Review: long and plodding
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 01 23, 2014
On the insistence of her dear friend, Caroline, Lady Ballister decides to take a lover for a no strings attached affair. And what better candidate than the man who broke her heart ten years ago, the infamous rake John, Duke of Sutbridge, but he has other plans.He has wanted Caroline for ten years and now that she’s a widow, John wants to make her his wife. Caroline doesn’t want to be trapped in marriage again. Sutbridge knows he has a lot of work ahead of him, but if he can get Caro to agree to be his wife, then it will be all worth it.What many people don’t realize is that a short story is often harder to pull off than a full-length novel. An author has to pack a lot of story and a lot of love into only a few pages. Unfortunately, not everyone can pull it off.“Caroline and the Duke” feels like a novel, but not in a good way. The story felt long and plodding. The characters were boring and the heroine’s constant denial to marry Sutbridge seems too great in comparison to his declarations. In the end they only end up together due to jealousy caused by the manipulation perpetrated  by the heroine’s best friend who is also the hero’s sister.