The Duke Effect

By: Sophie Jordan

Narrated by: Carolyn Morris

Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's summary

New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Sophie Jordan continues her best-selling Rogue Files series with this captivating romance that will thrill her many fans.

She doesn’t care about love....

Despite being surrounded by her happily wed sisters, Nora Langley prefers botany to ballrooms and would rather spend a lifetime in her laboratory than consider affairs of the heart. An expert herbalist, Nora has been masquerading as her late physician father for years, dispensing invaluable medical advice. She corresponds with people all over the world, including an old army colonel. But when the man shows up on her doorstep, he is nothing like she expected - he is a young, handsome heir to a dukedom who suddenly threatens everything she holds dear.

He only cares about duty....

Constantine Sinclair arrives on the Langley doorstep in a desperate bid to save the woman who raised him, the duchess of Birchwood...only to discover that the venerable doctor he expected is a bold and lovely charlatan. Furious at the deception, he vows to reveal her secrets. Determined to prove her skills, Nora promises to save the duchess in exchange for Con keeping her secret. Con reluctantly agrees...and soon Nora’s brilliant, headstrong ways are throwing his carefully controlled life into chaos. What happens when the rigid soldier begins to lose his grip on his heart?

©2020 Sophie Jordan (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers

Funny, romantic, historical

I loved Nora! She is funny, intrepid and is both self assured and insecure. Constantine’s character development was excellent as he struggled to find himself and Nora. Loved the performance as well!

Too much thinking, not enough dialogue

It was a decent enough story that compelled me to listen in the first place. For such a smart and clever heroine, she really does not know the world at all. Maybe that was the point? There was so much over thinking on both characters parts, that they barely said anything to each other. All thinking and no talking makes for a very dull book. And the sex scene we waited for at the end was lack luster at best. Love the idea of the book, disliked the execution.

Disappointing at best

This one felt completely forced. Characters weren’t developed, storyline was weak. And not my favorite reader - her voice is a little too prim for my taste. Even the writing had terrible moments. Here’s a direct quote “he pulled up fistfuls of her skirt by the fistful.” Who edited this?

Even regency romance should have a grain of truth

I went with the contrivance of Nora being home schooled by her doctor father until the halfway point, when the plot took a dive into ridiculousness. It’s like the author wants us to believe one can become a cook by training with an Easy Bake Oven. Actually, it’s ten times worse than that.


Spoilers



Nora has created some sort of medicine.
Apparently in a prior book involving her sister (The Virgin and the Rogue, I think),
Nora discovers that the “medicine” is a raging aphrodisiac. Yet, knowing that, this “smart” woman of science thinks the “medicine” could help an ailing older woman (when the only thing Nora knows is that this woman suffers debilitating pain). Then, Constantine volunteers as a test subject, with the unsurprising result of him being aroused. Then, instead of taking himself in hand to ease his symptoms … Nora, an innocent, forces her way into his room and takes him in hand. Riiiiight.

Him taking her unchaperoned in a carriage to observe a medical school.
Her thinking they can have casual sex with no consequences.
His supposed respect for her independence at the same time he condescends about marriage.
Her forgetting completely about helping her patient once the potion plot device was served.
There was so much nonsense that I just couldn’t take this seriously,
even with my low bar for frothy regency romance.