Review: A Man Like Him, A Woman Like Her, A Love All Their Own
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 20, 2014
***Received from NetGalley for an honest review***(This is a short story/novella. This review is not based on story length but story content as length has very little to do with how much I enjoy a book.)Pippa is the daughter of a wealthy tradesman, hardly wife material for a member of the ton. Yet, Lucas Alexander, the Duke of Arlington, is set on having her as his.From his bold declaration to his well-placed engagement announcement in the papers to his seductive kisses, Lucas pulls out all the stops to make Pippa his. Though his family is nobility, his past is tarnished by his father's generosity that left them destitute. Lucas rebuilt his family's fortune. He's a cunning, cold strategist who knows what he wants and takes it. His initial meeting with Pippa at a ball some months earlier prompts him to claim her as his own, but it's the knowledge that she stands to inherit her father's coal mines that seems to push him to invite her to her own engagement ball...before courting or asking her.But Pippa's no wilting debutante. She challenged Lucas at every turn, unwilling to believe that a man like him would want to willingly tie himself to a woman like her. She's suffered abuses at the hands of the ton in the past and knows firsthand how cruel they can be to those born into money but not nobility. But every time he touches her, every time he kisses her, every time he seduces her, her resistance to him crumbles until she's unable to deny him anything...not even her heart.But deception only stays hidden for so long until it's brought to light in the most startling of ways. In nine days, Pippa gave everything she had to one man only to realize she'd been a pawn in his scheme to further line his pockets. Lucas denied nothing but neither did he hide behind his Duke facade to excuse his behavior. Instead, he laid himself bare before her, taking and accepting her anger and hurt because he made her feel those things toward him, and admitting that he was out of his comfort zone when it came to her and what she made him feel.That was his saving grace.Lucas and Pippa's constant clashing only heightened my interest in this story. What prompted me to read it was that she was a tradesman's daughter and that he wasn't looking to make her his mistress but his honest-to-goodness wife. Since when was this behavior acceptable in the eyes of the ton? Never. And when was the last time I read such a book? Never.Despite his highhandedness, despite her sabotage attempts, Lucas and Pippa made a wonderful couple to read about. Pippa kept me amused with her antics, while Lucas continued to astonish me with his reactions to what she did. Ms. McKinley packed a lot into the few pages of this story and did so without me feeling overwhelmed or shortchanged. This delightful novella has certainly earned a place on my bookshelf and I'll definitely be revisiting it in the future.