Bringing Down the Duke is a steamy historical romance about a suffragette / Oxford student struggling to make ends meet and a duke who agrees to support the Tory agenda (including suppressing the women’s vote) in exchange for the Queen giving him back his ancestral estate. It’s a fun read overall, with a bit of a Pride and Prejudice feel, as the chemistry between Annabelle and Sebastian is very much rooted in a meeting of their minds. The attraction between them is undeniable, as is the differences in their social strata, and both understand from the beginning that, as a duke, the best Sebastian can offer Annabelle is a place as his mistress. (Fortunately, unlike Darcy, he’s never mean about it; rather, they both have an honest conversation about the realities of where anything between them could lead.)

Both Annabelle and Sebastian are complex, multi-layered characters. I love Sebastian’s struggle to uphold his family name, and I love Annabelle’s struggle to break out of the mold that her financial situation imposes upon her. Both have been burned in love before, and this influences how they approach each other, both equally cognizant of the attraction between them yet also wary of once again making the wrong decision in romance.

I love how Dunmore portrays the delicate balance Annabelle must maintain in her society. She’s super smart — because of the circumstances of her scholarship, also obligated to participate in suffragette gatherings, and because of her intelligence, she ends up taking a leadership role in the cause. At the same time, she’s not of the upper class, and must therefore talk to socialites with deference. There’s a wonderful scene where a wealthy man, upon learning that Annabelle is a suffragette, baits her at a dinner party by citing a woman writer who says that women’s brains are suited for homemaking and cannot be trusted for weightier subjects like politics. When he demands to know what Annabelle thinks, she responds that if women’s brains are not to be trusted, then why should anyone trust this writer? She says it mildly enough that it’s not an outright insult, but her point is also so accurate that the man is humiliated. I love that Annabelle is fiery enough to answer back, but also cognizant enough of her own social station to temper her emotions.

I also love how honest Annabelle and Sebastian are with each other. Despite differences in their opinions, and differences in their social standings, they have wonderfully frank conversations about politics, family and the potential futures for their relationship. It’s like they can be most fully themselves with each other, and that to me is always the necessary ingredient for a successful happily ever after.

Overall, this is a fun, flirty book full of witty banter and genteel elements of wealth in the Victorian era. It’s the first in a series, and given how much I liked meeting the other women in Annabelle’s suffragette circle, I look forward to future novels.

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Thank you Penguin Random House Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Our Wayward Fate is a much angrier, more frustrated, book than Gloria Chao’s earlier novel American Panda. Its protagonist Ali Chu, the only Asian-American student in her mostly white school, has lived her entire life dealing with racist microaggressions — and, quite frankly, horrifically overt aggressions — from teachers and friends. The emotional toll this takes on Ali practically pulses off the page. We can feel her seethe as she smiles silently at another racist joke. We can sense her shame as she prepares a PB&J sandwich for lunch, because her classmates think congee is ‘gross.’ It’s difficult to read at times, but important, and one wonders how much of this behaviour (even from teachers who should behave better!) goes unchallenged across North America.

Even Ali’s conflict with her mother, also a major plot point in American Panda, feels more fraught here. Whereas Mei’s mother was hyper-critical, Ali’s mother outright keeps a major secret from a daughter, one that potentially has a major impact on Ali’s future. While her actions are definitely wrong, I did find the mother a sympathetic figure, and couldn’t quite work up as much righteous outrage as Ali and her friends did upon finding out. I love the scenes where we learn a bit more about Ali’s mother’s history, how she felt about the choices she made, how she dealt with the racism she experienced in America, and how her own experiences led to the decisions she made about Ali’s future. I felt for her, and while I understand the perspective the narrator took, I wish Ali’s mother had been treated with a bit more sympathy.

There is a romance — between Ali and new student / fellow Taiwanese-American Chase Yu — but it feels almost secondary to the story. There are some cute moments — I love the flirting over kung fu (where their idea of a dream date involves a rooftop sparring session), and their text messages are filled with puns about their names (which honestly got old for me pretty quickly, but I can imagine a couple in love getting giddy over teasing each other that way). There’s also an angsty conflict — Chase’s family has a troubled history, and Ali’s mother doesn’t approve of the relationship.

But overall, Ali and Chase’s connection felt less like teenagers in love and more like a pair of Taiwanese-American teenagers finally finding someone who helps them be more fully themselves. Unlike Ali, who had learned to sublimate her Taiwanese background in order to fit in, Chase enters the school utterly refusing to follow suit. He calls out racist behaviour in the classroom, advocates for classmates to pronounce Ali’s name properly (‘Āh-lěe’, after a mountain in Taiwan, rather than the more Americanized ‘Allie’), and eats Chinese food with chopsticks in the cafeteria. With his friendship and support, Ali becomes braver about standing up for herself and for who she is, and while it’s disheartening to see the responses of some of her so-called friends, it’s thrilling to see Ali grow.

I personally preferred the more light-hearted American Panda, probably because I related more to Mei than I did to Ali. But I think a lot of Ali’s experiences at school will resonate with Asian-American teens. I hope those teens find this book, and, like Ali, understand that their voices matter.

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Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Nell is a super nerdy PhD who reads Baudelaire and Chinese philosophy for fun. Luke is a tattooed bad boy who owns and runs a dive bar. So when they have to get married to compete in a competition reality show for a million dollars, it’s purely a marriage of convenience, and both have full intentions of annulling the union after the competition. Except while ziplining, running through a maze tied together, and performing a host of other Amazing Race-type challenges, they start getting to know each other better. And the incredible sexual chemistry between them eventually develops into actual love.

I absolutely loved Million Dollar Marriage. I love the concept of getting trapped together for a chance at a million dollars, and I love the chemistry just buzzing between the two leads. I love how Nell is an unapologetic nerd, who believes she’s good only for her brains and is genuinely taken aback when she learns that Luke’s favourite part about her is actually her freckles (awww!). And I love how Luke immediately assumes he’s the brawns in the partnership, only to be genuinely moved when he learns that Nell thinks he’s actually really smart. Their relationship may have started off as opposites attract, but I love that Luke was already becoming attracted to her from the very beginning, and that despite their arguments, they actually worked together well for the challenges.

I just outright fell in love with Luke. He’s hot and sweet and considerate. There are moments where Nell’s fears could cost them a challenge and the chance at a million dollars, but throughout the story, he completely respects her boundaries, and lets her take the lead. I also love how he really listens to her, especially in an intimate setting. When she tells him she’s never come during partner sex, he acknowledges her previous partner must have just been bad at sex, but he doesn’t really harp on it. Rather, he takes things slow and gentle and (spoiler alert) pleasantly surprises her with her response. He also respects her desire to save sex for someone she truly loves, and acknowledges that since they barely know each other, she likely isn’t in love with him yet. I love a good alpha hero as much as any other romance reader, but I have to admit, I’m totally loving how gentle and understanding Luke is. He is labelled the Prince Charming of their TV show, and it’s easy to see why.

Nell may be a bit more difficult to love, just because she’s so prickly. But I love how relatable she is. Her hesitations on sex and relationships are rooted very much in a bad, I’d even say abusive, relationship she had genuinely thought was the one, and I also felt for her during the glimpse we had of her father also being a controlling jerk. She’s dealing with a lot, and I like that she takes a while to open up to Luke.

I also love that Nell is a straight-up PhD, and that throughout the filming, people refer to her as Dr Carpenter, or to her and Luke as Dr and Mr Cross. Her PhD is in comparative literature, which is just delightfully nerdy, but the significant part is how much people rightfully respect the title she’s earned. Given how hard it is for a woman to gain respect in academia, much less for a humanities degree like comparative literature, I love that the other characters simply accept it as Nell’s due, and give her the respect she deserves.

Overall, I absolutely loved this novel. I wasn’t too happy with the little incident near the end that almost risked their happily ever after, but I admit it’s true to the characters. I also totally melted at Luke wanting to introduce Nell to his grandmother — how adorable is that?

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Thank you to Thomas Allen Ltd for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.