When You Wish Upon a Duke
By Isabella Bradford
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Release Date: July 31, 2012
One night shortly after Lady Charlotte Wylder, the
eldest daughter of the late Earl of Hervey and his countess, rescues her
youngest sister’s cat from a tree, she learns that she has been betrothed since
she was in her cradle to James Augustus FitzCharles, the third Duke of
Marchbourne. Sometime later Charlotte and her duke meet face to face when she
has again climbed a tree, this time on the duke’s estate, to rescue Fig the
cat. The two quite literally fall for one another as they tumble from the tree.
Tree climbing will continue to figure prominently in this story.
Charlotte is a free-spirited innocent, and her duke
is a bit on the stuffy side, very concerned about appearances and about the scandalous
connection that made him a duke with royal blood in his veins, the
great-grandson of a king. Some conflict based on their very different natures
is inevitable, and March’s fear that their lusty coupling is inappropriate for
his lady duchess leaves Charlotte to wonder what happened to her merry groom
and the lovemaking she thoroughly enjoyed. There’s also a villain who creates a
spot of bother, but this is fundamentally a light-hearted book. All problems
are resolved with a certain humor, and even the villain’s just deserts, while
no doubt painful to him, don’t deprive him of life or limb.
Charlotte and March are endearing characters. I
thought they were wonderfully paired, and I believed in their HEA. They both change in the course of the story,
something that I’ve learned not to count as a given. Charlotte gains maturity
and the confidence to refuse to let Charlotte the person be submerged in Her
Grace, the duchess. For his part, March has to let go of his obsession with
propriety and appearances. His attitude is more understandable as more of his
past is revealed, but he must learn to trust not only Charlotte and her love
for him but also his own integrity.
When You Wish Upon a Duke is a book that will make
readers smile, but it is lifted above the status of a merely amusing book by
the detailed look it offers of the domestic life of a duke and duchess in
Georgian England. From descriptions of Charlotte’s quarters in the ducal
mansion to the clothes she wears and the food served to the ducal couple, the
setting is vibrantly rendered. I especially liked the scene where the duke asks
Charlotte to call him March, the name his intimates use, and she agrees to do
so if he addresses her by her first name. Both customary behavior and the way
this relationship will depart from the customary are revealed in this brief
exchange.
I found it refreshing that although there is an
arranged marriage, March and Charlotte are eager to fall in love with one
another and committed to one another’s happiness. It was also pleasant to
encounter a hero who was neither a rake nor a recluse brooding over nameless
wrongs. The focus of the novel is unswervingly on the hero and heroine, but
readers see enough of Charlotte’s sisters, especially the youngest, to trust
they will prove interesting heroines in their turn. I must admit the one scene
that disturbed me was Charlotte’s parting from her family. Their disappearance
from the story was convenient for the narrative, but the manner seemed
heartless. March has a cousin whom I found interesting and
would like to see more of. I have a suspicion about him, and I will be
interested in seeing if I’m correct. If
I’m wrong, I’ll just have to imagine I’m right.
Lest you think that Isabella Bradford is a debut author, I hasten to include the information that it is a pseudonym for Susan Holloway Scott, who has written five excellent historical novels under her own name and more than thirty historical romances as Miranda Jarrett. Having enjoyed books written under both those identities, I expected to enjoy this one. My expectations were met.
The second book in the series, When
the Duchess Says Yes will be released September 25 with the final book in the trilogy, When
the Duke Found Love, to follow on November 27. I look forward to both of them, but I’m
also hoping for more historical fiction from Susan Holloway Scott. And the
covers of books two and three are even more gorgeous than the cover of WYWUAD.
There seems to be an epidemic of authors writing
under several names. Do you find it confusing? Do you always know if you’re
reading a true debut author or meeting one you’ve read before in a new guise?
