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Surprising Lord Jack Duchess of Love Book 2 Sally MacKenzie 9781420123227 Books

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Surprising Lord Jack Duchess of Love Book 2 Sally MacKenzie 9781420123227 Books

The book having just been released sometime during the night, and my obviously having read it as soon as it appeared on my Kindle at three in the morning, and pulling an all-nighter to finish it, would obviously lend itself to being a good book, yes? Why else would I have stayed up all night to read it, or even begun it in the first place at such an early hour?

Still, I can't quite describe myself as overly ecstatic over having spent my night reading instead of sleeping. It's something I've done often before and I've never regretted it when a good book was involved. But where this book is concerned, however, I find myself vacillating on its worth. I even had a devil of a time trying to figure out how many stars to rate it. I kept going back and forth between three stars and four stars. Four stars seems too good and three seems utterly too bad. And this isn't a bad book, not at all. It's just not a great one.

Part of my wishy-washy problem comes from the very wishy-washy book. It's hard to tell what kind of book this is. First of all, the summary that you'll find is slightly misleading. Yes, they do end up traveling to London together and yes, this and other matters quite determine the rest of the book, but the actual traveling takes up very little of the book. So it's not a traveling book, just to be clear, like I had originally thought. That's alright, though. I don't mind it not being a traveling book. I just wish it had made up its mind as to what kind of book it was!

Since it's not a traveling book, let's move on to the other plots Sally uses. And this may be slightly spoilerish to some, so if you'd like to skip this part, you may do so. I'll try to keep it to bare details, though. Since traveling with Lord Jack (and other matters) quite ruin Frances, it's decided that the Duke and Duchess (and other people) need to bolster her reputation, so as to not make an immediately unwanted marriage between Lord Jack and Frances. But, no, that part of the book takes up very little space, too. So, that can't be what the book was about. Well, maybe it was about the murderer loose in Covent Garden, who apparently is quite determined to rid London of its evil underground belly and even the less desirable ton members. While this plot certainly weaves its way through the entire book, I can't quite say it was about finding and catching the murderer, either, for the only time the dastardly cur is mentioned is during Lord Jack's POVs and a few other times, and only in the barest details possible. So, no, it wasn't that kind of a book, either.

Perhaps it was a book about family, and the ties that bind and the ties that are all too easily broken. Perhaps about family members who never really understood each other finding that they could indeed be more than just strangers. Perhaps it's about characters who found that they really needed quite a bit of maturing (and that was certainly nice to see) but I can't really say it's about that, either, since none of those threads were really tied up nice and neat. And it's certainly not about Lord Jack's supposedly very important causes and charities that make up such a large part of who he is that we only see that part in action (aside from the dastardly murderer, of course) once and then only mentioned in passing a few times more. So it's not about do-gooding and any of that kind of book.

Really, all of those different plot points can make for a very cluttered book, which is the definite case for this book, at least in my opinion. I'm not saying that all of these plot points couldn't have been put together cohesively, I'm just saying they weren't. It's kind of like the author decided that there would be plot A, B, C, and D, and that she'd repeat them in order for each scene. That's what I truly don't like about this book, what I wish I hadn't stayed up all night to read about.

But here is what I did like about this book. The characters are written very well, with their own flaws to give them a well-rounded and three-dimensional look, especially Frances. Frances was done incredibly well. She's spirited and independent and quite determined to be her own woman who doesn't need a man. Her flaws lie in her inability to see goodness in any man, but most especially Lord Jack (even after having seen it first hand), her high-handednss (and boy, can she get her back up on some things), and her inability to curb her tongue from letting loose whatever thought flew through her head. In short, she's tactless, unable to trust, and unwilling to change her mind. And I like that. She's not a milksop, and she's not a fainter. She's pigheaded and stubborn and too used to going it on her own to let anyone give her a hand. It can almost get to be too much but just when it would have, she starts to learn that maybe she hasn't always been right in her views and her opinions and she begins to unbend, which is good, because her back has to hurt with how straight she's had it. I adored Frances, even when she frustrated me to no end. She had a personality that just leaps from the pages.

Jack, I'm not quite as enamored with. Part of the problem is that Frances is such a fighter of a character, she takes up so much of the space, there's little left for Jack, even when it's coming through his POV. We can see spurts of his character - his kindness to those less fortunate, and his willingness to love those that many would not have, and even his inability to let Frances go about without helping her from her own blunder. After all, it wasn't his fault she was ruined. Then again, it wasn't entirely all of hers, either. His flaws come in his apparent unwillingness to let even his family know of his charitable nature, as though he's embarrassed by it (going so far as to cultivate a rakish reputation in order to disguise it) and his near disgust at the thought of doing the honorable thing and marrying Frances, thinking that she's not all that attractive and that it wouldn't make for a pleasurable marriage. Of course, this thought turns a complete 180 when he sees Frances in a dress that fits her and her hair done up and looking pretty and female. It's not a terrible thing, really: I wouldn't want to marry someone I wasn't attracted to, but I don't think it was resolved properly. 'Yes, now she's pretty so, okay, I can see us getting married. It won't be so bad. If only she'd stop being a shrew. Could I ignore that? Hmm....' Unfortunately, his flaws aren't nearly as well fixed and set on a path to redemption. After all, between Frances and the murderer that's taking up so much of his time, he's hardly got any time to reflect upon his many flaws like Frances does and he can hardly have time to actually getting around to fixing them.

It says something that my favorite character, however, was Shakespeare, the dog!

The author set this book up well, and it could have been a wonderful story, had she not tried so many different plot devices. It's hard to love a book that's having an identity crisis. By the end, my head was spinning from trying to figure out just what the book was about. In fact, there were so many plot points, I can't really see where Jack and Frances really fell in love. There are points where it's plain to see and others where it isn't. The book was too full of too many things to just let it be a love story. That's my problem, really.


Tags : Surprising Lord Jack (Duchess of Love, Book 2) [Sally MacKenzie] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>Unladylike Behavior</b> Frances Hadley has managed her family's estate for years. So why can't she request her own dowry? She'll have to go to London herself and knock some sense into the men interfering in her life. With the nonsense she's dealt with lately,Sally MacKenzie,Surprising Lord Jack (Duchess of Love, Book 2),Zebra,142012322X,Romance - Historical - Regency,Disguise,Great Britain - History,Historical fiction,Love stories,Love stories.,Man-woman relationships,Nobility,Nobility;Fiction.,Regency fiction.,AMERICAN HISTORICAL FICTION,AMERICAN LIGHT ROMANTIC FICTION,England,FICTION Historical General,FICTION Romance Historical Regency,Fiction,Fiction - Romance,Fiction Romance General,Fiction-Romance,General Adult,Historical romance,MASS MARKET,Monograph Series, any,Regency fiction,Romance - General,RomanceRegency,Romance: Regency,United States,FICTION Historical General,FICTION Romance Historical Regency,Fiction Romance General,Romance - General,Fiction - Romance,American Historical Fiction,American Light Romantic Fiction,Regency fiction,Fiction,Romance: Regency,Historical romance

Surprising Lord Jack Duchess of Love Book 2 Sally MacKenzie 9781420123227 Books Reviews

Really enjoying these happy ever after love stories. Enjoy the fact that all family characters continue in each book. Enjoy the charitable spirit to rid the wrongs in the world that continue to plague us today. Enjoy the bits of mystery and Villians. Love conquerors all.
Most of the heroines in romance novels are flawed but end up strangely perfect for the hero. In this novel, the heroine ends up perfect for the hero but as her flawed self. I will admit to feeling a sincere kinship with the heroine. Feeling alone in the world and trying to tough it out. Getting more alone and brittle and difficult purely as a defense mechanism. Frances is tough and alone and has built a life for herself purely to survive. Thankfully for Frances, Jack sees the real woman through her defenses.

One if the things that gets annoying is the love scenes between Drew and Venus. I do like them but do we have to be there each time they decide to go at it? A little less Duchess of Love would be good when it isn't her story.

Overall a good read but not one of Sally's best.
Looks like other reviewers have already given a synopsis of the book, so I'll get right to the chase where was the romance? I felt like I kept waiting for it to appear, but it just was not happening. I found the heroine, Frances, to be a little annoying and fell completely in love with Jack. Frankly, I don't know how or why he put up with her. I did, however, like the all around murder/mystery storyline. Also, I felt like there was NO ending. It just all of a sudden stopped. I had to turn back some pages because I couldn't believe it just abruptly ended. I didn't feel like the author tied everything up. All in all, it as an ok read.
This was my first book from Sally MacKenzie and I would say it was a good first read. From the blurb I found it very intriguing and I love it when the heroines masquerades in breeches and cravats. From the first couple of pages I was already hook and excited about how the story was going to develop and it was also already picking up pace.
The characters were well developed and were very likable but then I just couldn't stand them towards the end. Mostly the heroine, Miss Frances Hadley. She was bold, headstrong, and judgmental. I liked her at first but then she kept on degrading and disregarding Jack Valentine's character. It was a never ending repetition of her thoughts of him being a Rake and a not good for anything because of all the gossip of him in the gossip columns. And then towards the end her ill thoughts of him just magically disappeared. Argh I really didn't like Miss Hadley that much anymore, how could she just automatically say loved him after all that snickering? She was an interesting character though.
Jack Valentine on the other hand I adore~ He is everything you would want in a man. For me that is. He did everything he can to help and be as patient as he could with Miss Hadley even though he knew she disliked him. He was not a Rake but was just playing the part being the thrid son of a Duke and all, he has to keep up on image right? Oh and he helped those in need, mostly fallen women and abandon children. Who wouldn't love him!
At the end of the story though, I felt like everything was rushed for them to be together and be in love. It was a clif hanger! It didn't end the way I wanted it to. We'll have to see how their relationship progress in the next book with eldest brother and heir Ash's story. I'm kind of afraid to read her first book in the series for Ned's story because of how he's portrayed in this book but all in all it was a great first read from Ms. MacKenzie.
The book having just been released sometime during the night, and my obviously having read it as soon as it appeared on my at three in the morning, and pulling an all-nighter to finish it, would obviously lend itself to being a good book, yes? Why else would I have stayed up all night to read it, or even begun it in the first place at such an early hour?

Still, I can't quite describe myself as overly ecstatic over having spent my night reading instead of sleeping. It's something I've done often before and I've never regretted it when a good book was involved. But where this book is concerned, however, I find myself vacillating on its worth. I even had a devil of a time trying to figure out how many stars to rate it. I kept going back and forth between three stars and four stars. Four stars seems too good and three seems utterly too bad. And this isn't a bad book, not at all. It's just not a great one.

Part of my wishy-washy problem comes from the very wishy-washy book. It's hard to tell what kind of book this is. First of all, the summary that you'll find is slightly misleading. Yes, they do end up traveling to London together and yes, this and other matters quite determine the rest of the book, but the actual traveling takes up very little of the book. So it's not a traveling book, just to be clear, like I had originally thought. That's alright, though. I don't mind it not being a traveling book. I just wish it had made up its mind as to what kind of book it was!

Since it's not a traveling book, let's move on to the other plots Sally uses. And this may be slightly spoilerish to some, so if you'd like to skip this part, you may do so. I'll try to keep it to bare details, though. Since traveling with Lord Jack (and other matters) quite ruin Frances, it's decided that the Duke and Duchess (and other people) need to bolster her reputation, so as to not make an immediately unwanted marriage between Lord Jack and Frances. But, no, that part of the book takes up very little space, too. So, that can't be what the book was about. Well, maybe it was about the murderer loose in Covent Garden, who apparently is quite determined to rid London of its evil underground belly and even the less desirable ton members. While this plot certainly weaves its way through the entire book, I can't quite say it was about finding and catching the murderer, either, for the only time the dastardly cur is mentioned is during Lord Jack's POVs and a few other times, and only in the barest details possible. So, no, it wasn't that kind of a book, either.

Perhaps it was a book about family, and the ties that bind and the ties that are all too easily broken. Perhaps about family members who never really understood each other finding that they could indeed be more than just strangers. Perhaps it's about characters who found that they really needed quite a bit of maturing (and that was certainly nice to see) but I can't really say it's about that, either, since none of those threads were really tied up nice and neat. And it's certainly not about Lord Jack's supposedly very important causes and charities that make up such a large part of who he is that we only see that part in action (aside from the dastardly murderer, of course) once and then only mentioned in passing a few times more. So it's not about do-gooding and any of that kind of book.

Really, all of those different plot points can make for a very cluttered book, which is the definite case for this book, at least in my opinion. I'm not saying that all of these plot points couldn't have been put together cohesively, I'm just saying they weren't. It's kind of like the author decided that there would be plot A, B, C, and D, and that she'd repeat them in order for each scene. That's what I truly don't like about this book, what I wish I hadn't stayed up all night to read about.

But here is what I did like about this book. The characters are written very well, with their own flaws to give them a well-rounded and three-dimensional look, especially Frances. Frances was done incredibly well. She's spirited and independent and quite determined to be her own woman who doesn't need a man. Her flaws lie in her inability to see goodness in any man, but most especially Lord Jack (even after having seen it first hand), her high-handednss (and boy, can she get her back up on some things), and her inability to curb her tongue from letting loose whatever thought flew through her head. In short, she's tactless, unable to trust, and unwilling to change her mind. And I like that. She's not a milksop, and she's not a fainter. She's pigheaded and stubborn and too used to going it on her own to let anyone give her a hand. It can almost get to be too much but just when it would have, she starts to learn that maybe she hasn't always been right in her views and her opinions and she begins to unbend, which is good, because her back has to hurt with how straight she's had it. I adored Frances, even when she frustrated me to no end. She had a personality that just leaps from the pages.

Jack, I'm not quite as enamored with. Part of the problem is that Frances is such a fighter of a character, she takes up so much of the space, there's little left for Jack, even when it's coming through his POV. We can see spurts of his character - his kindness to those less fortunate, and his willingness to love those that many would not have, and even his inability to let Frances go about without helping her from her own blunder. After all, it wasn't his fault she was ruined. Then again, it wasn't entirely all of hers, either. His flaws come in his apparent unwillingness to let even his family know of his charitable nature, as though he's embarrassed by it (going so far as to cultivate a rakish reputation in order to disguise it) and his near disgust at the thought of doing the honorable thing and marrying Frances, thinking that she's not all that attractive and that it wouldn't make for a pleasurable marriage. Of course, this thought turns a complete 180 when he sees Frances in a dress that fits her and her hair done up and looking pretty and female. It's not a terrible thing, really I wouldn't want to marry someone I wasn't attracted to, but I don't think it was resolved properly. 'Yes, now she's pretty so, okay, I can see us getting married. It won't be so bad. If only she'd stop being a shrew. Could I ignore that? Hmm....' Unfortunately, his flaws aren't nearly as well fixed and set on a path to redemption. After all, between Frances and the murderer that's taking up so much of his time, he's hardly got any time to reflect upon his many flaws like Frances does and he can hardly have time to actually getting around to fixing them.

It says something that my favorite character, however, was Shakespeare, the dog!

The author set this book up well, and it could have been a wonderful story, had she not tried so many different plot devices. It's hard to love a book that's having an identity crisis. By the end, my head was spinning from trying to figure out just what the book was about. In fact, there were so many plot points, I can't really see where Jack and Frances really fell in love. There are points where it's plain to see and others where it isn't. The book was too full of too many things to just let it be a love story. That's my problem, really.