Reading: The Duchess War

[white_hart]

I downloaded a copy of Courtney Milan's The Duchess War about five years ago, when the kindle edition was being offered for free. Although I was very much not a romance reader, several friends of mine had spoken highly of Milan's books and I thought it was worth a try, but I ended up bouncing off hard and abandoning the book about 20% of the way through after encountering a scene recounting the hero's graphic sexual fantasy about the heroine, who he'd only just met, which pinged all of my Oh Hell No buttons*.

Given that I have made a few ventures into reading romance recently I thought I'd give The Duchess War another try, although as all the other romances I've read were (a) f/f and (b) combined romance with fantasy, mystery or both, it was my first straight romance in both senses of the word. I liked it better this time. I still found the hero's graphic fantasising a bit squicky, though on persevering I found that later on the heroine also fantasises about the hero which made me feel a bit better about it. I wasn't entirely convinced by the Victorian setting, though as I'm not an expert in the period it's entirely possible that some of that is actually down to the Tiffany Problem rather than actual inaccuracies (but would a duke, however radical his views, really decide that distributing handbills encouraging workers to unite in the struggle for better conditions was the best way for someone with money and connections to go about pushing for change?), but the plot was entertaining and had some interesting surprises along the way, and the more I read, the more sympathetic and engaging I found the characters (I was also pleased to note that there is a background f/f relationship). There's some enjoyable banter between the hero and heroine, and although there are more explicit sex scenes than I was expecting or than I'm comfortable with (both more sex, and more explict) and at one point I was slightly worried that the whole of the last third of the book was going to be sex, that turned out not to be the case and the sex scenes were easy enough to skip over. I don't know if I will seek out more of Milan's books, but I quite enjoyed The Duchess War this time through and if you like romance and are more comfortable with explicit depictions of heterosexual sex than I am I think you'd probably like it a lot.

* 'Overly graphic descriptions of male sexual fantasies about women' is also the reason I bounced off the Dresden Files, although oddly enough I can cope with Peter Grant who a lot of people make similar complaints about.

Comments

[girlyswot]

If you were interested in more of her books, I would recommend The Countess Conspiracy. It has a secondary f/f romance, a strong focus on consent, and an extraordinary mother-daughter relationship, as well as writing women scientists back into the history books.

[girlyswot]

No, wait, I think I'm wrong about the f/f romance. I think that's in the next book in the series.

[sartorias]

yeah, don't go to Milan for period correctness. (I forget if it was that one or another in which I found five errors on the first page.) But for a hilarious voice and plenty of banter as well as exuberant lust, she can't be beat.

[alithea]

I bounced off the Dresden Files for the same reason but Rivers of London doesn't bother me either - I think it's because I never get the impression that Peter doesn't respect women and consider them his equal, whereas something about the tone of the others make me think both the character and the *author* could do with a good slap!