DUKE GONE ROGUE

A spinster with a green thumb snags a duke with overgrown gardens.

Out in Cornwall, in the small shore town of Haven Cove, the Royal Visit Committee is hard at work. Princess Beatrice is coming to town in two weeks, and no one is more excited than committee co-leader Madeline Ravenwood, who runs her late parents’ nursery and almost a dozen other committees in town. She’s created a hybrid rose in honor of the princess for a botanical exhibition, and a royal approval could finally turn her business around. Also en route to Haven Cove: Will Hart, Duke of Ashmore, who has been ordered to relax in his family’s dilapidated Cornwall estate by his sisters. Exhausted from months of patching up the scandals and schemes his late father unleashed on their family name, he has avoided the Cornwall house for too long because of its notorious reputation and has no idea about the royal visit. When Maddie realizes the duke is in town, however, she visits and tries to convince him to stay and to take care of the estate, if only for the good of the town. He eventually agrees if, in exchange, Maddie will show him her favorite places in Cornwall. The agreement is for platonic relaxation only, of course, but both look forward to the trips more than they should. Even though she is a spinster and he must marry a perfect noblewoman to restore the Ashmore name, their attraction blossoms after a passionate kiss on their first boat ride and continues to bloom. Maddie has sworn only to marry for love, if at all, and Will has to return to London eventually, but as the royal visit draws closer, both find they don’t want their time together to end. The first in Carlyle’s new Love on Holiday series is catnip for lovers of small-town love stories, with engaging character development and a driven heroine. The beautiful Cornish scenery and botanical details are grace notes on a slightly spicy but mostly sweet story, and readers will look forward to future vacations in the series.

A charming Victorian romance by the sea.