Book Review: The Duke of Deceit by Anna Harrington

Anna Harrington's Regency romance The Duke of Deceit, the second installment in her The Dukes of Darkness series, takes time to find the goodness in the main characters, Jessamyn St. Clare and Lucien Grenier, the Duke of Crewe.  Several of the beginning chapters make St. Clare and Grenier far from being inspiring characters.  

St. Clare is exceedingly annoying in her machinations to irritate Grenier by reversing his rakish image to make him appear altruistic in public.  All in an effort to force him into marrying her sister, whom she mistakenly believes impregnated her younger sibling.  Grenier, on the other hand, is equally irritating, insisting on exacerbating his exploits and flaunting them.  

Midway into the story, and it takes that long to see goodness in these two characters, secrets are revealed.  Secrets that the two used as shields to guard themselves from factions of society that would hurt them.  Rendering each other ineffectual to take care of themselves and their loved ones.  

Not until this point do the two characters incite the reader's sympathy.  A desire to see these two tortured souls find absolution and happiness.  St. Clare needing to be free from feeling that she pushed her father away, and Grenier needing to be free from cheating his older brother Phillip of the dukedom.

When the reader feels like there is nothing good to discover from these two characters, continuing further returns with a rewarding resolution, sharing techniques that are applicable to real life troubles.  This is one story where the answers to real life obstructions and dilemmas can be found in a work of fiction.

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