I was waiting for the obligatory villian sex scene with one of his female relatives, but that, thankfully, never happened. He is greedy (marrying Emma for her money), flagrantly cheats on Emma, and hits her too. She’s attracted to the native culture and the native people. She questions her role amongst these people. She is bored with the British colonial society. In some sense, I felt that Duke of Shadows was a traditional historical romance wrapped in a fancy India cloth rather than having that cloth woven throughout.Įmma is a bluestocking with ordinary bluestocking concerns. Unfortunately what follows is an immediate denouement featuring fairly stock romance characters. The prologue is a powerful emotional scene. The story begins with a tumultuous shipwreck wherein Emmaline Martin is the only survivor. I found the prose to be good, but not extraordinary and for me, the prose was not enough to lift the characters and plot out of average status. I won’t belabor the plot as Janet carefully articulated it in her review.

I may be the only one with this contrary opinion as well, but in the interest of fairness to the readership here at DA, I was compelled to give my thoughts of this book. It is because of that this review is doubly hard to write. You’ve been a frequent commenter and your insights into the genre have always been fascinating. A little while later, Janine shared with us that she is a critique partner of yours. We posted updates about the Gather contest, had the opportunity to read your first two chapters online, and celebrated your victory in winning the first ever romance writing contest.

Your path to publication is fairly well known to the readers of Dear Author. Jane Book Reviews / C Reviews / C Reviews Category Duke / India / Meredith Duran 7 Comments ApREVIEW: Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran

The Duke of Shadows by Meredith Duran