Officially in Love: The Duchess Deal

Yep. I already sort of knew this, but the start of her Girl Meets Duke series confirms it: Tessa Dare is my favorite romance author, and I am so grateful for her.

There's just enough different in each of her sensual tales to keep me interested, but she's utterly consistent when it comes to characters that you can fall in love with. And The Duchess Deal of a marriage of convenience between a scarred duke who sees himself as a monster to a vicar's daughter who struggles with her own worth was a nice way of showing that you can in fact have love grow from lust and make a premise like this really work.

I also loved the Thursday tea circle, which will presumably be the heroines of the rest of this series. There were so many echoes from her Spindle Cove set in a positive way - a bunch of women atypical for their time that makes you just want to be friends with the lot of them. I'm eager to see them get their happy endings.

In the meantime, I will relish this book for a while. The witty banter and romantic tension was perfectly paired with the sexual tension of their nighttime trysts in darkened rooms - she hit just the right note on that front. I really loved this particular title - it's gonna stick with me for a bit.

K. Rating: 5/5