Project Duchess by Sabrina Jeffries: Review

I received a copy of Sab­ri­na Jef­fries’s Project Duchess through His­tor­i­cal Fic­tion Vir­tu­al Book Tours. As always, this review reflects only my hon­est thoughts on the book.

Project Duchess
by Sabrina Jeffries

Pub­li­ca­tion Date: June 25, 2019
Zebra
eBook & Paper­back; 352 Pages

Series: Duke Dynasty, Book 1
Genre: His­tor­i­cal Romance/Regency

 

 

From New York Times best­selling author Sab­ri­na Jef­fries comes a sparkling new series about an oft-wid­owed mother’s grown chil­dren, who blaze through soci­ety in their quest for the truth about their fathers … and in the process find that love just might con­quer all …

A series of step­fa­thers and a dif­fi­cult child­hood have left Fletch­er “Grey” Pryde, 5th Duke of Grey­court, with a guard­ed heart, envi­able wealth, and the unde­served rep­u­ta­tion of a rogue. Grey’s focus on expand­ing his duke­dom allows him lit­tle time to find a wife. But when his moth­er is wid­owed yet again and he meets the charm­ing­ly uncon­ven­tion­al woman man­ag­ing his stepfather’s funer­al, he’s shocked to dis­cov­er how much they have in com­mon. Still, Grey isn’t inter­est­ed in love, no mat­ter how pret­ty, or delight­ful­ly out­spo­ken, the lady …

Beat­rice Wolfe gave up on romance long ago, and the arro­gant Duke of Grey­court with his rak­ish rep­u­ta­tion isn’t exact­ly chang­ing her mind. Then Grey agrees to assist his grief-strick­en moth­er with her lat­est “project”: school­ing spir­it­ed, unfash­ion­able Beat­rice for her debut. Now that Beat­rice is see­ing through Grey’s charms to his wound­ed heart, she’s hav­ing trou­ble keep­ing him at arm’s length. But once Grey starts dig­ging into her family’s secrets, she must decide whether her loy­al­ties lie with her fam­i­ly … or with the man whose lessons cap­ture her heart …

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My Review

When Sab­ri­na Jef­fries tweet­ed about the dogs in this brand-new release, I com­ment­ed that they were some of my favourite characters—who does­n’t love an adorable fur­ry addi­tion (or sev­er­al!) to your pro­tag­o­nists? That being said, I’m not sure there was a char­ac­ter in Project Duchess that I could say I did­n’t like (at least, not of those that are liv­ing at the time of the novel!).

What I think I liked best, though—besides the dogs—was the famil­ial rela­tion­ships that are so impor­tant to both char­ac­ters and plot.  Yes, this is a romance, and that rela­tion­ship is cen­tral and crit­i­cal. But even that would not be if it weren’t for the strong fam­i­ly ties that bind both Grey and Beat­rice to those they hold most dear.

The pro­tag­o­nists come from trou­bled pasts, rid­dled with abuse and denial there­of.  They’ve hid­den the dark­ness of their his­to­ries from near­ly every­one, includ­ing them­selves. Yet they’re fierce­ly loy­al to their fam­i­lies, par­tic­u­lar­ly their sib­lings, nev­er­the­less. I have no doubt that I would have enjoyed Project Duchess if it focused entire­ly on Bea, Grey, and the attrac­tion that’s sparked between them, but it’s their love for their fam­i­lies, both lit­er­al and cho­sen, that tru­ly drew me in and made me care about the two so much.

Of course, this bodes espe­cial­ly well for the nov­els to come in the Duke Dynasty series! In short, I loved read­ing Project Duchess and I’m already anx­ious­ly await­ing the next book to come.  I had­n’t known Sab­ri­na Jef­fries’ work before this, but I’ll cer­tain­ly be fol­low­ing her from now on!

Praise for Sabrina Jeffries’ previous novels

“Quick pac­ing, wit­ty dia­logue, and charm­ing­ly orig­i­nal char­ac­ters set Jef­fries’ books apart” —Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, starred review

“Mas­ter sto­ry­teller Jef­fries is at the top of her game.” —RT Book Reviews, Top Pick on The Secret of Flirting

“Quick wit, live­ly repar­tee, and deli­cious sen­su­al­i­ty dri­ve the elab­o­rate plot of this sin­ful­ly delight­ful addi­tion to Jeffries’s lat­est series.” —Library Jour­nal, starred review on The Plea­sures of Passion

“With its irre­sistible com­bi­na­tion of wit­ty ban­ter, well-defined char­ac­ters, and a won­der­ful sur­feit of breath­tak­ing sen­su­al­i­ty, the lat­est in Jef­fries’ Sin­ful Suit­ors series is a straight flush.” —Book­list, starred review on The Dan­ger of Desire

“Love­ly, poignant, and pow­er­ful.” —Kirkus Reviews on The Study of Seduction

About the Author

Sab­ri­na Jef­fries is the New York Times best­selling author of more than 50 nov­els and works of short fic­tion (some writ­ten under the pseu­do­nyms Deb­o­rah Mar­tin and Deb­o­rah Nicholas). What­ev­er time not spent writ­ing in a cof­fee-fueled haze is spent trav­el­ing with her hus­band and adult autis­tic son or indulging in one of her passions—jigsaw puz­zles, choco­late, and music. With over 9 mil­lion books in print in more than 20 lan­guages, the North Car­oli­na author nev­er regrets toss­ing aside a bud­ding career in aca­d­e­mics for the sheer joy of writ­ing fun fic­tion, and hopes that one day a book of hers will end up sav­ing the world.

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Blog Tour Schedule

Mon­day, June 24
Excerpt at The Lit Bitch

Tues­day, June 25
Fea­ture at Cof­fee and Ink
Review at Bib­lio­phile Reviews
Review at Hen­ry and Ben­ny’s Book Nook

Wednes­day, June 26
Review at Let Them Read Books
Review at The Book Junkie Reads

Thurs­day, June 27
Review at Amy’s Booket List
Inter­view at Myths, Leg­ends, Books & Cof­fee Pots

Fri­day, June 28
Review at To Read, Or Not to Read
Review at For the Sake of Good Taste

Mon­day, July 1
Review at A Book­ish Affair
Review at Jorie Loves a Story

Tues­day, July 2
Review at So Many Books, So Lit­tle Time

Wednes­day, July 3
Fea­ture at Bro­ken Teepee
Review at A Chick Who Reads

Thurs­day, July 4
Review at His­tor­i­cal Fic­tion with Spirit

Fri­day, July 5
Review at View from the Birdhouse
Fea­ture at What Is That Book About

Giveaway

We have two paper­back copies of Project Duchess up for grabs! To enter, please use the Gleam form below.

Give­away Rules

– Give­away ends at 11:59 pm EST on July 5th. You must be 18 or old­er to enter.
– Give­away is open to the US only.
– Only one entry per household.
– All give­away entrants agree to be hon­est and not cheat the sys­tems; any sus­pi­cion of fraud is decid­ed upon by blog/site own­er and the spon­sor, and entrants may be dis­qual­i­fied at our discretion.
– The win­ner has 48 hours to claim prize or a new win­ner is chosen.

Project Duchess