Duke of Pleasure by Elizabeth Hoyt (Maiden Lane #11)
Released: November 29, 2016
Historical Romance
Grand Central

Reviewed by Mandi

I didn’t love this one, and I’m bummed! I didn’t hate it or anything – I actually liked the hero and heroine separately. Just  not together – which kind of is a bad thing when reading a romance book. I don’t remember the last time I wasn’t thrilled with a Maiden Lane book (okay, I looked it up on Goodreads and my last less than 4-star rating was in 2013 for Duke of Midnight. Book #6! So we’ve had a good run!) Am I getting tired of the Ghost of St. Giles? Yes. Am I getting tired of trying to kill all of the evil Lords of Chaos? Yes. And those two things were very prominent in this book.

Hugh Fitzroy, the Duke of Kyle, does super secret work for The King. His latest assignment is to stop the Lords of Chaos, a secret group of elite men who do terrible things – including abusing small children, and they have power far and wide. The King wants them disbanded – but unfortunately for Hugh, others want him dead, and he gets attacked one night in an alley. Overpowered by men, he thinks this is it for him before the Ghost of St. Giles jumps down from a rooftop and helps him fight. The Ghost has been a recurring character in this series but played by different people, and helps those unfortunate people who live in the bad part of town, . This time the ghost is a woman (gasp!) and Hugh can’t believe it either. Hugh and the ghost fight, they win, and the Ghost runs off into the night.

The Ghost is actually our heroine, Alf. You may think Alf is an odd name for a heroine, but our heroine who is twenty, has almost always pretended to be a boy her entire life. It is how she has survived the streets of St. Giles and now makes money being an informant. She has learned to talk and walk like a man and look people in the eyes. Hugh hires Alf to help him track down the Lord of Chaos members, and then Hugh ends up feeling responsible for Alf when she (Hugh has no idea Alf is a girl) gets injured one night.

In the first half of the book, Hugh has no idea Alf is a girl and no idea Alf is also the Ghost of St. Giles. Hugh develops a crush on the Ghost (which is reciprocated) but nothing really happens between them. I think it was at least the 45% mark before Hugh knows Alf is a woman, and that’s a long time to go when you are waiting for the romance to develop. I enjoyed Alf – her charm, and wit and survival skills. But I had this image of her in my head dressed as the boy Alf, so when all of a sudden she is a woman, I had a hard time transitioning from dirty street imp to woman. It didn’t work for me. Their romance scenes in the second half of the book lacked passion and again were overshadowed by the suspense.

The romance is definitely overshadowed by the suspense in this book and because it’s recycled ghost and Lords of Chaos drama, I got bored.

I liked Hugh and I liked Alf. I liked Hugh’s kids (his wife died five months previous to the book starting). I liked a lot of the characters in this book. I just didn’t like the romance. After Alf reveals she is a woman, Hugh then asks her to do some secret work as a woman, and she freaks out because she has lived her life as a boy and doesn’t know how to act as a woman. That freak out made sense and was done well. But at the same time, when Alf is honestly telling Hugh she can’t work as a woman, his response is that his cock knows she is a woman, so she should too! I didn’t love that response, your grace

I believe the next book is Duke of Desire, and I have high hopes.

Grade: C

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