A Lady for a Duke is a wonderful queer historical romance by Alexis Hall

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Lady for a Duke is a queer historical romance by Alexis Hall. The ebook version is ~481 pages. We follow our two main characters with a third person, omniscient point-of-view.

Viola Carroll was presumed dead at Waterloo. She decided to take that to her advantage and transition in order to live her most authentic life. However, that also meant leaving behind her wealth and title, along with her best friend, Justinian de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood. Years after the war, their worlds collide again and Viola is saddened to see just how lonely and brooding her closest companion has become.

As a whole, this book was delightful! The author did a great job with creating a nuanced transgender character and also with how the other characters around her regarded her. I am very happy to note that the conflicts in this book were not based around Viola being transgender. I really felt the chemistry between our two lead characters, and both of their growth arcs throughout the book were marvelous.

I really appreciated that this book started out with some content guidance, with the author explaining the context behind some dead-naming and ableist language used in the book. This is very important and I am so glad they included this, and especially so at the beginning of the book instead of in the back in the author’s acknowledgements. The back of the book does contain the most delightful Questions for Discussion I have ever seen in a historical romance. This is the first book I’ve read by this author, however thanks to their sensitivity I absolutely plan to read more of their back catalogue.

Tropes in this book include: transgender heroine, disabled hero, secret identity, friends to lovers

CW: dead-naming, misgendering, ableist language, drug abuse, PTSD

Special thanks to Forever, Grand Central Publishing, and NetGalley for providing an eARC of this book for me to review. All opinions contained herein are my own. A Lady for a Duke releases on May 24th, 2022.

View all my reviews