Thank you Lara for reaching out to me to review this. You remembered I loved Return of the Disappearing Duke, and I’m so thankful you thought of me to review this for you.
Throughout the book we swap between Kit Carrington (the new Lord Westford) and Genny Maitland’s perspectives. Both characters met when Genny travelled with her grandfather’s army regiment several years earlier, however, were never close and weren’t in contact once they separated ways.
Kit is reluctant to take the mantle of Lord Westford, especially because of how his cousins treated him. The only reason he’s back is because his half-sister is getting married and she wants him there. His plan is to sort out the family business, attend his sister’s wedding and set sail again! Genny is in a different position. With no family, her sister’s dead husband left them with a lot of debt and no way to support themselves. On top of that, they’re stuck living with Kit’s horrible grandmother who torments them every chance she gets.
Genny is trying to find a way to clear her sister’s husbands’ debts and find a new life for them, free from the Dowager Westford. To get what she wants she uses the skills her grandfather nurtured to form alliances and manipulate people and situations to achieve everyone’s goals.
One such alliance is with Kit, the goal of which is to find suitable husbands for Genny’s sister and Kit’s step-mum. While working with Kit to organise everything to her liking, they discover their attraction to each other. As they execute each part of their plan, they’re fighting their attraction for each other, without letting anyone realise what’s happening.
I’m a fan of Lara’s works and always enjoy a story with a strong female lead. Throughout this story I was left wondering how they’d get their happily ever after. They fought it every step of the way, which for some reason made me all the more determined that they should get it!
I got so invested in their relationship that I found myself stressing that maybe this would be the book where they didn’t get a happily ever after.
The fact that in the end, it was Kit’s maturity that helped them bridge the gap and move forward was awesome. The fact that you could tell how nervous he was, how he didn’t want to risk his heart but at the same time knew he had to put himself out there, it made that moment so much more believable.
All their interactions leading up to that moment allowed it to feel so much more alive and real. Every time they’d come close to maybe admitting their feeling one or both had shied away. So that moment where they both finally put it all on the table had me cheering them on.
