Waking Up With the Duke by Lorraine Heath

Both know that these feelings can’t lead to happiness, and yet, they cannot repress them.Ī number of things bothered me while reading Waking Up with the Duke. Of course, there’s an attraction between Ainsley and Jayne, and once they go to Ainsley’s retreat in order to get down to business, romantic feelings develop. But eventually, for reasons having to do with wanting a child and wanting to give Walfort his heart’s desire, Jayne agrees to Walfort’s suggestion. When Walfort tells Jayne that he wants her to conceive a baby with Ainsley, she is sickened and hurt. Unfortunately for Ainsley, Jayne blames him for all she and Walfort suffered as a result of the accident, and thinks very little of him. What he can’t deny, however, are his feelings for Jayne, whom Ainsley has loved from afar since the day he met her at Walfort’s betrothal dinner. Not only that, he can’t imagine allowing someone else to claim and keep his child. Although he sleeps around quite a bit, he considers married women off limits. Now Walfort wants Ainsley to atone for his actions by giving Jayne a child and Walfort an heir. The emotional trauma led Walfort’s marchioness, Lady Jayne Seymour, to lose the child she was carrying. Three years ago a carriage accident that occurred while a drunken Ainsley was holding the reins resulted in Walfort’s being paralyzed from the waist down.

Waking Up with the Duke begins with Ransom Seymour, Duke of Ainsley (referred to throughout the book as “Ainsley”) drinking with his cousin the Marquess of Walfort. More on the reasons why in a moment, but first, a brief plot summary. I was hoping that this book would be one of the former, but instead, it seems to be one of the latter, and on p.317 (of 375 pages) I have decided that reading further will only make me more frustrated. Waking Up with the Duke makes use of the conceiving an heir trope which has sometimes resulted in books I’ve loved and other times in books I didn’t care for. I got this book from the library after a good friend of mine mentioned that it was one of her favorite books of the year. If you would like to read this book and prefer to remain spoiler-free, it may be best not to read this review.

Note to readers: This review contains SPOILERS. Janine Book Reviews / DNF Reviews 19th century / Duke / Historical Romances / infidelity 43 Comments SeptemREVIEW: Waking Up with the Duke by Lorraine Heath

Waking Up With the Duke by Lorraine Heath