Harbinger of Books

The Duke is Mine is a romance novel based on The Princess and The Pea. In this story we meet Olivia Lytton whose parents want her to marry a Duke. They want it so much that they arranged a marriage between the oldest daughter Olivia and Rupert, Marquess of Montsurrey. As an adult Rupert is mentally challenged and while he has a great big heart he feels everything. Regardless of his issues Olivia is planning to marry him and then she will accept the responsibilities of the duke because Rupert will not be able to manage. Then one day Olivia's sister, Georgiana is asked to attend a bride seeking event where another Duke, Quin, mother is seeking a bride for her son. As you can guess nothing will go as planned.

This is a romance book so I suspended belief for most of it and it works although it really did not remind me of the Princess and the Pea until almost the very end. As always the writing is well done but the plot gets a bit jumpy. About 2/3rds of the way through the book you are thinking ok now what and Ms. James does have something up her sleeve but that seemed like a random ride for no reason. I will say that I liked how the characters reactions seemed realistic and it was a nice change of pace to have a heroine who is a plus sized and while most of the time she is comfortable with herself at times she felt insecure. I also liked that Quin is not this dashing hero but he is a man. Having said that the sex scenes were oddly placed and it seems like honestly it did not add to the story. If it was not for the last 1/3 of the book I think this could have been 5 stars but we had it so I am giving the book 3 1/2 stars.