A Most Unlikely Duke

April 10, 2017
In Barnes’s first Diamonds in the Rough Regency, a newly minted duke tries to put his rough past behind him and falls for his beautiful new neighbor. Raphe Matthews is living in the poor neighborhood of St. Giles and barely making ends meet while trying to support his two younger sisters. Then he learns that he is the new Duke of Huntley. After moving to the ducal residence with his sisters, Raphe meets Lady Gabriella Radcliffe, an aristocrat who at first seems to snub him. But when Gabriella agrees to help his sisters assimilate into their new roles as sisters of a duke, he sees a different side of her, and learns she has not always been accepted as a member of her own class. The magnetism between Raphe and Gabriella is intense and believable as Raphe attempts to win over Gabriella’s family and Gabriella dodges proposals from the Earl of Fielding. The romantic angst propels the novel swiftly forward.

April 15, 2017
A minor aristocrat is living in the slums of Regency London when he learns he has inherited the ducal title of a distant relative.Raphe Matthews has been taking care of his younger sisters since their mother ran off and their father died when he was only 8. He works as a dockyard laborer by day and a bare-knuckle boxer by night to pay off his father's debts and put a few meager turnips in the family pot. When he finds out he's the new Duke of Huntley he is none too thrilled, since the only aristocrat he's ever known was his faithless mother, who abandoned her family long ago. But for his sisters' sake, he moves into the ducal mansion in Mayfair. His new next-door neighbor, amateur entomologist Lady Gabriella Radcliffe, is trying hard to behave herself and marry the insufferable earl her parents have chosen for her. They want her to restore the family's reputation after her sister made a muddle of her own marriage prospects. But Gabriella finds the new duke even more fascinating than her beloved insects. She secretly helps Raphe to prepare his sisters for presentation at court. It's hard to understand how such a closely guarded young woman could manage to spend so many hours a day unchaperoned with her scandalous neighbor, but it's just one of the ways Barnes (His Scandalous Kiss, 2016, etc.) could have done with a more exacting editor in the first novel of her Diamonds in the Rough series. It's hard to write dialogue in an uneducated accent, and Barnes doesn't quite pull it off, but fortunately Raphe and his sisters master polished speech after the first hundred pages or so and the reader is spared further torment. A mildly entertaining tale.

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June 1, 2017
Raphe Matthews would do anythingeven learn how to hold a teacup like a blooming idiotif it would mean his sisters could escape poverty. Unfortunately, this is exactly what it comes down to when Raphe, who has earned his living as a bare-knuckle boxer, learns that he is the new Duke of Huntley. Fortunately, their new next-door neighbor, Gabriella Radcliffe, is happy to tutor them in the ways of the ton. Now, if only Raphe can convince Gabriella to give him a few private lessons! Barnes launches her new Diamonds in the Rough series on a high note by putting her own smart and sexy spin on Pygmalion with an entrancing story about a heroine with a kind heart and a penchant for entomology and a rough-around-the-edges but high-quality-where-it-counts hero.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)