by Amalie Howard
(post may contain affiliate links)
Never Met a Duke Like You by Amalie Howard is a dual perspective historical rom-com that is an homage to the movie Clueless.
Lady Vesper fancies herself a matchmaker, but she swears off love for herself. The Duke of Greydon, aka the boy next door, is now an archaeologist, but must return to England to revive his family’s fortunes.
These characters have clear chemistry and I was really rooting for them. They’re childhood best friends/crushes–the literal girl and boy next door–to enemies to lovers. The hero is a hot nerd, which is my kryptonite. The heroine is sex-positive and all spicy scenes have great consent. There’s also a fluffy white kitten who likes to cause chaos.
The book itself felt slow to start for me, and overall it was a little on the long side. There’s a lot of miscommunication here (that started during Vesper’s first season on the ton seven years prior) and that’s never one of my favorite tropes. The villain is also a little heavy-handed. But the chemistry between the leads kept me hooked.
Vesper is neurodiverse and has ADHD. It’s always so great seeing someone like me in books. Both of our main characters are committed to social activism, the Duke hopes to prevent people from being unjustly committed to asylums and the Lady helps provide food and schools for poor or orphaned children.
Overall I had a fun time with these characters, especially with the little update we got about Lysander and Neve, the main characters of the first book in the series, Always Be My Duchess.
Tropes in this book include: childhood friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, opposites attract
CW: discussion of mental illness, brief mentions of abuse suffered by asylum patients
I received a copy of this book to review. Thank you to Forever and NetGalley for the complimentary eARC. All opinions contained herein are my own.
If you want to see more from me, check out my Bookstagram, TheStoryGraph, or Twitter.
ruse reviews 