Review: How to Love a Duke in Ten Days (Devil You Know #1) by Kerrigan Byrne
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Series: Devil You Know #1
Author: Kerrigan Byrne
Published August 27th 2019 by St. Martin's Paperbacks
Goodreads Synopsis
These men are dark, bold, and brave. And there is only one woman who can bring them to their knees...
Famed and brilliant, Lady Alexandra Lane has always known how to look out for to herself. But nobody would ever expect that she has darkness in her past—one that she pays a blackmailer to keep buried. Now, with her family nearing bankruptcy, Alexandra strikes upon a solution: Get married to one of the empire’s most wealthy eligible bachelors. Even if he does have the reputation of a devil.
LOVE TAKES NO PRISONERS
Piers Gedrick Atherton, the Duke of Redmayne, is seeking revenge and the first step is securing a bride. Winning a lady’s hand is not so easy, however, for a man known as the Terror of Torcliff. Then, Alexandra enters his life like a bolt of lightning. When she proposes marriage, Piers knows that, like him, trouble haunts her footsteps. But her gentleness, sharp wit, independent nature, and incredible beauty awakens every fierce desire within him. He will do whatever it takes to keep her safe in his arms.
Goodreads
Review
Lady Alexandra Lane has a secret, one that only she and her fell Red Rogues know about. She keeps herself to herself, and knows how to stay safe while out in the field as a renowned archaeologist, but her secret will soon be revealed. As the daughter of an earl, she has some protection, but the money has run out, and her blackmailer will not hang around. When she is called to Devon, to the estate of the Duke of Redmayne - also known as the Terror of Torcliff - she is shocked by her attraction to him, and even more so when she proposes. He may just be the answer to all her problems, but will she become comfortable enough to be with him, as a wife should, and reveal her secrets before it's too late?
I bought this book, and it's sequel All Scot and Bothered, after I was sent a review copy of the final book The Devil in Her Bed, and devoured the entire series in just a few days. We first meet Alexandra - and Francesca and Cecelia - while they are students at L'Ecole de Chardonne on Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Aged 17, Alex is about to graduate and head home, when she is raped by the headmaster, and subsequently kills him in self defence. This kickstarts the girls in burying the body, and the three revealing their own secrets - to be explored further across the series. Alex is traumatised by her rape, and though she recovers and flourishes as a student at the Sorbonne, gaining a PHD, she never forgets what happened to her. She is strong, but also so vulnerable, and always covers up, is skittish around men, and never goes anywhere unarmed. I adored her so much. She was a survivor who was prepared to marry a man that many considered a beast to protect Cecil and Frank from being implicated in her crime, and would do just about anything to protect them. With Piers, he had quite an awful upbringing, with a cuckholded father and a mother who slept around on him, and he fled as soon as he was able too. After being attacked by a jaguar in Brazil, and fully expecting to die from his injuries, he returns to England to find his fiancee has married his cousin - who just happens to be his heir - and he is now jaded, and aloof. He's immediately attracted to Alex, but can see that there's something she's holding back, but her proposal blows him away and he's adamant they marry straight away. Even though he doesn't know the truth about her past - nor will he for some time - he agrees to her list of demands for the bedroom. There is a moment where he thinks she has slept around, and he closes himself off so he doesn't turn into his father, but I loved the way the two grew close in the French countryside, on a dig site. Seeing their own recovery from their pasts, and their growth in allowing someone else in, and close enough to fall in love, was perfect. I was going to read this slowly, but as soon as I was in, I was hooked, and spent most of a cloudy afternoon reading it because I needed to know if Alex and Piers got their HEA, and whether they discovered just who was out to get them, and why. An absolutely perfect book, and I'm so happy we'll see more of the couple in the sequels.
Dates Read:
January 15-16, 2021
Rating
4 Stars
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