Thanks for visiting! I think some of the reviews of this one at Amazon are terrific. There was one long critical one in particular that was beautifully done.

I haven’t read the later Quinn’s due to mixed reviews, although I may read them just to feed my anal “completeness” demon.

I just read a great review of Mr. Cavendish over at Book Smugglers, and I am feeling newly optimistic about that one.

I LOVED Julia Quinn’s earlier books, but her last 3 haven’t done much for me. I was surprised when she got the Rita for On the Way to the Wedding and Secret Diaries. I was actually quite pleased to see all the less than favorabe reviews on Amazon for LDOW.

I loved your discussion of the use of art in the novel, and I agree that was done really well. If I knew anything about art, it would make an interesting post to look at a few other books that do this. I’m thinking of Meredith Duran’s The Duke of Shadows, or Jo Goodman’s If His Kiss is Wicked.

I can absolutely concede to a few points – the choppiness, for one, takes some getting used to. Since this was my first Julia Quinn book I thought it was a personal, stylistic thing, but having read another Quinn since then, I can see your point. There are lots of parentheticals.

And I do agree with Ana that the dramatic tension wasn’t so much the is he a duke/is he not a duke, but more between Jack and Thomas, then Jack and Grace.

I liked the humor in it very much – I haven’t seen that so much in historicals, but it seemed appropriate and contextual, especially with the cranky dowager duchess whose heart is in fact not made of gold. And I particularly got a hoot out of Ms Quinn’s use of art history (obvious per my review) – I’ve read some really crap romances before that try to utilize art history but it’s clear that the author didn’t get past AH101 or really didn’t do their homework. Ms Quinn’s art historical context really stood out to me.

That said, Thomas and Amelia were really quite jarring, though I suppose I gave them a lot of leeway since I knew their book was coming. I’ll still pick up MCIP as soon as it drops.

Good review!

My opinion is the small minority (Taja notwithtanding!), and I do appreciate your point about the suspense not really being suspense for its own sake, but to provide internal conflict for the characters. Still, I personally felt like the same issues were rehashed in thought, word, and deed over and over.

I was actually more interested in Thomas and Amelia when I read LDOW, so maybe I will really like MCIP. Your comments make me think I just might!

I thought Thomas the most interesting character, but after what you wrote about MCIP and some other things I read, I’ll wait for more reviews before I buy it.

I like Ana’s comment that the focus of the story is on what Jack being the duke would mean to Jack and Thomas. I don’t think I saw it that way when I read it, but it’s interesting. Thanks.

I didn’t see the fact that we knew Jack was a duke as non-exciting because the book to me, was not really about that , it was about what would it mean to both these men and this is where I disagree with you the most, I loved reading about their motivations and was intrigued about the “big secret” and I thought it was rather a reasonable excuse for Jack being the way he was.

But I completely agree with you on Julia Quinn – she is one of the best and one of my favorite romance novel writers.