BOOK REVIEW: Yours Truly, The Duke by Amelia Grey

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

I was ready for some pure escapism, so I chose the new Regency Romance by Amelia Grey, Yours Truly, The Duke. This is a marriage-of-convenience story and a quick, entertaining read.

Wyatt (the Duke of Wyatthaven) is a wealthy, handsome, powerful duke who carries some guilt from his past. When he was boy at Eton, with all the privileges of being a duke’s son, he did nothing to help his fellow students, some of whom were being physically abused by one of the teachers (who taught poetry.) He is only 28 and has no desire to settle down. However, his grandmother died a year earlier and left a codicil to her will that is to be read one year after her death. The codicil gives him one week to marry or a valuable property of hers will be left not to him but to a poetry society. (She loved poetry. This was not a punishment/cruelty to Wyatt.) Still, weird. Why the year wait before announcing this? Why the one week’s notice? At any rate, Wyatt sets to the task. His attorney knows just the woman, Miss Fredericka Hale.

Fredericka also needs to marry. She took in her young nephew and two nieces after the tragic death of her sister and brother-in-law a year earlier. She loves them and is determined to bring them up in a way that would make her sister proud. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have a lot of extra money and she doesn’t have a husband. This wasn’t a problem until her cousin Jane, married to a viscount and unable to have children of her own, decided she would claim Fredericka’s sisters’ kids. Now, Fredericka needs a husband desperately. (Only a husband would be able to lay claim to the children in court.) A duke would serve the purpose very well.

They are wed. The deal is, he gets his inheritance and he’ll make sure she keeps the children, but nothing else in their lives will change. Of course, everything changes.

The two have an intense chemistry. They bicker a lot and misunderstand each other almost intentionally. Nevertheless, they are plainspoken with one another and generally reasonable. The threat of losing the children is very real. Wyatt learns that just being a duke doesn’t mean everything will go his way. He has to put in effort. Fredericka learns she doesn’t have to be so uptight about the children’s upbringing. And they fall in love.

This is an interesting start to a new series. We meet Wyatt’s two closest friends (also dukes) who I expect will feature in the next books. This is a series to watch!