Book Review: Four Nights with the Duke by Eloisa James

Title: Four Nights with The Duke

Author: Eloisa James

Series: Desperate Duchess by the Numbers #2

Genre: Historical Romance

Publisher: Avon

Pub Date: March 31, 2015

Pages: 384

My Copy: Paperback in my Too Be Read Pile

Book Summary:

As a young girl, Emilia Gwendolyn Carrington told the annoying future Duke of Pindar that she would marry any man in the world before him—so years later she is horrified to realize that she has nowhere else to turn.

Evander Septimus Brody has his own reasons for agreeing to Mia's audacious proposal, but there's one thing he won't give his inconvenient wife: himself.

Instead, he offers Mia a devil's bargain...he will spend four nights a year with her. Four nights, and nothing more. And those only when she begs for them.

Which Mia will never do.

Now Vander faces the most crucial challenge of his life: he must seduce his own wife in order to win her heart—and no matter what it takes, this is the one battle he can't afford to lose.

Book Review:

Absolutely a fabulous historical romance. I love how Eloisa James has made you believe that two people who have their own ways and reasons for things can fall in love and not just be a marriage of convenience or in this case blackmail.

Love how we get a scene from the past with both Vander and Mia when they are younger and how this interaction determined the relationship that these two would have when they got older. It all started over a poem that Mia wrote and somehow her father’s mistress who is Vander’s mother got hold of it and made it very public and this of course led to an embarrassment for Mia. Mia said that she would never bother would Vander or any of his friends again and least of all marry any of them. It was something that would haunt her for a long time. Plus she has a lot of issues to deal with later on, as does Vander we will learn.

This starts off with Mia actually having to blackmail Vander into marrying her. He thinks that she is insane for even doing this. He will never ever give her what she wants. She tells him that he is way too honorable to let the dukedom go over his pride. Plus if he doesn’t want to be declared a traitor he will marry her, so of course she makes Vander a deal and he reads it over. Vander is aghast by this very idea and tries to get out of it, but finds that he can’t. So he marries her and finds as he gets to know her, that she is far more complicated than he first thought.

Mia finds that life with Vander at first is difficult, but they come to really like and respect one another. Also Mia is surprised by the things that Vander does to help her out of her situation and she also finds that his horses respond to her in a way that they hadn’t before anyone else has. It’s really interesting. Also Vander makes sure that he takes control of things that are quite sticky in Mia’s life like her uncle Richard and Mia’s nephew Charlie who he is surprisingly good with as most men wouldn’t be. 

One of the things that I really enjoy about Mia is that she is also a romance writer. (RN: There are references to other popular romance authors if you are clever enough to find them and I enjoyed it a lot.) Mia also charms a lot of the staff and other people. Also Vander gets rid of Mia’s uncle Richard who is a real piece of work. He is rather nasty and gets right in Vanders face and Vander decides to send him away to a place that’s far away from Mia and Charlie. Mia is surprised by how good Vander is with Charlie because of his condition with his leg. So this made Vander seem much more of a compassionated character and he feels like that shouldn’t hold him back.

The relationships actually get more complex between these two individuals and Vander finds himself liking Mia and really wanting Mia in a way that he hadn’t before. Mia also starts to think a little bit differently about the future. Things happen that make it seem like maybe they could eventually have one based on love and respect possibly. There are tons of twists and turns happening in this book that no one can see or predict. I found that these turns and twists made this book much better and made you realize how wonderful their relationship can be, if they let it happen and both almost realize how much they need each other and eventually  that they love and need one another.

Vander realizes that Mia is a woman worth fighting for after four incredible nights with her. After these four nights, he realizes that there will never be another woman for him. He does something tremendously brave and somewhat nervous, but then Mia’s uncle shows up and does something very nefarious and gets recaptured again. Things get better between both Vander and Mia in a way that neither of them expect. I totally loved the ending of this book and how both characters found something wonderful with each other. 

Rating:

4.5 Hearts