Never Met a Duke Like You

Amalie Howard

Nov 2023 · Sold by Forever

About this ebook

Clueless meets Bridgerton in this spicy opposites-attract Regency romance from “a must-read author” (Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

Lady Vesper Lyndhurst is beautiful, clever, and popular. Afforded every luxury as a duke’s daughter, she fills her days with friends, intrigues, and a self-professed knack for matchmaking. She may have sworn off love for herself, but she is rather excellent at arranging it. 

Faced with an insolvent estate, the Duke of Greydon has no choice but to return to England in a final attempt to revive his family’s fortunes. He’s been gone for years, happy to have escaped his mother and the petty circles of the ton. To his dismay, not much has changed, including the beautiful and vexing heiress next door.  

But when an accident of fate traps the friends-turned-enemies in an attic together, the explosive attraction between them becomes impossible to ignore and even harder to resist. They are total opposites and their lives don’t align in the slightest, but fate, the ultimate matchmaker, appears to have other plans . . . 

Ratings and reviews

Delightful play on Emma and Clueless Vesper is a dedicated matchmaker, regardless of whether her efforts are appreciated by the targets. However, she can't seem to sort out her own love life, especially when the man she wants is the last man she wants. Friends since childhood, Aspen spurned her years ago at her debut, and she's been smarting from the rejection ever since. Now, however, his mother is recruiting her to help match him to her young ward, Judith. Regardless, Aspen is determined to avoid marriage at all costs. Their complicated relationship alternates between friendship and enmity and I absolutely adored their witty, clever, sarcastic banter. Their nicknames for each other are my all-time favorites! Aspen's mother is one of the worst sort of villains I've ever read, and thwarting her plans is a truly risky business. There's a lot of backstory - make sure you pay attention to the content warnings - and it's easy to see why Aspen turned out the way he did. I appreciated the care taken with Vesper's issue and how it informed her actions and decisions. It couldn't have been easy to deal with such a condition in the days when such things were largely misunderstood. I also loved the secondary storylines for Vesper's brother, Aspen's best friend, and the ladies in Vesper's circle. There's a lot going on in this book and the author brings it all together very nicely. I was drawn out of the story a couple times by the author's use of very 21st century slang in a 19th century setting, but those were minor and I was quickly brought back by the delightful dialogue and soul-deep connection between Aspen and Vesper. Their HEA was beautiful, and I especially loved how it included an update on Judith. The author's note at the end was an important addition and demonstrated the extensive research that was behind this story. This is a wonderful story with compelling characters and captivating complications. I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys historical romance, especially that of the Victorian era. I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book.

This was another wonderful entry for this delightful series. Fun, cute, emotional, dramatic, sweetly familiar and endearingly fresh, Aspen and Vesper's story stole my heart and left me swoony.

About the author

Amalie Howard is a USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling novelist of “smart, sexy, deliciously feminist romance” (Sarah MacLean). The Beast of Beswick was one of Oprah Daily’s Top 24 Best Historicals to Read. She is also the author of several critically acclaimed, award-winning young adult novels. An AAPI/Caribbean-born writer, she has written articles and interviews on multicultural fiction that have appeared in the Portland Book Review, Ravishly magazine, and Diversity in YA. When she’s not writing, she can usually be found reading, being the president of her one-woman Harley Davidson motorcycle club #WriteOrDie, or power-napping. She currently lives in Colorado with her husband and three children.