Ne’er Duke Well by Alexandra Vasti (2024)
Historical romance. Regency-era England. Book 1 of the Belvoir’s Library series. There are so many of my favorite of tropes blended into this delightful novel. Peter is a new duke who grew up in America and is now seeking custody of his younger half siblings. His friend Selina, the sister of yet another duke, is helping him improve his case by finding him a suitable candidate to marry. Except these two are actually more attracted to each other than anyone else and all of Peter’s courtships are comically bad. We get to see a series of terrible courting excursions and then ultimately Selina and Peter get caught in a compromising situation themselves and need to marry. Meanwhile, Selina has her own potential for scandal by owning and running a circulating library with a secret section of elicit texts. She’s trying very hard not to get caught at this, since it’ll ruin Peter’s custody case, but he’s amazingly supportive after she tells him her secrets. There are a fun cast of characters here with Selina’s loving and supportive family, Peter’s young siblings, and even the ladies that Selina had suggested for Peter. I enjoyed this book so much; it was full of humor, steam, and a low-angst romance.
Advance ebook provided by St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley.
Earl Crush by Alexandra Vasti (2025)
Historical romance. Regency-era England. Book 2 of the Belvoir’s Library series. We get to mix a little bit of road trip with a little bit of fake identity and throw in a bit of fake marriage in this romp! The social awkward and painfully shy Lydia has shown up at an earl’s castle in Scotland to propose a marriage of convenience after three years of secret correspondence with the man. Except Arthur the earl is not who she had been writing to, it was his younger brother pretending to be the earl. And then the brother might be in some sort of scheme with a rifle part and Arthur needs Lydia’s help to track him down. It was so fun reading these two work together to solve the case and Arthur was just so impressed by Lydia’s cleverness. All the best kind of chaos, yearning, and steam.
Advance ebook provided by St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley. Advance audiobook provided by Dreamscape Media via NetGalley and Libro.fm.
Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti (2025)
Historical romance. Regency-era England. Book 3 of the Belvoir’s Library series. Something suspicious is going on when two anonymous writers are publishing very similar gothic novels. Lady Georgiana is ready to fight this woman who is quite possibly copying her, but then gets all tongue-tied when she finds out it’s her teenage crush and former family butler’s daughter Catriona. They spend most of the book bickering and misunderstanding each other’s circumstances and there’s a huge element of self-denial for Georgiana who believes herself the cause of harm for the people around her. The banter and flirting is great though and I loved this awkward crush and slow-burn romance. There’s a bit of underlying mystery plot at a creepy manor house they’re visiting, so expect some problem solving from our Belvoir’s crew at some point. Overall, loved this book.
Advance ebook provided by St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley. Advance audiobook provided by Libro.fm.
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