Any Duchess Will Do by Tessa Dare
I read a Tessa Dare book a couple of years ago and was underwhelmed. But I keep seeing her on lists of favorites, so I decided I’d give her another try. I’m glad I did. Any Duchess Will Do is funny, swoony, and narrated quite well by Eva Kaminsky, who nails both the upper-crust English voice of the hero (a duke) and the lower-class English voice of the heroine (a serving girl). It’s a re-telling of Pygmalion/My Fair Lady, in a way: the duke claims he will not get married, his mother tells him he must, he picks out a serving girl to annoy her, the mother says “game on” and decides to turn the serving girl into a duchess, hoping her son will then marry her.

The duke, Griffin, is kind of a jerk, but not in an “I’m going to go out of my way to make you feel awful” way. It’s more of an “I’m just concerned with myself and only myself” way. He makes an appearance in a previous book in the series, where he comes off rather badly. He does better for himself here. I doubted Dare’s ability to make me see him sympathetically, but she does a good job. Pauline, the serving girl, is a vastly more interesting character though. She has aspirations to start a library, stocked with naughty books for the ladies of her town to read, and she agrees to go through duchess training because Griffin has agreed to pay her to do a bad job and help get his mother off his back. The money he promises her will start the library. The pairing is a little different from most romances (where the woman is usually high-born), making this a refreshing read.

Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn
I’ve read two of the other books in Quinn’s Smythe-Smith quartet, which share a universe with her much-beloved Bridgerton series. I didn’t really love them. They weren’t terrible, but their leads didn’t have much chemistry, the stakes felt ridiculous, and there wasn’t much personality to them – surprising to me, since Quinn’s books are usually loaded with personality. That’s what makes her so hugely popular.

Just Like Heaven, narrated by Rosalyn Landor, is actually pretty good. It’s the first book in the series (I read romance series out of order since there’s really no spoiling anything here) and it’s a sweet one. It doesn’t put its characters through the wringer. The hero isn’t particularly tortured and the heroine not particularly self-doubting or put upon by others. They love their families and have been friends for years. They actually get together rather easily, compared to most romances I’ve read lately. If this sounds a little boring, that’s because it sort of is. It’s not Quinn’s best work, but coming off of the other two disappointing books, it was nice to get a solid one. And there’s always room for the sweet stuff in historical romance. We don’t need all Tragic Heroes all the time.

The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas
My previous experiences with Sherry Thomas have all been with her YA books, which are excellent. This was my first historical romance by her and I’m so sad my library doesn’t own anything else of hers on audio. Corrie James narrates this one, and she does an excellent job – but it’s Thomas’ writing that carries it.

The book features a hero whose parents modeled a loveless, manipulative marriage and a heroine who must marry well in order to support her impoverished family. Neither is looking for love, and when they marry each other, they don’t expect to find it. I’m not normally a fan of romances where marriage happens before deep affection or love, but this one works really well. Thomas’ writing is sharp, her portraits of these two flawed characters well-done. The exchanges between the two leads are witty, like the best banter from the Bridgerton books, but with a darker edge. I thoroughly believed in their attraction at the outset and their love at the end. There’s no real “hook” to this story plot-wise that sets it apart from others; it’s the execution that makes it shine.

I read almost exclusively historical romances, and these usually come in series that feature a certain family or group of friends who each find love in a different volume. This means that the ancillary characters you grow to love in the first book will be revisited in the subsequent books. It also means that protagonists get their own little continuing episodes in sequels.

This is why I particularly love discovering a new romance author. I fall in love with a whole passel of delightful characters, each with their own personalities. I get to keep up with these characters over time, chronicling not just their grand romances, but also their little life experiences afterward, in the sequels that focus on other characters. It doesn’t hurt that romances are usually published in quick succession, meaning the wait for a new novel isn’t usually very long.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve dove into two new authors: Lily Dalton and Courtney Milan. Dalton I picked up quite by accident. She was signing at the Texas Library Association, her book was free, and it was historical romance. That’s all the convincing I needed to give it a try. Courtney Milan I’ve heard talk of for some months now and figured it was finally time to see what all the fuss was about.

Never Entice an Earl by Lily Dalton
Daphne Bevington’s maid Kate has gotten herself into a terrible situation. Kate’s father took out a huge loan from an unscrupulous lender, and now the lender has come to collect. In order to pay off the loan, Kate has taken a side job as an exotic dancer, but she’s fallen ill and can’t make it. So Daphne, without Kate’s knowledge, takes her place for the evening. Naturally, the situation at the dance hall/bar is a bad one; unsurprisingly, our hero is there to save the day.

This was a pretty typical historical romance, I think. The hero and heroine (both upper class and titled) are thrown together into a ridiculous situation where sparks fly immediately. The setting is generically historical: women wear corsets and have to be chaperoned, but other than that, historical detail is almost nonexistent. The story could be happening at practically any point within a 100 or 150 year time frame. All this is fine, actually – I don’t mind any of it when the romance itself is done well. Unfortunately, I never got a real feel for the leads. I have a hard time remembering any of their defining characteristics, and the romance between them happens suddenly and because it’s supposed to, not because their personalities are a match. It’s not a bad read, but not an outstanding one.

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan
This is the first book in the Brothers Sinister series, which features a few full-length novels as well as a few novellas. Our heroine, Minnie, has a scandalous past. Thanks to the meddling of our hero, Robert, this past may come to light and ruin Minnie’s carefully-crafted new life. Of course, Minnie has her own tricks up her sleeve – she has some equally damning dirt on Robert. The stakes here are actually quite high. Milan doesn’t write romances where the hero and heroine are kept apart by mere misunderstandings. Both characters have choices to make, but each choice will hurt themselves or someone they love. The tone of the book is pretty serious throughout, though I’m glad it had the requisite happy ending. I wasn’t wowed by this one, but I did enjoy it, and it was sufficiently different from other romances to keep me intrigued and reading on.

The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan
I liked this one even more than The Duchess War. It’s a great deal funnier, thanks to a premise that is inherently amusing: the heroine has decided she will never marry, and she’s decided to make it happen by being deliberately awful. She dresses in hideous clothing, casually insults lords and aristocrats, and pretends like she doesn’t know the first thing about manners or social niceties. There’s a dark side to the plot, as was the case with the first book, but I found myself laughing out loud a lot despite the gravity of the heroine’s situation. I always appreciate my romances more when they’re funny. I also think Milan’s writing is a bit better here. The affection between the two leads develops at a believable pace and Milan knows just how long to keep them apart before finally throwing them together.

After finishing up this second book, I’ve found that Milan’s books tend to be more socially and politically-conscious than other historicals I’ve read. Her heroes and heroines are usually part of the movement for social change, such as abolishing the peerage, organizing workers’ unions, or expanding the vote to non-landowners. This helps place the books more firmly in a historical context and lends them an air of authenticity that is often missing from other romances of this kind. While the focus is definitely the love story, these historical romances seem almost as much “historical” as they are “romance.” The subplots used to hamper the two leads getting together also seem more genuine since they stem from the characters, who are well-rounded and flawed in real ways (rather than “quirky” ways as is often the case – I’m looking at you, heroines who are delightfully clumsy). As a result, the romance is truly swoon-worthy and all the more satisfying at the end.