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A review by rjordan19
How Not to Hate a Duke by Jennifer Haymore
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Readability: 📖📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥
Humor: Yes
Perspective: Third person from both hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? medium
When mains are first on page together: Almost immediately (chapter 1, or 1% of the story)
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes, ten months later
Format: voluntarily read an advanced reader copy from NetGalley that I’m late on 😅
Should I read in order?
You can read this alone! I believe it’s a stand alone...
Basic plot:
Georgiana is used to fighting off fortune hunters, but when her family’s worst enemy shows up at the 2 week house party she’s attenting, she’s not sure she can make it through...
Give this a try if you want:
- Regency
- country estate setting
- house party!
- enemies to lovers (on the heroine’s side)
- rival families
- forbidden love vibes
- class difference – duke hero and merchant’s daughter heroine
- fashion loving/creating heroine
- interesting facts woven in – like lawn bowling licenses!
- a bit of a possessive hero – he gets a bit jealous for the heroine
- some euphemism banter in the bedroom
- very light epistolary (some letters written)
- medium steam – 3-ish full scenes
Ages:
- I don’t think they are mentioned, but both hero and heroine have a 27 year old sibling – so I’d guess heroine is around 23-ish and hero is around 30
First line:
Georgiana hid a yawn behind her gloved hand.
My thoughts:
Oh my gawd. I adored this book so SO much. This is my second by Haymore, and I very much liked the other book I read by her. So I will officially be stalking all her other releases!
This book is so dang sweet. And just all the things I adore in romance. The entire middle of this story is like Haymore poured romance catnip all over me. I was smiling and swooning and kicking my feet in the air.
I did find Georgiana’s blind following of her parents a bit annoying in the beginning of this book. But she’s been respected and loved by them (maybe a bit oppressively) and it’s understandable. It took me about half the book to REALLY warm up to her and then I loved her. I loved how she was able to vocalize her boundaries (even to her parents eventually) and maneuver society situations with fortune hunters. I loved her fall for Theo.
But Theo. Theo! Theo stole my heart. I adore heroes like him. Heroes that have deep feelings they keep hidden inside. Heroes that maybe aren’t running around being manwhores and who harbor a romantic heart. Heroes that when they fall, they fall with EVERYTHING in them. I loved him so, so much.
There were so many adorable scenes in this story. I highlighted like half the book (you can see in my quotes section hahaha). The scenes where he starts to fall for her, and gets playful and a bit flirty at the house party. (And my gosh I have been loving house party games lately in HR! So, so fun!) And the way he starts to fall, and gets all obsessed, a bit jealous and basically loses his mind for her.
The way he hears her moaning in her room and busts in to remove the threat.
The way he whispers that he’s filled with lust in her ears in a crowd of people.
The way he catches her eyes while he holds her quim and whisper orders her to send her maid away from her room.
Just fucking melting this whole book….
I ended up really loving the ending too. Theo is just such a GOOD person. I enjoyed the way it worked out. The way he was wanting to give her everything and worked so hard to do that. He really is the best. Love love love.
Quotes/spoiler-y thoughts:Any mistakes/typos are my own
This man was definitely handsome.
He walked alone, just coming round the bed toward them. His form was tall and dark, but his ocean-blue eyes pierced straight through her from a distance.
Not Worsley/Webley.
Someone different.
Far more potent.
Far more despicable.
Georgiana yanked her gaze away.
The Duke of Desborough was walking toward them on the footpath at Hyde Park.
---
I love how he is so intrigued and interested in her from the start
He knew she’d regained her footing, but he couldn’t help it. She had a tiny waist – one he could almost span with his hands. He looked down at her perfect face and breathed her in, his senses filling with a soft rose perfume.
---
Oh, yes. He could picture that perfect petite body, rounded softly in all the right places.
All that pale, soft womanly skin to caress…
She glared daggers at him.
---
And when her feelings slowly start to shift in a positive light towards him
Georgiana jumped up with a cheer and threw her arms around the duke, who took a stumbling, surprised step back before going completely still. His eyes locked with hers, and sensation shivered through her as his arms banded around her. On their own accord, her arms tightened around him in return, a feeling of rightness humming through her.
---
“Ooh.” She studied the plant with more interest now.
She’d never seen a tomato plant before. “They say those things turn your blood to acid and kill you.”
“An old wives’ tale, surely,” he said mildly. “The French call them love-apples because they claim they have aphrodisiacal qualities.
She laughed. “So, if you dare to consume one, you’ll either drop dead or be overwhelmed by lust.”
He nodded and looked at her again, challenge flashing in his eyes. “Should I try one?”
//
“You’re still alive. Do you feel any strange effects?”
His eyes twinkled. “Like the overwhelming urge to ravish you?”
An instant flush heated her cheeks. “That’s not what I meant! I mean, do you feel your breaths becoming short? Tightness in your throat? Swelling of any part of your body?” She flushed deeper. “Well...I mean, not swelling on that part. Oh Lord.”
---
I love these house party games!!! So fun!!!
Forcefully keeping her expression blank to not expose the glee rising inside her, she reached down and trailed her hand beneath her bottom, along the outside of his rigid thigh. The man behind her went very still as her fingers moved along. The nankeen pantaloons were tight, as fashion dictated, and the buttery soft, and she traced the contours of thick muscle. Heat traveled through her hand as she moved over the side of his hip to his waistband. When she reached the small gap between his pantaloons and the sharp cut of his tailcoat, she ran her fingertips over the tiny bumps of slick embroidery edging his silk waistcoat.
//
She tiptoed her fingertips up, over the high starched collar of his waistcoat and to his jaw, shaved smooth for the evening. He sucked in a small breath – probably imperceptible to the onlookers but not to her.
It made her feel powerful.
---
He’d locked eyes with Georgiana.
“Time to hear my secret, Miss Milford,” he said in a low voice.
She leaned slightly toward him, her body stiff, and he cupped one hand around her ear, sliding the other around her head to hold her securely in place. Her hair felt like silk under his fingertips. “It took its time,” he whispered, “but I fear the tomato has begun its work.”
She jerked in his hold.
“Shhh,” he told her. “I’m not dying. It’s the other concern.”
She went still.
“I’ve been watching you all night. Imagining how your sensual lips – your perfect body – would feel beneath mine.”
She gasped audibly.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” he whispered. “About you.” Then, letting his thumb skim lightly over the shell of her ear, he let her go.
---
Ahhhh, he IS a romantic and I am loving it!!
“A father’s control is as absolute as a husband’s.”
“Not at all,” Georgiana argued. “It’s different because my father loves me.”
“And your husband wouldn’t.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Isn’t that the whole point of marriage? For the husband and wife to commit to loving each other for the rest of their lives?
She stepped back against the bookshelf, hand to chest. “Are you a romantic, Your Grace?”
He laughed, low in his throat. “Now let’s not get carried away.”
---
I love it so much. I love how much he is opening up to her and loving her.
“Turn around,” he said softly.
She did, excruciatingly slowly.
When she was facing him, she ran a hand up her arm, over her long, white glove, over that warm, petal-soft part of her skin on her upper arm, then over that exquisite silvertrimmed silk cap sleeve. He skimmed her shoulder and touched her cheek. It was softer, sweeter than he could have ever imagined. Then, he slid his fingering under her chin and tipped her face up to his.
Her eyes were a clear haze. “Beautiful,” he whispered under his breath.
---
I am dead
“That wasn’t teasing. That was the truth.”
“Because you ate that horrid love-apple.”
“No. The tomato had nothing to do with it. I feel that way right now, and the tomato is no longer involved.”
---
I don’t know why these lines just got me so good – the fact that he’s so desperate for her? And helping her get under his waistcoat?? I love it.
He’d take more. And more and more and more, if she’d let him. He moved his hand from her neck to cup her chin reveling in the dewy skin of her jaw as he tilted her head so he could coax his tongue between her lips, desperate for more of her taste.
One of her hands slid around to his front. He held his hand over hers, encouraging her to touch him, to explore, helping her slip her fingers under his waistcoat.
---
When he starts losing his mind in jealousy 🫠 🫠
Still, he couldn’t fault Georgiana for her reaction. Her reaction was -
Just a moment…
He raised his head, straining to hear. Quiet voices were coming from next door. A low feminine voice, an extended moment of silence, and then
Was that a moan?
What. The. Hell.
He stood, the chair scraping against the floor as it was pushed back. He strode to his door, yanked it open, then stalked to Georgiana’s door. He pressed his ear against it.
Another low moan.
Had Hawkins gone into her room? Was that bastard accosting her?
---
“You don’t want him,” he rasped out.
“No,” she admitted quietly. “Not him.”
He locked eyes with her. Every instinct was telling him to drag her out of the water and carry her to the bed. To sample every bit of her delectable body.
“Never him,” she whispered.
He licked his lips. Slowly. Deliberately.
“Who do you want, then?” he managed.
She was quite. For a long moment, the silence felt as heavy as mist. Finally, she whispered, “You.”
---
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, pouring all his longing into it. He wanted her. More intensely, more violently, than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.
---
The way he covers her quim and tells her to send her maid away 🫠 🫠
Georgiana jerked, but Theo stilled at the sound of her maid’s voice. This time, he didn’t pull back. Instead, his palm settled over her mound.
“Tell her to go away,” he whispered, eyes locked with hers.
---
Crowding against doors and walls is one of my favorite romance things!!!
It was opened so quickly, he must have been standing directly in front of it. He took hold of her wrist, pulled her in, closed the door, and crowded her against it. She gasped at the feel of his body, so firm and hard, pressed against her own.
And then he was kissing her, his tongue stroking inside her mouth, his hands roaming up her body beneath the cloak to cup her breasts.
---
I LOVE that this hero isn’t scared of sharing his feelings and embracing them
This was no dream. This was reality. And the reality was that he wanted Georgiana Milford, and he needed to tell her that.
“I’ve fallen in love with you. I cannot stand the thought of you being torn away from my side.” He swallowed hard. “I think we belong together. I think you make me into a better man, and I think I have never been happier or more at peace than I have been these past days with you.”
Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.
- some elements of controlling parents
- mention of death of parents
- toxic parent/abuse mentioned
Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:
Safe sex: She talks about not wanting to get pregnant, he explains the risks and pulls out
Hows the consent? It’s good/explicit
43% - kisses
52% - kisses in the cave
55% - 🔥 kisses and breast play in the bath, then there’s a bit of a break while they talk, and continues in the bed, fingering for her, then another bit of a break and the next morning hand job/masturbation for the hero
Dressed only in his trousers, which showed the outline of his manhood in a way that made her heart pound even harder, he obeyed, crawling up onto the bed and then over her, radiating energy like some hungry predator.
He straddled her, a knee on each side of her body, then gazed down at her. “Is this what you want?”
65% - 🔥 kisses in his room, oral for her
When she was panting and needy and thoroughly teased, he chased his fingertips with hot swipes of his tongue, murmuring, “You taste...so...damn...good.”
66% - mention of more pleasuring throughout the night
73% - another mention of past pleasuring
77% - 🔥 kisses, bj for him (incomplete), missionary (V loss for her)
He braced himself against the wall, head down, watching her. She looked up at him as she moved back up his shaft. His lips were parted, his eyes hooded as he watched her.
98% - brief mention of oral for her
Readability: 📖📖📖📖📖
Feels: 🦋🦋🦋🦋
Emotional Depth: 💔💔💔💔
Sexual Tension: ⚡⚡⚡⚡
Romance: 💞💞💞💞💞
Sensuality: 💋💋💋💋
Sex Scene Length: 🍑🍑🍑🍑
Steam Scale (Number of Sex Scenes): 🔥🔥🔥
Humor: Yes
Perspective: Third person from both hero and heroine
More character focused or plot focused? character
How did the speed of the story feel? medium
When mains are first on page together: Almost immediately (chapter 1, or 1% of the story)
Cliffhanger: No, this ends with a happily ever after
Epilogue: Yes, ten months later
Format: voluntarily read an advanced reader copy from NetGalley that I’m late on 😅
Should I read in order?
You can read this alone! I believe it’s a stand alone...
Basic plot:
Georgiana is used to fighting off fortune hunters, but when her family’s worst enemy shows up at the 2 week house party she’s attenting, she’s not sure she can make it through...
Give this a try if you want:
- Regency
- country estate setting
- house party!
- enemies to lovers (on the heroine’s side)
- rival families
- forbidden love vibes
- class difference – duke hero and merchant’s daughter heroine
- fashion loving/creating heroine
- interesting facts woven in – like lawn bowling licenses!
- a bit of a possessive hero – he gets a bit jealous for the heroine
- some euphemism banter in the bedroom
- very light epistolary (some letters written)
- medium steam – 3-ish full scenes
Ages:
- I don’t think they are mentioned, but both hero and heroine have a 27 year old sibling – so I’d guess heroine is around 23-ish and hero is around 30
First line:
Georgiana hid a yawn behind her gloved hand.
My thoughts:
Oh my gawd. I adored this book so SO much. This is my second by Haymore, and I very much liked the other book I read by her. So I will officially be stalking all her other releases!
This book is so dang sweet. And just all the things I adore in romance. The entire middle of this story is like Haymore poured romance catnip all over me. I was smiling and swooning and kicking my feet in the air.
I did find Georgiana’s blind following of her parents a bit annoying in the beginning of this book. But she’s been respected and loved by them (maybe a bit oppressively) and it’s understandable. It took me about half the book to REALLY warm up to her and then I loved her. I loved how she was able to vocalize her boundaries (even to her parents eventually) and maneuver society situations with fortune hunters. I loved her fall for Theo.
But Theo. Theo! Theo stole my heart. I adore heroes like him. Heroes that have deep feelings they keep hidden inside. Heroes that maybe aren’t running around being manwhores and who harbor a romantic heart. Heroes that when they fall, they fall with EVERYTHING in them. I loved him so, so much.
There were so many adorable scenes in this story. I highlighted like half the book (you can see in my quotes section hahaha). The scenes where he starts to fall for her, and gets playful and a bit flirty at the house party. (And my gosh I have been loving house party games lately in HR! So, so fun!) And the way he starts to fall, and gets all obsessed, a bit jealous and basically loses his mind for her.
The way he hears her moaning in her room and busts in to remove the threat.
The way he whispers that he’s filled with lust in her ears in a crowd of people.
The way he catches her eyes while he holds her quim and whisper orders her to send her maid away from her room.
Just fucking melting this whole book….
I ended up really loving the ending too. Theo is just such a GOOD person. I enjoyed the way it worked out. The way he was wanting to give her everything and worked so hard to do that. He really is the best. Love love love.
Quotes/spoiler-y thoughts:Any mistakes/typos are my own
This man was definitely handsome.
He walked alone, just coming round the bed toward them. His form was tall and dark, but his ocean-blue eyes pierced straight through her from a distance.
Not Worsley/Webley.
Someone different.
Far more potent.
Far more despicable.
Georgiana yanked her gaze away.
The Duke of Desborough was walking toward them on the footpath at Hyde Park.
---
I love how he is so intrigued and interested in her from the start
He knew she’d regained her footing, but he couldn’t help it. She had a tiny waist – one he could almost span with his hands. He looked down at her perfect face and breathed her in, his senses filling with a soft rose perfume.
---
Oh, yes. He could picture that perfect petite body, rounded softly in all the right places.
All that pale, soft womanly skin to caress…
She glared daggers at him.
---
And when her feelings slowly start to shift in a positive light towards him
Georgiana jumped up with a cheer and threw her arms around the duke, who took a stumbling, surprised step back before going completely still. His eyes locked with hers, and sensation shivered through her as his arms banded around her. On their own accord, her arms tightened around him in return, a feeling of rightness humming through her.
---
“Ooh.” She studied the plant with more interest now.
She’d never seen a tomato plant before. “They say those things turn your blood to acid and kill you.”
“An old wives’ tale, surely,” he said mildly. “The French call them love-apples because they claim they have aphrodisiacal qualities.
She laughed. “So, if you dare to consume one, you’ll either drop dead or be overwhelmed by lust.”
He nodded and looked at her again, challenge flashing in his eyes. “Should I try one?”
//
“You’re still alive. Do you feel any strange effects?”
His eyes twinkled. “Like the overwhelming urge to ravish you?”
An instant flush heated her cheeks. “That’s not what I meant! I mean, do you feel your breaths becoming short? Tightness in your throat? Swelling of any part of your body?” She flushed deeper. “Well...I mean, not swelling on that part. Oh Lord.”
---
I love these house party games!!! So fun!!!
Forcefully keeping her expression blank to not expose the glee rising inside her, she reached down and trailed her hand beneath her bottom, along the outside of his rigid thigh. The man behind her went very still as her fingers moved along. The nankeen pantaloons were tight, as fashion dictated, and the buttery soft, and she traced the contours of thick muscle. Heat traveled through her hand as she moved over the side of his hip to his waistband. When she reached the small gap between his pantaloons and the sharp cut of his tailcoat, she ran her fingertips over the tiny bumps of slick embroidery edging his silk waistcoat.
//
She tiptoed her fingertips up, over the high starched collar of his waistcoat and to his jaw, shaved smooth for the evening. He sucked in a small breath – probably imperceptible to the onlookers but not to her.
It made her feel powerful.
---
He’d locked eyes with Georgiana.
“Time to hear my secret, Miss Milford,” he said in a low voice.
She leaned slightly toward him, her body stiff, and he cupped one hand around her ear, sliding the other around her head to hold her securely in place. Her hair felt like silk under his fingertips. “It took its time,” he whispered, “but I fear the tomato has begun its work.”
She jerked in his hold.
“Shhh,” he told her. “I’m not dying. It’s the other concern.”
She went still.
“I’ve been watching you all night. Imagining how your sensual lips – your perfect body – would feel beneath mine.”
She gasped audibly.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” he whispered. “About you.” Then, letting his thumb skim lightly over the shell of her ear, he let her go.
---
Ahhhh, he IS a romantic and I am loving it!!
“A father’s control is as absolute as a husband’s.”
“Not at all,” Georgiana argued. “It’s different because my father loves me.”
“And your husband wouldn’t.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Isn’t that the whole point of marriage? For the husband and wife to commit to loving each other for the rest of their lives?
She stepped back against the bookshelf, hand to chest. “Are you a romantic, Your Grace?”
He laughed, low in his throat. “Now let’s not get carried away.”
---
I love it so much. I love how much he is opening up to her and loving her.
“Turn around,” he said softly.
She did, excruciatingly slowly.
When she was facing him, she ran a hand up her arm, over her long, white glove, over that warm, petal-soft part of her skin on her upper arm, then over that exquisite silvertrimmed silk cap sleeve. He skimmed her shoulder and touched her cheek. It was softer, sweeter than he could have ever imagined. Then, he slid his fingering under her chin and tipped her face up to his.
Her eyes were a clear haze. “Beautiful,” he whispered under his breath.
---
I am dead
“That wasn’t teasing. That was the truth.”
“Because you ate that horrid love-apple.”
“No. The tomato had nothing to do with it. I feel that way right now, and the tomato is no longer involved.”
---
I don’t know why these lines just got me so good – the fact that he’s so desperate for her? And helping her get under his waistcoat?? I love it.
He’d take more. And more and more and more, if she’d let him. He moved his hand from her neck to cup her chin reveling in the dewy skin of her jaw as he tilted her head so he could coax his tongue between her lips, desperate for more of her taste.
One of her hands slid around to his front. He held his hand over hers, encouraging her to touch him, to explore, helping her slip her fingers under his waistcoat.
---
When he starts losing his mind in jealousy 🫠 🫠
Still, he couldn’t fault Georgiana for her reaction. Her reaction was -
Just a moment…
He raised his head, straining to hear. Quiet voices were coming from next door. A low feminine voice, an extended moment of silence, and then
Was that a moan?
What. The. Hell.
He stood, the chair scraping against the floor as it was pushed back. He strode to his door, yanked it open, then stalked to Georgiana’s door. He pressed his ear against it.
Another low moan.
Had Hawkins gone into her room? Was that bastard accosting her?
---
“You don’t want him,” he rasped out.
“No,” she admitted quietly. “Not him.”
He locked eyes with her. Every instinct was telling him to drag her out of the water and carry her to the bed. To sample every bit of her delectable body.
“Never him,” she whispered.
He licked his lips. Slowly. Deliberately.
“Who do you want, then?” he managed.
She was quite. For a long moment, the silence felt as heavy as mist. Finally, she whispered, “You.”
---
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, pouring all his longing into it. He wanted her. More intensely, more violently, than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.
---
The way he covers her quim and tells her to send her maid away 🫠 🫠
Georgiana jerked, but Theo stilled at the sound of her maid’s voice. This time, he didn’t pull back. Instead, his palm settled over her mound.
“Tell her to go away,” he whispered, eyes locked with hers.
---
Crowding against doors and walls is one of my favorite romance things!!!
It was opened so quickly, he must have been standing directly in front of it. He took hold of her wrist, pulled her in, closed the door, and crowded her against it. She gasped at the feel of his body, so firm and hard, pressed against her own.
And then he was kissing her, his tongue stroking inside her mouth, his hands roaming up her body beneath the cloak to cup her breasts.
---
I LOVE that this hero isn’t scared of sharing his feelings and embracing them
This was no dream. This was reality. And the reality was that he wanted Georgiana Milford, and he needed to tell her that.
“I’ve fallen in love with you. I cannot stand the thought of you being torn away from my side.” He swallowed hard. “I think we belong together. I think you make me into a better man, and I think I have never been happier or more at peace than I have been these past days with you.”
Content warnings: These should be taken as a minimum of what to expect. It’s very possible I have missed some.
- some elements of controlling parents
- mention of death of parents
- toxic parent/abuse mentioned
Locations of kisses/intimate scenes:
Safe sex:
Hows the consent?
43% - kisses
52% - kisses in the cave
55% - 🔥 kisses and breast play in the bath, then there’s a bit of a break while they talk, and continues in the bed, fingering for her, then another bit of a break and the next morning hand job/masturbation for the hero
Dressed only in his trousers, which showed the outline of his manhood in a way that made her heart pound even harder, he obeyed, crawling up onto the bed and then over her, radiating energy like some hungry predator.
He straddled her, a knee on each side of her body, then gazed down at her. “Is this what you want?”
65% - 🔥 kisses in his room, oral for her
When she was panting and needy and thoroughly teased, he chased his fingertips with hot swipes of his tongue, murmuring, “You taste...so...damn...good.”
66% - mention of more pleasuring throughout the night
73% - another mention of past pleasuring
77% - 🔥 kisses, bj for him (incomplete), missionary (V loss for her)
He braced himself against the wall, head down, watching her. She looked up at him as she moved back up his shaft. His lips were parted, his eyes hooded as he watched her.
98% - brief mention of oral for her