Monday, June 29, 2020

Melinda's Review: Daring and the Duke

Daring and the Duke by Sarah MacLean
Publisher: Avon (June 30, 2020)
Series: Bareknuckle Bastards, 3
Genre: Historical Romance (M/F)


New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean returns with the much-anticipated final book in her Bareknuckle Bastards series, featuring a scoundrel duke and the powerful woman who brings him to his knees.

Grace Condry has spent a lifetime running from her past. Betrayed as a child by her only love and raised on the streets, she now hides in plain sight as queen of London’s darkest corners. Grace has a sharp mind and a powerful right hook and has never met an enemy she could not best...until the man she once loved returns.

Single-minded and ruthless, Ewan, Duke of Marwick, has spent a decade searching for the woman he never stopped loving. A long-ago gamble may have lost her forever, but Ewan will go to any lengths to win Grace back…and make her his duchess.

Reconciliation is the last thing Grace desires. Unable to forgive the past, she vows to take her revenge. But revenge requires keeping Ewan close, and soon her enemy seems to be something else altogether—something she can’t resist, even as he threatens the world she's built, the life she's claimed…and the heart she swore he'd never steal again.



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Melinda's Review:



Daring and the Duke is an essential series ender and the grovel novel Sarah MacLean has been leading up to and promising her readers for the last three books of The Bareknuckle Bastards. The opening chapters are at a breakneck speed that picks up right where Brazen and the Beast left off and the pace made me hold my breath until there was a break in the plot. For me, it was basically perfect.



When Ewan finds out Grace is alive the tension and anguish seeps out of him off the page and Grace’s...delight isn’t quite the right word, but she revels in being able to keep herself and her people safe. And those opening chapters - which last quite a long time - are Grace at her most powerful. There’s so much that happens in the book that is basically all spoilers but I think I’ve read every book MacLean has read now and I honestly think this is her best work yet. It felt like she’s leveled up in a new way.



I came into the novel wanting to hate Ewan and of course the author managed to make me grudgingly adore him. But Grace...phew. I would kill for her. But I wouldn’t need to because seriously? She can take care of herself thank you very much. This book is everything I love about romance all rolled into one. Buy this whole series, read it, love it, spread the joy. Repeat.



5 STARS! 


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Source: eARC

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Thanks for the review, Melinda! 



Enjoy!



Until Next Time,










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