Review: Irresistible force meets immovable object?
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 28, 2014
OCD duke hero with emotional issues meets force-of-nature heroine.  He's a neat, tidy and orderly control freak who faints at the sight of blood and has an acute case of motion sickness (carriage rides are hell).  She's a messy whirlwind of a woman, with shocking red hair (kind of the color of blood, the horror) that doesn't stay in place, two different colored eyes (He feels the need to remove one and replace it with the appropriate color, but then, which color?), a tendency towards untidiness and a penchant for wearing trousers and riding astride.Just looking at her offends his sensibilities and makes him a bit seasick, but, at the same time, she arouses and attracts him like no woman has ever done before.  Add in the heroine's crazy set of family, friends and pets (Petunia, the boy pig, for example), and the hero's family, friends and fiancee (yes, he inconveniently has one but conveniently forgets to mention this to the heroine), and you have a very funny romp.I almost passed this story up because I've just about had it with dukes and their romances with women who are not appropriate duchess material, but so many reviewers whose opinions I appreciate were so enamored of this little romance that I had to try it.  And they were on the money about this.  It runs a bit long in certain sections and has a few editing and proofreading issues but there's way more good than bad in this.Two things that did irk me were: 1) The heroine's father's name should have been Aloysius, not "Alyosius", as it is spelled throughout the story.  If you're going to pick an uncommon first name for someone, maybe spelling it correctly would be a good idea.  2) A married woman of the peerage will be "Lady Titlename", not "Lady First Name".  Katherine in this story is the Marchioness of Manwaring.  So she is Lady Manwaring, not "Lady Katherine".  Yeah, I'm doing that "stick-up-my-you-know-what" thing again, so I'd better not mention the "waddle" used in the book where the author clearly meant "twaddle".