boring for me. Nonetheless, I can still see other readers enjoying this book more than I did.

Adeline has moved to the country after her half brother has ejected her from the family home when their father passes away, she hopes to become the local healer. Warwick has temporarily moved to the country to focus on his work but the neighbors dogs have been constantly barking for almost 24 hours, he decides to confront the neighbor only to find it's a beautiful woman with a pet pig that promptly charges him, knocking him down and aggravating an injury. He becomes Adeline's patient as she helps heal his arm and when he finds her arguing with her brother about a forced marriage claims to be courting her. They hatch a plan to keep her unwed and get his godmother off his back about courting anyone so he can focus on his work.
This was fun, I enjoyed that the heroine was mixed race, not so much that her brother was a racist jerk about it, but the heritage and traditions are always interesting to read about and the main and side characters where all intelligent and interesting people. The bonus shish kebob recipe is a fun extra as well.

He is a duke but an eccentric genius and she is the daughter of an earl but a healer. Put them together and you have an engaging romantic tale with very likeable characters except for the villains, that is. I started reading and didn’t surface till the end of the book.

I received an ARc of this book from Netgalley and leaving my review voluntarily.

How Not to Marry a Duke is the second book of the Daring Ladies series. This is the first book I have read in the series and am looking forward to reading them all.

Lady Adeline and the Duke of Warwick are neighbors in a small village. He is only interested in his inventions, she's a healer and wants to help out where needed in the village.

Shortly after moving to the rundown cottage, she inherited from her father Adeline is trying to make it hospitable for her stay there. Her half-brother shows up one day much to Adeline's dismay, he informs her she is to be betrothed to a man who is willing to marry her in spite of her not being of respectable birth. He has always looked down upon her and her mother. Adeline has no intentions of marrying this man and uncovers that her brother is in debt, and she is basically being sold to the man to cover the debt he made to a money lender. She tells him to leave her home and believes that to be final.

Warwick is on his way back for the second day in a row to Adeline's to return her pet pig, Henry who got away and made himself at home is his house. When he hears Lord Foster telling Adeline she has no choice, Warwick announces that she cannot marry the man since he is courting her. Warwick and Lord Foster have been rivals since school and neither are happy to see one another.

Lord Foster leaves believing he has the upper hand, they put their heads together to come up with a plan until after the season is over and they can go back to being just neighbors. But the more time they spend together the less likely they are to be anything but involved with one another.

This book is a wonderfully written and totally entertaining romance. I really liked the characters and the plot to thwart her half-brother. Heaven help me, I even liked the Henry the pet pig.

A new beginning. A fresh start. A dream of becoming a healer. Lady Adeline Cameron is determined to make the best of her future in the rundown cottage her father, the Earl Foster, left her in the Kentish countryside. The ton rejects intelligent women, especially when they’re not of pure breeding. Her mother was Lebanese, and a healer and midwife herself. Her skin just a touch darker, extensive knowledge about herbs and the wish to marry for love is all Adeline has left of her.

His godmother, the Lady who championed him when his own parents failed him, would like so very much to see him settled. So now he, Daniel Millstone, Duke of Warwick, is hiding in the countryside. Anonymous peace and quiet to conduct his work. Engineering, mathematics, science - that's what fascinates him. Improving technology and his inventions. That and running his duchy, of course. He’ll choose a wife. Eventually. Just not this Season. The ton can entertain themselves. Mad, they call him. Eccentric. Rude.

But now his new neighbour and his livestock disrupt that peace. Their lives literally collide - a meet-cute - when he stalks over to set the man straight and her 200 pound pet pig Henry runs them over. Yes, his new neighbour is a woman. A striking beauty. Mesmerising, wilful and opinionated.
Returning Henry from an uninvited visit to his drawing room the next day, Daniel finds her cornered by her boorish half-brother who is coincidentally Daniel’s childhood nemesis. The oaf is threatening to marry her off to a despicable moneylender to settle his own debts. Blue-blooded gentlemen that he is, Daniel promptly declares he’s courting Lady Adeline.

Maybe not his brightest idea, but a convenient solution to both their problems. His godmother will leave him in peace and her half-brother can sod off. An agreement of convenience. One minor detail: they will have to convince their families and the ton of their honourable intentions… whatever could go wrong?

📚 The story of two highly intelligent kindred spirits. Both looking to better the lives of those around them. He a socially clumsy, nerdy and eccentric - he turned his ballroom into a workshop – duke who doesn’t think love exists. She the self-confident bluestocking lady who kickstarts his heart. Which wasn’t her plan at all! She only wanted to heal the burn on his arm.
With a little nudge here and a little push there by Lady Heywood, Daniel’s doting godmother, and Hasmik, Adeline’s Egyptian companion. Slowly they discover one another. Acceptance, respect, trust. Their agreement evolving into friendship and eventually blossoming into love. But it’s not without a struggle!
📚 fake courtship, forced proximity, unconventional MCs, steamy, open door, slow burn, enemies to friends to lovers

I honestly devoured this book! It’s beautifully written with a fresh and original story full of love and laughter and drama and wonderful characters! I highly recommend it!!
Thank you to Tina Gabrielle, NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for this eARC.
All opinions expressed are my own.

2.5 stars

You know the feeling when you start reading a book where the plot sounds so much fun and it has all your favorite tropes and starts out great with lovely and strong characters. I experienced all this when I started reading 'How Not to Marry a Duke'.

But midway through, it took a turn. The writing was not engaging enough which affected the flow of storytelling. I enjoyed the first half of the book. I understand the need to prove that their fake engagement is real but the minute the characters reach London, the storytelling changes. The book starts out with a talented, strong-minded healer and an inventor trying to pretend an attachment while they are so annoyed at each other and changed to just an Earl's daughter (who is unlike other ladies) and a Duke faking a courtship and falling in love. What started out as fun just fizzled out.

It could have been so much more since I know the author has released amazing books previously and I feel this one missed the mark.

I’d give this 3.5 stars if I could! I really liked both Adeline and Warwick, and fake dating/courting is always a winner in my book. Warwick is my favorite kind of regency hero, not interested in marriage not because he’s a rake, but simply because he’s too intellectual and everyone finds him weird. Underneath all his bluster, he needs someone caring like Adeline, a brilliant healer and all around lovely person. Their romance is sweet before it blooms into something more intense, and I loved the pacing of it.

Adeline being of mixed heritage brought a welcome new element to the typical historical romance. Her Middle Eastern culture was celebrated as vibrant and beautiful, and it was so sad to see her wonder if Warwick would even like that aspect of her.

The writing itself is the one thing keeping me from giving the book more stars. It was slow to start and a little explain-y in tone sometimes. But the plot and characters were more than enough to keep me interested until the end!

I requested to read this book as it sounded promising, and I had never read this author before. The story is about Daniel Millstone, the Duke of Warwick, and Lady Adeline Foster, his neighbour and her pet pig that attacks him while he's in the garden. This brings the two together and he realises that Lady Adeline is the half-sister of his nemesis. He does not fare any better with Adeline either as she's not impressed with him at all initially. This situation is not helped as Daniel comes across as arrogant

This was an ok read that tended to be a little too slow for my taste. Adeline's mother is middle eastern - the daughter of a travelling rug merchant. Of course, the fact that they were both stubborn, social misfits was what drew them to each other.

Would have preferred few pages but an ok read for me. I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence this review.

This entertaining (I read it in a single day) new Regency Romance, How Not to Marry a Duke by Tina Gabrielle, utilizes the fake courtship trope.

Daniel Millstone, the Duke of Warwick, has retreated to one of his properties, a small country manor, to get some work done. It’s the height of the Season and he really should be doing his ducal duty by finding a wife and siring an heir. But his interest lies elsewhere – with his inventions and tinkering with the inventions of others.

Lady Adeline Cameron is his new neighbor. The half-sister of the Earl of Foster, an old nemesis of Warwick’s, Adeline has moved into a cottage deeded to her by her father. The cottage is in need of repair, but Adeline is determined to make the best of it. She is a skilled healer and wants to devote her talents to helping the villagers. She also wants to escape from Foster’s machinations. He is in debt to a moneylender who will forgive the debt in exchange for her hand in marriage.

Warwick and Adeline meet when he comes to complain about her noisy dogs. The mutual physical attraction is instantaneous, but between Warwick’s complaints and Adeline’s defensiveness, they find one another annoying. Nevertheless, when Warwick sees Adeline being threatened by Foster, he announces that she will not marry the moneylender because he is courting her.

Later, the two cook up a plan to pretend to be courting until the end of the Season. The moneylender will give up and marry another girl. And Warwick will have a reprieve allowing him to work and avoid marrying for another year. However, they have to convince the ton, particularly Adeline’s stepbrother and Warwick’s godmother, that the courtship is real.

Warwick and Adeline are not old-style typical hero and heroine. Warwick’s scientific endeavors and Adeline’s medical skills and non-aristocratic parentage (her father was an earl but her mother was the daughter of an Arabic rug merchant) make them unusual in the eyes of society.

Of course, during the course of the pretend courtship, they will fall in love. The course that this romance takes and the chemistry between them makes this story work. The requisite sex scenes, typical heat-level for the genre, are held until the later parts of the book.

An interesting story in that the heroine has Middle Eastern blood and we visit the diverse section of London on more than one occasion where Arabs, Turks, Greeks and Armenians reside. This gives an unusual flavour and colour to the story. I have to take issue with one phrase in the book ‘he was not a rogue or rake’ in that his actions to an innocent maiden, regardless of her consent, were those of a cad and not befitting a gentleman let alone a Duke.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was a fun romp between two people who each have a problem and each needs the other to help with the solution. It starts with a ‘meet cute’ when Adeline’s pig, Harry, attacks the Duke of Warwick and ends with a lovely epilogue where Warwick realizes that “a man cannot live on logic alone. But he can live for love.” I enjoyed the characters, the plot, the pacing, and the writing style. Each book in this series is a standalone, so you don’t have to worry if you haven’t read the first book.

Lady Adeline Foster was much loved by both her mother and father as well as her half-sister, Mary – but she was reviled by her half-brother, Edwin. Edwin taunted and belittled Adeline her entire life because of her mixed Mediterranean heritage. While she and Edwin had the same father, they had different mothers and Adeline’s mother was the daughter of a traveling Arabic rug merchant and not in the least aristocratic. When her father passed away, Edwin inherited the Earldom, and had complete control of Adeline – or so he thought. Adeline inherited a small, run-down property from her father and promptly loaded up her belongings and moved to Chilham, in Kent. Of course, she quickly discovered her property needed a whole lot more work than she’d thought – but she would make it work and she’d use her medical skills – learned from her mother – to help the local people in Chilham. She was a happy and content woman – until . . . That nasty neighbor made an appearance at her door . . .

Daniel Millstone, the Duke of Warwick, moved to a small property in Chilham seeking peace and quiet so he could concentrate on his inventions. Warwick was a brilliant mathematician, engineer, scientist – you name it – and he was rich as Croesus. He discovered he had a new neighbor when the racket from the neighbor’s dogs became unbearable. He’ll just put a stop to that! Yep, he will – or will he?

When Adeline’s half-brother shows up and announces she is to wed a very unsavory moneylender – and Warwick wants to stop his Godmother’s matchmaking efforts for the rest of the season, they realize they can help each other by pretending a courtship. We all know that is going to work out well.

I loved Daniel and Adeline – both were strong, stubborn, bookish, scientific, misfits who were made for each other – although it really took Daniel much too long to come to that conclusion. You can’t blame him though. His upbringing showed him that love didn’t exist in marriages and that it was entirely a business arrangement. So, he’d channeled all of his passions into his scientific pursuits and had no clue love could actually exist in a relationship.

I enjoyed this book and watching Warwick and Adeline find their HEA. While I had some concerns about a few things, it was overall a nice read. Books where the villain(s) aren’t punished – or are even rewarded, as in this case – really attack my sense of fair play. As clever as both Warwick and Adeline are, they could have come up with a great punishment – I just know it. Anyway, I would recommend this book to a friend.

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

This one was such a fun historical romance. I really liked the heroine who was unlike any heroines that I've read in a historical romance novel before. I also really thought the romance was believable and I highly enjoyed this one.

Daniel, The Duke of Warwick is not your typical duke. He’s more interested in his inventions and intellectual curiosities than finding a duchess. Adeline is not your typical lady. Though she’s the daughter of an earl her foreign born mother and interest in healing makes her an outsider in her half brother’s eyes. As they meet up in the countryside, through the hilarious actions of Adeline’s pet pig, Daniel realizes a fake relationship can be mutually beneficial. Even though this is a historical romance it’s pretty modern with its ideas. I liked that both Daniel and Adeline are smart but very witty. Their relationship starts off fake but the attraction is undeniable and the heat between the two has a fiery crescendo due to the sly shenanigans of Daniel’s godmother. This was a nice quick read with some heat, tenderness and humor. 4.5 stars. I received an arc copy of this book for my honest opinion.

This book was an enjoyable,light and fast read.The plot turns out to be engaging only to I preferred Adeline's character to Warwick's.

How not to marry a Duke is the second book in Tina Gabrielle's Daring Ladies series. I love a unique "meet cute" and this one definitely had it! The Duke of Warwick has retreated to his country house to escape his godmother's incessant prodding to get married. He has just wants to be left alone to work on his inventions but the neighbor's dogs are constantly barking. Warwick stomps on over to the neighbor's cottage to berate them about the barking only to be knocked over by Adeline's pet potbelly pig, Henry. Adeline and Warwick very quickly realize not only do they have an instant connection but a fake relationship could benefit them both.

I enjoyed this book just as much as the first in the series. I was laughing out loud at times. Warwick was so supportive of Adeline and her job as a healer. He tried to help and support her in any way possible. The setup scene with Warwick's godmother and Adeline trying on her ball gown was honestly hilarious. I can't wait to read more from Gabrielle in the future.

This book is for you if you are looking for: fake relationships, love is for anyone but me, meet cutes, working heroine, diverse heroine, reclusive duke, childhood enemies sister, friends to lovers

Thank you to NetGalley, Tina Gabrielle, and Entangled Publishing for this eARC. All opinions expressed are my own.
#netgalley #tinagabrielle #entangledpublishing #HowNotToMarryADuke #daringladiesseries

This is the second book in the Daring Ladies series. I haven’t read book one, which didn’t deter from this story at all. But I think I will definitely go back and read it!

This book started right off the bat with humor and I knew I would enjoy it! Daniel meets Adeline after her pet pig “attacks” him 😂. When her brother insists she marry, Daniel volunteers to be her fake fiancé. I enjoyed these characters a lot, especially the fact that they both had interests that society deemed “different” and they were able to unite together. This one kept my interest throughout and was really enjoyable.

How not to marry a duke was simply amazing, a story I found very remarkable and interesting. I appreciated both characters being something else than the usual part of the ton.
Lady Adeline was a healer, cleverer than any other English doctor at that time and could treat not only humans but animals as well.
Daniel Millsone, the Duke of Warwick, was more interested in science than social events. Some had called him the mad duke, yet he was highly intelligent and eccentric, his brains were invested in inventions and their improvements. Yet the duties to the dukedom weren't getting any easier.
As a his godmother pushes him to wed and while he helps Adeline to get rid of her step brother with his ridiculously demand of her wed a moneylender, he constructs a plan of them being courting in the eyes of the whole Londoner ton. What he has never considered was to slowly fall in love with Adeline.
Such an amazing book with interesting twists and a literally scenes full of steam.
I can only recommend to everyone wanting to read slightly different yet a page turner.

Thoughts: The book was a little slow and clichéd in the beginning, but about 1/3 of the way through, I was hooked. I really liked the characters, as I related to them well. I also loved how organic their relationship felt as it progressed. It didn't feel too sudden. The mixed heritage of the heroine was refreshing, and I felt the book dealt with the racism she would've dealt with well enough.
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Overall: I really enjoyed this book! The fake dating trope was *chef's kiss*. Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for allowing me to read this Advanced Reader's Copy!