Elizabeth Boyle: Love Letters from a Duke

Rags to Riches.  Mistaken identity.  Dukes.  Mayfair.

Sounds like my kind of book!

At least that’s what I thought as I plucked this one from the shelves a couple of months ago.

I had read a few of Elizabeth Boyle’s novels before Love Letters, and found them to be satisfying reads.

But let me tell you the problem with this one.

I found myself not caring.  About the mistaken identity bit.  It was boring, with no real tension.

Now here’s something that won’t shock historical romance devotees: the guy and girl always end up together.  That’s often the criticism of romance, yet still why it’s 55% of the publishing market.

But the trick to a good novel (see Quinn, Balogh, Kleypas) is all about the characters.  Some are funny, some are absurd.  Some you love to hate (I felt that way about the title character for a while in Judith McNaught’s Whitney, My Love).  And some, you weep for.  But mostly, you like them because they remind you of yourself (or at least the self you’d like to be).

And the men.  Sure, they’re handsome.  At least, to us the heroines (I love a good hero with scars…).

But why would they really continue a pointless charade when (at least you are screaming in your head by page 202) they could simply say “Hey, babe, are you shallow or what?”

{Translation: “I say, you seem to be rather inscrutable, sweetheart.”}

I wouldn’t say this is a book you shouldn’t buy.  In fact, I think at some point when I have run through the rest of the stack by the bedside, and exhausted the gals at my favorite used book store, that I might give it  another shot.