Daring and the Duke by Sarah MacLean Pages: 384
Series: Bareknuckle Bastards #3
Genres: Historical Romance
Setting: London, UK
Source: ARC, Edelweiss
Also in this series: Wicked and the Wallflower, Brazen and the Beast
Also by this author: The Rogue Not Taken, A Scot in the Dark, The Day of the Duchess, Wicked and the Wallflower, Brazen and the Beast, Bombshell
Goodreads
Grace Condry has spent a lifetime running from her past. Betrayed as a child by her only love and raised on the streets, she now hides in plain sight as queen of London’s darkest corners. Grace has a sharp mind and a powerful right hook and has never met an enemy she could not best...until the man she once loved returns.
Single-minded and ruthless, Ewan, Duke of Marwick, has spent a decade searching for the woman he never stopped loving. A long-ago gamble may have lost her forever, but Ewan will go to any lengths to win Grace back…and make her his duchess.
Reconciliation is the last thing Grace desires. Unable to forgive the past, she vows to take her revenge. But revenge requires keeping Ewan close, and soon her enemy seems to be something else altogether—something she can’t resist, even as he threatens the world she's built, the life she's claimed…and the heart she swore he'd never steal again.
Daring and the Duke finally gives readers the ultimate second chance romance-Grace and Ewan. Ewan, Grace, Devil, and Whit were raised by the retched Duke of Marwick and forced to battle each other for the title-except for Grace. She is a liability. Grace, Devil, and Whit escaped as young teens after Ewan attacked and they spent their lives afraid he would come to finish the job to protect his title.
Grace is way ahead of her time. She runs a business focused on female pleasure, she was (and still is) a bareknuckle fighter, and she is protective of The Garden, the place that raised her. She is a fierce woman who wants to provide women with a safe space. But, she is also a woman with a broken heart. She loved Ewan as a child and she has never really recovered from his betrayal.
Ewan has been the villain in the previous stories. He has tried to kill Whit and Devil because he is furious that Grace is “dead”. In Daring and the Duke, he finds out the truth. He has a lot of truth he needs to share as well, but of course, this takes a back seat to his attempts to win Grace back. He never stopped loving her and now that he knows she is alive, he is determined to fulfill his promises.
It was, at times, frustrating that Grace and Ewan didn’t just TALK about what happened. He waits until the VERY end of the story to tell her what really happened the day he “attacked” her, Devil, and Whit. Other than that, I really loved both Grace and Ewan and its obvious they both never fell out of love with each other. Their love really is the stuff of fairytales!
Daring and the Duke is the final book in the Bareknuckle Bastards series and it provides a very satisfying conclusion. This series has been captivating and I will miss the people of the Garden!
- POV: 3rd
- Tears: no
- Trope: second chance romance
- Triggers: none
- Series/Standalone: series (you really must read the previous books in order to understand how we got here)
- Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
- HEA: View Spoiler »
| Breakdown | |
|---|---|
| Hero | |
| Heroine | |
| Chemistry | |
| Writing/Plot | |
| Trope | |
| Cover | |
| Overall: | |
Tessa Dare, Lisa Kleypas, Courtney Milan…then you will probably like Daring and the Duke!
Daring and the Duke
I recently read Brazen and the Beast and have been waiting for this one! Curious about how the author redeems Ewan because it was obvious there was more to his story than what we knew… Glad to hear it’s a good ending to the trilogy!
[…] like Sarah Maclean, Courtney Milan, Tessa Dare…then you will probably like Devil in […]