Avon Books The Duke Buys a Bride: The Rogue Files

Captures attention

I read this book in day and a half. I had a hard time putting it down

This book is SO GOOD. I had never read anything by Sophie Jordan before, I am so happy to have discovered her. Such a talented writer and story teller...the characters feel like real people. I feel that sadness of a book ending and realizing these are not real people, the story is over...I am walking around in a haze, thinking of their love story all day, ha! Some Romance novels are well written but seem to use historical information as page filler and it becomes a dull history lesson (thanks, but I can pull out a history book if I want to read every last detail on the Napoleonic wars). Other Romance novels have flat characters that jump into bed quickly and the whole read is totally forgettable. This book...this book is perfection. Fully fleshed out characters with great dialogue, wonderful descriptions of the elation and agonizing yearning during those initial days of falling for someone... Top quality entertainment and escapism. This book is why people read Romance, or at least why I do. I read this book, then waited a day, and then read it all over. I have since bought more books by Sophie Jordan for my Kindle and can't wait to dive into them.

When I first started the book and realized Alyse was going to be auctioned off, I thought, "Ok. This one must take place during prehistory or the medieval era." Then, lo and behold, it turns out the setting is the mid-19th century in the Scottish lowlands! It is so far out of any possible historical reality that I'm surprised the book isn't being marketed as dystopic historical fantasy.Due primarily to my reluctance to stop reading a book after starting it (and since I paid for it...I apparently preordered it after reading the previous one in the series) I finished it. Turns out it is your average "boorish entitled aristocrat saved by poverty stricken diamond in the rough." Apparently this leopard still hasn't changed his spots much, since he never apologizes or even acknowledges that Alyse was, in fact still a virgin. Then again, there isn't your usual "Oh, the pain! The pain!" bit, so perhaps she had an affair with Oberon, the King of the Fairies while in that Scottish Brigadoon village she hailed from.

was a good read