Review: A Wonderful Regency Novel! Well worth the read!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 18, 2013
A Duchess in the Dark is now one of my favorite novellas. McKinley does such a wonderful job weaving this story that I hardly noticed it wasn't a full-length novel. It was perfect and I loved the epilogue.I have to say the story immediately drew me in. Usually in a story you have to wait until the middle or end for the steamy scenes, but A Duchess in the Dark starts with Daphne sneaking into Edward's chambers, or so she thought it was HIS chambers, to seduce him. Lucky for us it happens to be someone else who's a lot sexier. ;)The characters throughout this novella were wonderful and extremely well written. I enjoyed Daphne's character the most. She has a strong will and she goes for what she wants, which I think is an admirable thing when it comes to characters. Ashton Fitzgerald was the perfect love interest, but it's probably because he reminds me of a certain someone from Jane Austen's novels.In fact, I think one of the reasons why this novel was so well written is because you can clearly see the love for the Regency period, especially through McKinley's descriptions and story plot. Even the names of her characters were many that Austen used herself: Edward, Daphne, James, Fitzgerald.I think the only thing I would've changed about this story is Edward's revelation at the end. I would've liked to have seen it drawn out.Overall, I thought A Duchess in the Dark was a wonderful Regency story. I'm very excited to read more from Ms. McKinley.