Aphrodite and the Duke by J.J. McAvoy Series: The DuBells #1
Published by Random House Publishing Group on August 23, 2022
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Historical / Regency, Fiction / Romance / Multicultural & Interracial, Fiction / Romance / Romantic Comedy
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780593500057Aphrodite Du Bell has always resented her name. While the members of the ton, and even the queen herself, praise her warm brown skin, perfect curls, and exquisite features, Aphrodite can’t help but think that living up to the literal goddess of beauty is asking a bit much. Her renowned loveliness certainly didn’t stop the love of her life from jilting her and marrying another woman four years ago.
When Aphrodite’s formidable mother summons her back to London to aid in her sister’s debut, she has no choice but to acquiesce. But Aphrodite is determined to ignore one man in particular: Evander Eagleman, the Duke of Everely, the man who devastated her all those years ago. Yet why does her guileless heart still flutter at the sight of him?
Evander Eagleman lost his chance for true love, but now that he is an unattached widower, he is determined to win back Aphrodite’s trust—and her hand in marriage. But just as the couple make strides to mend old wounds, Evander’s true reason for rejecting Aphrodite threatens their coveted future . . . and even their lives.
Part one of the book is really the best of the novel and saved it from being a 2 star read. Part two feels too one-sided and resolved the tension in an unsatisfactory way.
I loved everything about part one! The tension and pining between Aphrodite and Evander was everything my heart wanted. Plus, Aphrodite’s family was so great. From her and Hathor’s sisterly fights to how she’s her father’s favorite child (even though he’s not supposed to have favorites). Even though there were four DuBell daughters, none of them felt like carbon copies of each other. The book focuses on Aphrodite but gave the other sisters fully fledged characters as well. Speaking of the book focusing on Aphrodite, I always appreciate a multi-view story in romance to see both sides of the romance is always fun. I appreciated even more seeing Verity’s (Evander’s sister) and Damon’s (Aphrodite’s brother) point-of-view sporadically throughout the book to have another viewpoint of the romance and relationship between Aphrodite and Evander just added more layers and depth to their romance.
Part two just didn’t have any of the same feelings as part one. Part one had such love and emotion, whereas part two was just so much apathy. Aphrodite and Evander are married at the end of part one and as soon as that happens, he automatically shuts out his wife. Yes, I understand that Aphrodite shouldn’t push her husband, and that he has a lot of trauma from his childhood, father, stepmother, and stepbrother. But if he wants to have an actual partnership with Aphrodite in their marriage, which seems the case in part one, then he needs to actually act like it. Not wanting to discuss trauma is one thing but telling your wife something without explanation felt like a way to just create unnecessary tension. There’s already enough with the stepbrother, this didn’t need to be there. Again, it wouldn’t have been as much of a deal without the complete character change between the Aphrodite and Evander between part one and part two.
Speaking of the stepbrother and stepmother, the resolution to that whole ordeal was unsatisfactory. There’s so much tension and buildup from part one through part two of Evander’s stepbrother’s crimes and the stepmother being an accomplice. Then it all comes down to a “grieving” father shooting Fitzwilliam and dying in Evander’s arms. The funeral and post-funeral scenes didn’t clear anything up either. Sooo, he’s the villain in this story, who has horribly mistreated women (ruined a young women, abused his wife, abandoned his daughter) but now that he’s dead we’re just supposed to forget all of that cause he’s family? Also, what about Evander’s stepmother? She tells off Evander and Aphrodite at the funeral but what’s she going to do now? Are her machinations over? I mean I guess they are, but it just felt like a weird ending without any real resolution. And call me petty, but I feel like for a man like Fitzwilliam, death is too easy a price for his crimes.
I’m curious to know if any of this comes back in the next book since the focus is on Verity, so she still has a connection with the stepbrother and stepmother. I’m tempted to read it just to see if there’s any real resolution from this first story.
One last point I want to make, is that McAvoy wrote a beautiful romance with such smart and comedic and empathetic characters. My dislike was definitely not towards the quality of the writing or characters but mostly confusion on my part towards the ending.
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