The Duke's Privateer

Two Disparate Halves I strongly dislike when an author doesn't understand a key distinction between terms, especially in a historical novel like this. Perhaps she did understand the difference but thought readers wouldn't care. I'm one who tends to be a stickler for the details. The “privateer” mentioned in the book's title is actually the heroine, which I thought was a cool twist in itself. But she really wasn't a privateer in the truest sense, though because of her friendship with Prinny that we see in the very first chapter, she could have been one. Instead, she's just a smuggler, though of fine goods from Europe and the Orient that others have a hard time sourcing during the years around the Napoleonic Wars. In case you don't know, a privateer is essentially a smuggler or pirate who is allowed to do his or her “sourcing” by the Crown of an official agency. As one person has said, a pirate with papers. The heroin was not that. I also felt like the book had two very distinct and very different parts that were not well joined. We have the first part of the book where the hero and heroine are at odds because he is one who's trying to crack down on smugglers... and she's one of the biggest, most successful ones. When it looks like all is to become undone for her, essentially, the Prince Regent strongly suggests or orders the hero to marry her to save her from jail or the noose. After being a story about the heroine staying one step ahead of the hero (or at least trying to), it turned into a standard marriage-of-convenience, will-they-or-won't-they-fall-in-love romance. I didn't really feel like the author created much conflict or tension in this longer second half of the story, so it all fell flat. I was at turns annoyed by and enamored by the hero. There were moments of questionable consent, which I never like to see in a romance. Yet, on the other hand, he could be very romantic as he tried to woo his wife. I loved the rose petal scene at the end. All in all, I found this an uneven story that had incredible potential but didn't quite make it. I did like the subplot about the heroine's father. We first see him lost in his own world because of what we would now call PTSD. Fortunately, the hero and one of the father's old crewmates are able to slowly bring him out of his misery. It was a beautiful little subplot. By the way, I listened to this as an audiobook, and while the British male narrator did a decent job giving each character a unique voice and manner of speaking, I always find it odd when a man narrates a romance. To me, as a romance reader and lover for decades, romance is an inherently female subgenre of fiction. I much prefer to hear them with female narrators. I received a free copy of this audiobook, but that did not affect my review.

I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy this book which is not my genre of choice. Amy Jarecki has written a little gem of a novel and Philip Battley narrates it beautifully. The story centres on the Duke of Danby, a renowned rake and friend of the Prince Regent. At a dinner at the Brighton Pavilion, he becomes better acquainted with Eleanor Kent who, unknown to him, smuggles in Chinoiserie for the Prince's fantastic palace, so that HRH can have the style he wants without bankrupting the kingdom for a third time. Amy Jarecki writes well and with a degree of humour which I have found to be absent in other Regency romances. Her novel reminded me of Georgette Heyer who wrote beautifully and whose background knowledge of the period was encyclopaedic, as a schoolgirl I devoured her books. Amy Jarecki uses the same tools but has updated the genre for the 21st century by including sex. An enjoyable read for fans of historical romance.