The Art of Duke Hunting

The Art of Duke Hunting
by Sophia Nash
Rating: 3 of 5 stars

My Review:
I had a really hard time getting into this book. Partly because it's the second in the series and I hadn't read the first book yet. But the story itself just felt rather sad. There was witty dialogue and I like Ms. Nash's writing style, but most of the time Roman and Esme didn't seem all that happy.

Roman's afraid of boats. Esme's afraid of people drinking. Neither of them are happy when they're forced to marry. There are injuries and panicking too. Both characters grew and were able to overcome their problems. Esme gained self-confidence and Roman conquered his fears.

But they spent the whole book in angst and were only able to let go at the very end. It was a nice relaxing breath at the end of the book. Everyone was finally able to breathe out and let go, but that means the rest of the book was filled with tension for me.

All of the titles and names were confusing to keep straight. I tend to recognize characters mostly by the first letter in their name and there were lots of characters that I kept getting mixed up - because sometimes they'd be called by their title, sometimes their name and sometimes their title location or whatever you call that.

On that note, it was hard to figure out the motivations of the characters because I'd read a little bit and then have to go back and re-check which name I was reading about. Once I got to the end, it was a nice ending, but it took effort for me and the characters to get there.