Review: Catch a Falling Duke by Eve Pendle

Catch a Falling Duke (Fallen #3)
By Eve Pendle
Self-published on May 26, 2021
Historical Romance

Catch a Falling Duke is a hard book for me to write a review about. There isn’t anything that necessarily stands out as not great about this book. Unfortunately, there isn’t anything that really stands out as great, either.

My favorite thing about Catch a Falling Duke is the characters. Beatrice is great – I love the way she just kind of goes for it at the beginning with Hugo. And Hugo is also a big sweetheart. I love the way that he adjusts his plans for Beatrice, and is so supportive of her. The banter between the two of them is delightful and I really do enjoy them together.

Both Hugo and Beatrice are dealing with familial history drama at the beginning of the book, and their drama informs a lot of the plot of the rest of the book. And there is a lot going on in Catch a Falling Duke. I think my biggest complaint is just how much happens in this book. It feels like two separate books at times – Hugo and Beatrice’s time at the hiring fair as one story, and then their time together on the farm as the other. I understand why their brief separation in the middle was necessary, but it also separated those two halves of the book and made them feel distinct from each other. As a result, it then feels like the second half drags on a bit longer than necessary. While I understood Beatrice’s reluctance to get in an official relationship with Hugo to some degree, at a certain point it just felt forced.

All in all, Catch a Falling Duke was a perfectly fine read. If you’re into the only one bed trope or historical romance with widows, you’ll likely enjoy it. I would also like to note that though Catch a Falling Duke is the third book in the Fallen series, I was able to read it without any knowledge of the previous books in the series.

I am trying very hard to avoid spoilers in writing this review, so if you want to go in not knowing anything beyond the book description, please skip:

Spoiler:

One other thing that was done well was Beatrice’s infertility. This may be a slight spoiler, but I did appreciate that she didn’t magically have a baby at the end of the book. The found family aspect, with the employees at Beatrice’s farm, was a nice way to emphasize that a person doesn’t have to have biological children to be able to be a caring figure in a child’s life, and I appreciated that lens. Lastly, as Catch a Falling Duke also addresses what it means that Hugo is a white, titled gentleman and deals with him reconciling where his family’s wealth came from, I think it was an interesting take on a traditional historical romance that we’re used to seeing.

Content warnings: references to infertility, references to past infidelity

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