'The storyline in Seducing the Duchess is pretty simple. Three years ago, Philip Burgess, the Duke of Rutherford decided to get revenge on his former best friend, who had run away with Philip's erstwhile fiance. His method of revenge was to seduce and marry his friend's younger sister, Charlotte, then abandon her after telling her that he only married for revenge. However, the joke is on him because after three years, he now finds himself in love with his wife. Unfortunately for him, she wants nothing more than for him to grant her a divorce. To this end she goes out on the town and dallies with other men to try to embarrass him enough that he'll get rid of her. Philip wants to reconcile with her, but can't even get her attention, so he finally resorts to "kidnapping" her and taking her away to his country estate to try to win her back.
I will freely admit that I like my romances with heaping doses of angst and intensity and this book has got lots of both, although there are also lighter moments with good banter between Charlotte and Philip. One thing that I loved about the book was that it was Philip who was pursuing Charlotte. Much of the book is written from his point of view and the reader can feel his desperation and desire as an almost tangible force in the book, propelling him forward, even though he knows that he may not succeed in getting Charlotte to forgive him. He's also his own worst enemy at times, retreating behind the cold and arrogant shell of his persona as the Duke of Rutherford, even when he knows that he should be reaching out to her to show her that he has a softer side and that he truly does love her.
I understood where Charlotte was coming from and I did like her. She'd known Philip all her life and she was 19 when he swept her off her feet. She fell hard for him only to have her love tossed back in her face. When the book opens she is 22, but it's clear that she is still very young emotionally. Her anger and hurt have not dissipated, they've just been buried down deep inside. As the book went on, I felt so bad for Philip that I just wanted to beg Charlotte to forgive him, but I don't think it's unreasonable that she would be unable to trust him, especially because in the course trying to win her back, he commits yet another untrustworthy act.
I loved that Ashley March was able to get me emotionally invested in both of these characters. Another thing that I loved about the book was that Philip really did change over the course of the book and came to see that he was still trying to manipulate Charlotte. In summary, I thoroughly enjoyed Ashley's debut book and I'm looking forward to her next one, Romancing the Countess, which is due out in September. Her writing was assured and the plot moved along quickly with no dead spots. My only criticism of the book would be that I wished more of Philip and Charlotte's back story had been told. There were a few flashbacks to earlier events, but I think more could been included. They grew up together on neighboring estates, but this is only hinted out throughout the book and I think it would have added some richness to the story if more of their history had been shown.
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