REVIEW: The Once and Future Duchess by Sophia Nash

The Once and Future Duchess by Sophia Nash: I love a book that turns conventional thinking on its side. I often have to explain to people why I love romance books so much, and much of the love has to do with how the predictability of the genre combines with the unpredictability that each individual author brings to every novel. “The Once and Future Duchess” satisfyingly starts out with an unexpected conceit, and continues on from there.

Isabella de Peyster Tremont is the eighteen-year-old Duchess of March, a duchess in her own right by inheritance and not by marriage. She is part of the royal entourage, a band of bachelor dukes (and one duchess), companions of the Prince Regent, who has decided that his rather wayward and rowdy band dukes must marry, and this includes Isabella. This is fine with Isabella, as she has a duke that she wants to marry: James Fitzroy, the Duke of Candover. Twelve years her senior and the late Duke of March’s godson, James had promised Isabella’s father that he would find a good match for her, and close to her age, despite the fact that he is secretly in love with her. James is all about control and discretion, and not allowing his baser instincts to rule when duty calls. At the beginning of the book, Isabella meets with James in his garden, and proposes to him. He quickly turns her down, because of his promise, and due to his two failed engagements James feels that he is not well suited to marriage. However, he knows what he has lost by turning her down:

“And in that moment he imagined the beauty of the life he would have if he had been allowed to close the distance between them. He willed her to glance up at him, but she did not.”

Isabella is devastated, but not fully discouraged. She has many ideas, from lists of potential spouses for both her and James, to flirting with gentlemen she knows that James will object too. Via letters the Prince Regent schemes with her, giving her advice and prodding her along. Isabella loves James, despite his lack of emotions and evident disapproval. She longs for him, and for his touch:

“Just once she wished…just once she wanted him to kiss her.…She wanted to look into the depths of this man’s mysterious brown eyes and share something wicked and intimate. And she wanted desperately for him to know her. As a woman, and not as the child he thought she still was.”

Along with the primary story, there is a rousing subplot that focuses on the romance between Amelia Primrose, a lovely governess with a backbone of steel, and Edward Godwin, the Duke of Sussex. Edward and Amelia definitely have a love/hate relationship, which largely stems from the fact that Amelia had somehow married Edward without his consent, during a rather drunken party on the eve of the Duke of Candover’s non-marriage a few months earlier.

Eventually, the action moves from London to an interminable house party at the home of the Duke of Sussex. All the characters are gathered there, including Isabella’s questionable companion—her fourteen-year-old cousin Calliope Little, a girl much wiser than her age—more unmarried dukes and eligible young ladies. Games are played, horses are ridden, family secrets are revealed and engagements occur. It’s a comedy of errors, and an entertaining romp.

“The Once and Future Duchess” is book four of Sophia Nash’s “Royal Entourage” series, of which I haven’t read any of the previous books. For the most part, I enjoyed the book. I did find it a tad slow in sections, and I was frustrated with the emotionally inhibited hero, especially since the heroine was so giving and open with her feelings. I liked the secondary characters who inhabit the book, adding color and back story; I look forward to when Calliope Little grows up and gets her own book! There were a few aspects of the story where I felt a bit lost because I had not read the previous books, but generally it was more of a feeling of missing details rather than missing essential plot elements. Definitely worth a read, especially if you like your regency romances a little out of the ordinary!

Book Info:

Publication: May 27th 2014 by Avon | Royal Entourage #4

A duchess in time saves a noble line…

In theory, the Duke of Candover is the most eligible peer in the realm. But in truth, he has a deep aversion to the merest hint of marriage, not to mention two botched engagements which have marked his jaded soul. Now, after a debauched bachelor party that causes public outcry, the Prince Regent is demanding that it’s Candover’s turn to be brought to heel. And Prinny secretly believes that Isabelle Tremont, the Duchess of March, is precisely the lady up to the challenge.

Isabelle must marry, but a day of reckoning with the man she’s loved for years is her greatest fear. If Candover insists she’s too young and innocent for a seasoned world-weary man like him, there’s no shortage of other candidates. Gentlemen of prestige and position. Gentlemen whose attentions are driving Candover to jealous distraction. Yet one abandoned moment under the stars hints that if they can put aside pride and duty, then a love once denied might just be their destiny.