The Reluctant Duke, an Unromantic Beauty, and a Most Hard-Hearted Mantel Clock
(2026)(The first book in the Regency: Circle of Sensible Affections series)
A novel by Marisa Paxon
I am the narrator of this book. I already carried the entire business through rain, guest lists, roof leaks, county ambition, and a duke with the emotional habits of an unpaid account, and now they have decided I must sell it as well. There is, apparently, no end to service.
What I was given was Miss Helen Fanshawe: beautiful, capable, underpaid, and so resolutely unromantic she begins with the coal bill. Then in walks Gabriel, Duke of Loxborough, all injured dignity, family burden, and useless retreat, to find his house party arranged, his household half collapsing, and his life being improved against his will. Add a strategic dowager, a deeply reasonable suitable lady, several ornamental gossips, a manor house that leaks at morally significant moments, and me, a hard-hearted French mantel clock obliged to watch the whole thing tick toward trouble.
There are no corpses, only the far more exhausting spectacle of two intelligent people discovering that competence is attractive. If Helen missteps, she risks her place, her reputation, and the fragile security she is trying to preserve for her younger sister. If Gabriel fails to grow up in time, he loses the one woman sensible enough to demand proof instead of poetry, which would serve him right.
Perfect for readers who like dry Regency wit, practical heroines, reluctant dukes, house-party pressure, meddling county society, and a narrator who has seen entirely too much and approves of almost none of it.
This is a dry Regency manor-house romance with an opinionated object narrator, and a closed-door, very low heat, slow-burn romance with a solid HEA. It is a complete stand-alone, so you may begin here without academic preparation. Go on, click Look Inside or buy the thing; I have already kept the time, counted the damage, and made the whole affair worth your trouble.
Genre: Historical
What I was given was Miss Helen Fanshawe: beautiful, capable, underpaid, and so resolutely unromantic she begins with the coal bill. Then in walks Gabriel, Duke of Loxborough, all injured dignity, family burden, and useless retreat, to find his house party arranged, his household half collapsing, and his life being improved against his will. Add a strategic dowager, a deeply reasonable suitable lady, several ornamental gossips, a manor house that leaks at morally significant moments, and me, a hard-hearted French mantel clock obliged to watch the whole thing tick toward trouble.
There are no corpses, only the far more exhausting spectacle of two intelligent people discovering that competence is attractive. If Helen missteps, she risks her place, her reputation, and the fragile security she is trying to preserve for her younger sister. If Gabriel fails to grow up in time, he loses the one woman sensible enough to demand proof instead of poetry, which would serve him right.
Perfect for readers who like dry Regency wit, practical heroines, reluctant dukes, house-party pressure, meddling county society, and a narrator who has seen entirely too much and approves of almost none of it.
This is a dry Regency manor-house romance with an opinionated object narrator, and a closed-door, very low heat, slow-burn romance with a solid HEA. It is a complete stand-alone, so you may begin here without academic preparation. Go on, click Look Inside or buy the thing; I have already kept the time, counted the damage, and made the whole affair worth your trouble.
Genre: Historical
Used availability for Marisa Paxon's The Reluctant Duke, an Unromantic Beauty, and a Most Hard-Hearted Mantel Clock