An Ideal Duchess

Beauty for Ashes #1

by Evangeline Holland

The Buccaneers—fresh, untutored, and easy-going—conquered 1870s English society, but by the Edwardian era, American heiresses were supposed to be cool and level-headed about their pursuit of titles.

Amanda Vandewater embodied this new wave of American invaders when she meets and marries the 9th Duke of Malvern, though she soon discovers she desires more than a coronet and strawberry leaves.

Set against the backdrop of the turbulent years leading up to WWI, An Ideal Duchess is the tale of an idealistic American heiress who must fight for her position—and for love—in the face of the strict adherence to duty over desire, of reputation over understanding, and of clinging to the past over embracing the present.

Genres: Historical Romance, Historical Fiction, Edwardian, Fiction

450 pages, Paperback

First published June 7, 2013

About the author

Evangeline Holland was raised on both coasts and straight down the middle of America, where the cobblestone streets of Old Town Alexandria, the wild prairies and outlaws of Kansas, and the rolling hills of San Francisco inspired her thirst for history. Luckily, Evangeline was able to grow up and continue to slake this passion with the best job in the world: writing historical fiction. She lives in Northern California with incredibly possessive and territorial cat, a perpetually disastrous kitchen, and a house full of books.

Reviews

[Sabrina · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book really had me engaged in the beginning. I understood Amanda's hesitance in accepting Bron (and what is up with all the nicknames) and why she finally married him. I went along with the ups and downs of the courtship and early marriage. But when that kept going on I lost interest. I started skimming. When the suffragette's were introduced I was confused. What the hell did that have to do with anything other then the author needing to get it in for personal gratification? I completely stopped reading those parts altogether.

And the grammatical errors?! There were SO, so many. It really jarred while reading. There were inconsistencies throughout too. (1 example - the MIL's ride in Amanda's dads car).

And after all that it just ends...……….

[InD'tale Magazine · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5.0

A swirling tale of lover’s woe, "An Ideal Duchess" demands the attention only a spirited American Duchess could inspire.

Read full review in the 2013 September issue of InD’tale Magazine.

[Jonny_Jinx · Rating 1 out of 5]

The love/hate trope (emphasis on hate in book one and love/hate/love in book two), badly written and appallingly edited, to the point where one can find two typos and a missing preposition and/or word in a short phrase, let alone a single sentence, thus rendering whole pages incomprehensible.

I agree strongly with @Sabrina in her comments regarding grammar - there is not a single page that doesn't have some form of bad writing, typo, or missing words.

For example, the word "her" missing the final R changes the gender of the person in question. The reader has to double-check the preceding paragraphs and pages in such cases, to ensures that no man has been introduced into the tale in a manner that is quite possible, given the author's strange grammatical errors.

fter managing to swallow the first half of the second and final (thank heavens) book9, I don't believe that any proof readers or editors have been anywhere near these two novels. Having checked the publishers, Plum Bun Ltd, I am aghast that no one appears to have even speed-read these works, which should have led to a proper proofreading.

In the hands of Phoebe Macintosh, Saxon James, A D Ellis, or Elin Hildebrand, this story would soar - unfortunately, it is an abominable clunker for lack of even a halfway decent author and presumably pre-release or proof readers.

When I have books given to me, I feel obligated to read them, so now I will reluctantly start the second half of this thankfully short series...

I usually read books on the Kindle for Android app, where I highlight good parts in yellow and the poorly written letters, words, typos, and even phrases in pink. This allows me to write my comments or notifications at any time, rather than immediately after finishing a novel or series. Unfortunately, these two books were on Kobo, where it is almost impossible to highlight anything correctly, or at all on successive attempts.

Edit: I have finished book two, "A Duchess's Heart," Writing a new and almost identical review, given that this one suffices for both books in the series. I shall point readers to this review because it applies equally to both books.

[Rachel Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Average it out at 3.5 stars

~2 stars for the writing, the descriptions, and the disjointedness of the narrative.

~5 stars for keeping my attention regardless of the above and for the amount of time I spent pondering the book.

So the negative... The writing was choppy and kind of all over the place. At times it buried itself in description (rather than having the heroine 'hit the ball' she 'hit the teal, teakwood ball') most of which was irrelevant to the story. (Did it matter what color the ball was or what kind of wood it was made of? No. So don't tell me.) Another example of this was the horses. Every time a major character got on a horse, the author told us the horses name and a bit about it. The first time (in the first chapter), I took this to mean the horse was important and thus paid attention to it (I am a horse person after all). Only then the horse was never mentioned again. And the next time someone went on a ride a new horse was introduced. Bleh... Total waste of space.

There was also all kind of other problems. The formatting on the kindle was crap. Lots of missing words, blocks of text that zig-zag across the page. At times the sentences made no sense and I'd have to read them three or four times to figure out what they were trying to say. Ditto for pronoun confusion. There'd be a sentence with 2 Shes, 3 hers, and a them. Heck if I knew which went with which character.

The narrative makes huge jumps in time. The story covers 10 years and sometimes there will be one small scene in a several year period and I'm left wondering why the author bothered because nothing happened to move the plot forward. This was particularly true of the scenes involving the servants of the house. I never got the point of them.

So the positive... It's the story of the marriage between a warm, smart, fun-loving American heiress and a cold, insecure, duty-bound, poor British Duke. It took me a long time to figure out what the point of the book really was. It meanders over 10 years of their lives and covers the point of view of seven or eight different people (a good lot of which should have been cut). Once I figured thigns out, the central conflict is the marriage itself and the author did a really good job of keeping me invested in the out come.

It is not, however, a romance novel (except for the tongue-gymnastics and ripped-bodice scenes - which I recommend skipping anyway). It is, perhaps, a more realistic examination of the differences between men/women, cultures, and other stress on marriage. I felt like the problems between Amanda and Bron were real. This could really happen. This is how people really end up going from happy newly weds to divorce courts.

The stressors on them were real: The difference in their rank. The business-like approach to marriage (money for a title). His old lover. Her disregard of household rules. His best friend. Her not fitting into 'old-fashioned' society. His tyrannical mother. Her desire to be loved. His desire for cool distance. These two people have ZERO ability to communicate with each other about their issues and that lack makes their situation hopeless. It also makes it interesting.

I really liked that aspect. At the end of the day the plot of the story was 'will this marriage ever work' with a giant helping of absolute disaster looming overhead. Yum.

I do have to add (without having to put a spoiler alert in here) that the actual ending was hugely disappointing. I didn't realize this story is the first in a series, so I was expecting a conclusion. There isn't one. But there is a second book and I will read it for that conclusion (and try to look past the lest elegant aspects of the writing).

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've admired Holland's knowledge of the Edwardian era for a while and was eager to pick up this fiction work from her. She nails the historical details, but unfortunately, that can't save this mess of a story.

Actually, the plot isn't so bad - it's very much an anti-romance, and there is plenty of conflict to keep the characters active. The problem is that they don't do much except sit around hating each other. Amanda marries her duke, complains about his mother keeping a firm grip on life at Bledington, and does nothing about it for ten years. Bron is just a useless ass throughout the entire novel and apparently expects Amanda to read all of his thoughts because he absolutely refuses to communicate anything to her. The minor characters are all just as unlikable. Flawed characters are great, but there still has to be something about them that draws the reader into wanting to see them succeed in the end. They have to have some redeeming qualities. I got to the end of this novel and thought, "Great, they can all go to war and die for all I care." I found it so difficult to feel for any of them, especially when half of them get themselves into their sorry positions and never do anything to dig themselves out. And when they do, it's glossed over and mentioned only briefly in the narrative.

Also, the editing is terrible. So many mistakes that could (should) have been fixed in the editing process.

All in all, the book gives a great view into the lives of Edwardian high society, but the characters just aren't worth investing in. Not sure if I want to read the second novel or not.

[Rachel Cotton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote a review on my blog, if you care to know my opinions. There's a lot of Arrested Development gifs and much rambling. Needless to say, I loved it. Fly my pretties.