The Lost Duke of Wyndham (Two Dukes of Wyndham, Book 1) | Julia Quinn

The Lost Duke of Wyndham (Two Dukes of Wyndham, Book 1) | Julia Quinn | Average review =3 stars

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The Lost Duke of W...

	The Lost Duke of Wyndham (Two Dukes of Wyndham, Book 1) Julia Quinn Avon, 2008 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 102 reviews view larger image
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Julia Quinn does it again.

Ahhh, Julia Quinn. She never fails to make me smile, page after glorious page.

The Lost Duke of Wyndham is Quinn's first novel in a new series about the Cavendish family. In this particular novel, Jack Audley is believe to be the long lost son of a prior Wyndham duke. It's a bit of a prodigal son tale, if you will. Jack was raised in Ireland by his aunt and uncle and carries a bit of a haunted past himself.

The dowager Duchess of Wyndham, August Cavendish, is convinced that Jack is her favorite son's heir--even when no one else wants to believe it, including Jack. The dowager is the devil incarnate...or at least, everyone seems to think she is. But she may have more layers than meets the eye at first glance.

Grace Eversleigh is the dowager's lovely, witty, and underestimated companion. How she puts up with the dowager's tantrums and tangents is anyone's guess. But she feels beholden to the dowager and has nowhere else to go, so she remains at Belgrave, the Cavendish family home.

It's clear from the beginning that Grace and Jack have a connection. And despite their best intentions, they can't seem to stay away from each other. In the search for Jack's true identity, they fall in love. A bit of a love triangle is created since--by all indications--Thomas Cavendish, the current Duke of Wyndham, seems to fancy Grace at least a little. Even worse, Thomas is betrothed to Amelia Willoughby, Grace's childhood friend. It's a tangled web that does eventually sort itself out by the end of the novel.

Ever since I discovered Quinn's novels several years ago, I haven't failed to read them as they're released. During this particular story, I found myself smiling and laughing out loud at Jack's outrageous and charming sense of humor. Quinn has a witty repertoire she manages to keep up throughout the entire book. Actually, most of her novels carry this same vibe, which is why I like them so much. I can always count on a lighthearted, comfortable read. She obviously heavily researches the novels before she writes them as I found myself looking up references to Boucher and Watteau.

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Average review =3 stars

I find both the 1 star and the 5 star reviews way out of line. I found the book OK, niether great nor awful. For me,5 stars means I'll probably be reading a book again. 1 star means I regret wasting the time I spent reading it. The 3 star average seems about right to me. No, our hero,Jack, wasn't really charming. Yes, our heroine, Grace, was dumb as a brick. Are either of those faults unusual in Regency romances? Absolutely not. As an American, I find the whole idea that someone with a title is superior to someone without one to be stupid. Why would anyone, especially their grandmother, care which grandson was a duke? If Julia Quinn is from the Pacific northwest, why does she care? I skip over the sex and seduction scenes,too. I think I must be a failure as a romance fan.

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I can't believe it!

Julia Quinn is by far in my top 3 authors. I adore her. I have never once been disappointd by her books...until now. So sorry Julia. I could not wait to read this as I always always enjoy her books. I guess every great author has to have a book here and there that isn't always up to their usual standards. We all have a bad day sometime. Don't get me wrong this was not a bad book. I did like it,but, just didn't love it. However for the first time that I can remember I actually got bored reading one of her books. That had never happened before. This book missed the humor and the liveliness that I have come to adore and expect from Ms. Quinn. It honestly didn't seem like it actually was one of her books. The hero was not very well mapped out for me. When you read one of these types of books you want to fall in love with him and I just didn't. I wasn't sure why the heroine did either. When I really love a book, I remember that book and the characters and right now I don't remember much. I look forward to the next in the series and hope that it will improve. But I still love your books Julia Quinn and your books are always keepers for me.

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What Happened to the Author's Hook?

I used to really, really enjoy reading Julia Quinn because she had a writing style that was different than other authors and had a hook to her writing that made me keep wanting to read through the middle of the night (even when I have to get up early the next day). What happend to her "hook"? I found myself buying this book because I was a fan of hers, but her last 3 or 4 books have been mediocre at best and disappointing. This book in particular was predictable and boring; I found myself skipping through pages and pages to get to more interesting scenes. I just expected more from her!

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Below her standard-but worth the read

I've been a Julia Quin fan since reading the Bridgerton Series. However, I don't think this book was up to the caliber of the other books she's written. I found it a little far-fetched that on the basis of a few words and seeing partial facial features in the dark the Dowager Duchess would determine that this was her long-lost grandson. I liked Jack's sense of humor, but it took WAY too long to end the book when you knew good and well that he was the true heir because that's the way it's supposed to be in romance books. I felt sorry for Thomas being ousted so callously from something he'd grown up believing his whole life. Other than the humor between the two main characters, there wasn't much "spark" between them. I kept waiting thru almost the whole book for the spark to happen. I will read the sequel just because I'm a sucker for books that are related and I will continue to read Julia's books if the next book is better than this one.

I think sometimes that really successful authors are sometimes pushed to publish new books too quickly and consequently churn out books that aren't always up to the standard of their first books. I've found this to be true for several authors over the years, including ones as famous as Nora Roberts. I think publishing companies are greedy for money and fans are greedy for more books and that makes for a sometimes disappointing publication.

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