A review by the_rabble
The Portrait of a Duchess by Scarlett Peckham

sad tense slow-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

This didn't hit for me. Again, the premise seemed interesting (love a secret, love feminist activists) and fun- enough for me to finish- but the execution carries big "let's kick a puppy" energy.

3rd person past tense, 2 POVs, ages late 30s and mid 50s

  • Age difference was a lot- couple marries when she's 18 and he's 34. This is excused by her being "experienced"
    (sexually mistreated by a teacher.)
  • Bi fetishizing is big throughout and it feels icky-
    our duke is bi (hell yeah) but there's a lot of (male) unicorn hunting vibes throughout. Poly is fine, but poly is different than bi. Bi people don't need lovers of every gender and it feels weird when a straight person makes those assumptions without a conversation about monogamy.
  • Poverty tourism makes an unusual appearance (and we never address the power imbalance of wealth in the marriage's beginning.)
  • Toxic masculinity enforced by women sucks and all one protagonist does is yell at the other one for having feelings and not policing his positive emotions for 95% of the book.
  • The feminism presented has big second wave energy.

[Ending]
There is no character dev or history reveal for our mean "kick a puppy" protagonist, she's just sad. And that apparently allows her to be public about affection, tho she still seems unlikely to accept this dude (who again, is 20 years older than her) as a human.


At the end of the day, the story feels incongruent and isn't okay loving people through adversity or their less interesting/perfect moments. And that feels especially weird in the context of a struggle for rights and equity.

Peckham kills a premise, but really struggles on delivering.