To Love a Duchess is Ranney’s first book in a new trilogy entitled All for Love, and her writing beautifully shows how love can triumph over pain, fear, anger and blame. The physical attraction between the characters is strong, but the emotional connection is just as powerful as they both work through their grief and help each other heal. It’s empowering as a reader to see Suzanne come out of her shell and start living again, instead of just existing. The author takes time for social commentary as well, highlighting the terrible treatment of girls in the working class when they, willingly or not, became pregnant outside of marriage. Ranney paints a heartbreaking image of the struggles they faced, but it feels a touch removed as none of the women in that situation have dialogue in To Love a Duchess. Their stories are told for them, while they don’t speak at all. Perhaps that will change in the next book in the series, and Ranney will highlight the ways that love and understanding can heal those wounds too.
I picked up this title because it was recommended to me as a historical with a mystery and a slow-burn romance. I like all those words. I like them quite a bit. What I ended up with was a narrative that, the more I thought about it, didn’t make sense because the first half of the story didn’t match the second ... The mystery is also solved in a very surprising and unsatisfactory manner. The tone of the first half doesn’t fit the events of the second half, and the more I think about the story, the less it makes sense. The theme of every plotline in this book could be summed up as, 'A major, complex conflict or issue is introduced! Eh, whatever. It’s resolved easily.'
To Love A Duchess s an elaborately woven historical romance novel starring a grieving lady, Duchess Suzanne Whitcomb ... To Love A Duchessis a triumphant tale of whether true love can withstand challenging circumstances.Prepare to fall in love with this sensational story!
