lorenalee

This was a really disappointing read. Usually I can read HR when all else fails, to bring me out of a reading rut, but unfortunately The Duke’s Holiday didn’t do the trick.

Montford is stuffy and uptight, Astrid Honeywell is smart and independent. She's led the family's brewery for the past years, and conveniently forgot to tell the duke of Montford - their landowner - that her father has passed away. With the last male Honeywell's death the land legally goes back to Montford, who, in order to get rid of the Honeywells, decides to take matter into his own hands.

I enjoyed the beginning of the book, it was light and quirky. But it just got to be too ridiculous the further on I read. And it seemed to never fucking end. It got to the point that I was just wishing the book to be over already. The plot turns were so obvious, I could see them coming from far away, and have been used to excess. The villain was one-dimensional and so over-the-top, the only way he could have been more obvious, was if he had a curling mustache to twirl menacingly while threatening the heroine. The last plot turn – that Montford already has a fiancé and so cannot marry Astrid – was solved by deus ex machina.

Astrid is a bit of a different HR heroine, what with her leading the family brewery and all, and although I did enjoy the unusual concept, I highly doubt that it would have been allowed in that time, and that a duke would ever allow his wife to run a brewery. The improbability of it all took away the enjoyment for me.

The duke of Montford is uptight with a bit of OCD, so naturally he and Astrid clash a lot. At times it was amusing to read about their little quarrels, but there is a very fine line between amusing and over-the-top. Unfortunately this book, for me at least, crossed that line more than once. Following the usual trope Astrid “cures” Montford in the end of “body and soul”. *sigh*