Not the Duke's Darling

By: Elizabeth Hoyt

Narrated by: Ashford McNab

Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times best-selling author Elizabeth Hoyt brings us the first audiobook in her sexy and sensual Greycourt Series!

Freya de Moray is many things: A member of the secret order of Wise Women, the daughter of disgraced nobility, and a chaperone living under an assumed name. What she is not is forgiving. So when the duke of Harlowe, the man who destroyed her brother and led to the downfall of her family, appears at the country house party she's attending, she does what any Wise Woman would do: She starts planning her revenge.

Christopher Renshaw, the duke of Harlowe, is being blackmailed. Intent on keeping his secrets safe, he agrees to attend a house party where he will put an end to this coercion once and for all. Until he recognizes Freya, masquerading among the party revelers, and realizes his troubles have just begun. Freya knows all about his sins—sins he'd much rather forget. But she's also fiery, bold, and sensuous—a temptation he can't resist.

When it becomes clear Freya is in grave danger, he'll risk everything to keep her safe. But first, he will have to earn Freya's trust...by whatever means necessary.

©2018 Elizabeth Hoyt (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Something missing

The book is technically well written. The intimate scenes are very sensual, lyrical even. The characters’ back stories held so much promise.

The beginning of the book was much better than the second half. An ancient society of women is helping other women escape the clutches of men and the society which the men control.

Plus, there is an unsolved murder of an innocent young woman that has ruined the lives of several families and individuals. Fascinating and heartbreaking.

Then those two elements kind of disappear except in expository dialogue. The “Crow” does make a strange appearance at a house party to tell the heroine that one of their enemies is there, but they don’t know who it is. This is a frustrating element because it is obvious who one of their enemies is, and besides, they should know. It weakens their legitimacy that they are so clueless.

Furthermore, Freya is a frustrating feminist, and this is coming from an unapologetic feminist. We all need allies. Sure, we might not need help opening a door (though that’s just courteous), but we do need help when our lives are threatened. The fact that she didn’t recognize this made her useless in her position, in my opinion.

Christopher has the patience of Job. Honestly, I wanted more of his story and that of Freya’s brother and less of Freya’s pigheadedness. Perhaps I would have enjoyed Freya more if the Wise Women society had stayed in the forefront, and if their members were actually wise.

The story of the countess next door was also fascinating but so glossed over. It instead served as a way to put Freya (unnecessarily) in harm’s way.

I listened to this on audible and will try the next book with my credits. The reading was good, but I wish the narrators would stop trying to sound like the opposite sex with stereotypical pitch changes. There has to be a more pleasing way to differentiate between male and female characters. Jim Dale managed it in the Harry Potter series.

Good story and excellent narration!

This was a good story. I enjoyed it. I liked Freya, she was smart, witty and a strong female lead. I liked Harlowe too, Him and Freya made a good match.

The story line was fun and enjoyable. I liked that it wasn't full of angst and misunderstanding's like some HR books are. That was a relief. There was a lot of great dialogue throughout the entire book.

I enjoyed some of the secondary characters, especially Arabella. LOL she was always scheming some sort of plan.

As for the narration, it was fantastic. I am a big Ashford McNab fan and she always does a great job on the male voices and gives everyone their own distinct voice, She has a great reading voice too.

Average Book

I usually enjoy all of Hoyt’s nooks but this one left me rather tired. The story line was rather simple and most of the dialogue revolved around whether the heroine would end up with the hero or vice versa. The narrator is very good if overly dramatic.

Good enough book

Freya, was driving me crazy!! Why is it that some women think so much and be so annoying?? My God!!! She was making bored and not enjoy the book at times.
At times I feel like feminism is our biggest enemy instead of our allied.
I will get the next book, but if it's anything like this one... well, I will be very disappointed!!

Loved the tangle of strength!

Great story line. Great romance scenes. Loved the inclusion of an ancient women’s group, too.

Very good

i enjoyed the story, the trial and problems they had were interesting. the narrator did a good job keeping the story interesting.

Not the Dukes Darling

Always love Elizabeth Hoyt. Her stories are very creative and incredibly interesting from start to finish.

I liked it!

I like most of Elizabeth Hoyt's stories and this is no exceptions. I like how she weaves fairy tales into the beginning of chapters, kinda giving you two stories for the price of one. I like how the male love interest is really a pretty nice guy, not so sure how much of a Wise Woman the female love interest is, she often does pretty stupid things and constantly gets herself into hot water. She is smart enough to solve the major mysteries in the story though so that was fun.

The Reader's Darling

Elizabeth Hoyt never disappoints me. This is a great start to a new series, and I can't wait to find out more of the mystery of what happened to Freya's brother. I hope this is a long series since there are so many characters in it already that I would like to see get their own books. Hoyt's historical romances are always so suspenseful and exciting to read (or listen to). Her world building draws you in and makes you want to live there. I love her mythology of the Wise Women and Dunkelders.

As always, Ashford McNab is excellent. She's my favorite single narrator, especially for historical. She is wonderful at accents and men's voices. I especially love her Scottish accent in this. #HistoricalRomanticSuspense

Elizabeth Hoyt creates such strong characters...

Elizabeth Hoyt is one of the authors that helped me realize that historical fiction is indeed a genre that I DEEPLY enjoy. In fact, even though I preordered Not the Duke's Darling as early as I could and received it on its release day, I waited quite a while to read it - as I have read all of her other published works (that I know of), it was the last new-to-me book from her and I wanted to prolong the experience. I went "full immersion" with it and went back and forth between the book and the audiobook and it was (as always) a truly delightful experience. Elizabeth Hoyt knows how to create such strong characters, but she gives such respect and power to her heroines and it's an aspect of her work that I truly adore. Freya and Christopher's story is such a wonderful introduction to the Greycourt series and the way that the author laid out clues and hints for the continuation of the series is genius. I can't wait to see how the mystery unfolds and the villains unmasked. Add to that the utter sexiness, wit, and emotion that permeates the story; I will admit that it is not my favorite book from Elizabeth Hoyt (though honestly, I do love them all so much that having to choose a favorite one would be like being forced to choose a favorite child), but I did really enjoy it nonetheless. 4.5 out of 5 wine glasses.