Here are 100 books that Bringing Down The Duke fans have personally recommended if you like
Bringing Down The Duke.
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I love a romance where the hero has his viewpoint changed by the woman he falls in love with. He might become a better family man, or transform his politics, or change his priorities, but it all cases loving her alters him. Additionally, I love a heroine who is exceptional in a distinct way but overlooked or dismissed by others. They can be bluestockings or spinsters, reformers or quiet and shy, but they’re all steadfast and they all derive strength from the hero’s support. In short, the love they find together makes them better people.
I love this book because I'm a sucker for a well-written redemption story.
Sebastian kidnaps one of Evie's best friends because he wants to force her to marry him, and in the beginning, he has few redeemable qualities. Evie marries him for protection from her awful family. Sebastian doesn't expect her to stand up to him. He doesn't expect to be fascinated by her. And he definitely doesn't expect to want to bed her more than once.
He is shocked when she refuses to cave to his charm. Evie gives him a purpose, and he cannot help wanting to earn her love. His story arc and growth are perfectly executed.
From the New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas comes the next title in the beloved romance series The Wallflowers - perfect for fans of Sarah MacLean, Julia Quinn and Eloisa James.
'Kleypas can make you laugh and cry - on the same page' Julia Quinn, Sunday Times bestselling author of the Bridgerton series
'Scorching sexual tension, hysterical banter, and a reformed rake that could melt even the hardest of hearts' Frolic
The Wallflowers: four young ladies enter London society and band together to each find a husband. Has the third 'Wallflower' now met her match?
I love a romance where the hero has his viewpoint changed by the woman he falls in love with. He might become a better family man, or transform his politics, or change his priorities, but it all cases loving her alters him. Additionally, I love a heroine who is exceptional in a distinct way but overlooked or dismissed by others. They can be bluestockings or spinsters, reformers or quiet and shy, but they’re all steadfast and they all derive strength from the hero’s support. In short, the love they find together makes them better people.
I loved this book because Penelope is supposed to be a means to an end, but she ends up being Bourne's everything.
Bourne wants revenge. He believes that his happiness lies in recovering the land that he foolishly lost in a card game. Penelope proves to him that regaining his legacy is not enough. She helps him rediscover the man he would have become if he hadn’t lost everything that mattered to him.
When he lets himself love her, he chooses to abandon his quest for revenge so he can be worthy. Bourne is an absolute sweetheart by the end and is completely devoted to his wife.
A decade ago, the Marquess of Bourne was cast from society with nothing but his title. Now a partner in London's most exclusive gaming hell, the cold, ruthless Bourne will do whatever it takes to regain his inheritance—including marrying perfect, proper Lady Penelope Marbury.
A broken engagement and years of disappointing courtships have left Penelope with little interest in a quiet, comfortable marriage, and a longing for something more. How lucky that her new husband has access to an unexplored world of pleasures.
I love a romance where the hero has his viewpoint changed by the woman he falls in love with. He might become a better family man, or transform his politics, or change his priorities, but it all cases loving her alters him. Additionally, I love a heroine who is exceptional in a distinct way but overlooked or dismissed by others. They can be bluestockings or spinsters, reformers or quiet and shy, but they’re all steadfast and they all derive strength from the hero’s support. In short, the love they find together makes them better people.
This is a great book because love makes Mulligan reevaluate what matters most.
Mulligan isn’t a villain exactly, but he does less than admirable things. He believes money is the way to accrue power, and he tries to fix Justine’s problems with bribery. She can’t accept his methods as a way to solve problems, and he is faced with the choice to either rule the criminal world or love the girl.
Obviously, he picks the girl. His story arc is so satisfying because he will do anything for her!
"Nothing makes me happier than a new book from Joanna Shupe!"-Sarah MacLean
The final novel in Joanna Shupe's critically acclaimed Uptown Girl series about a beauitful do-gooder who must decide if she can team up with one of New York's brashest criminals without losing something irreplaceable: her heart.
Manhattan kingpin.
Brilliant mastermind.
Gentleman gangster.
He's built a wall around his heart...
Orphaned and abandoned on the Bowery's mean streets, Jack Mulligan survived on strength, cunning, and ambition. Now he rules his territory better than any politician or copper ever could. He didn't get here by being soft. But in uptown…
I love a romance where the hero has his viewpoint changed by the woman he falls in love with. He might become a better family man, or transform his politics, or change his priorities, but it all cases loving her alters him. Additionally, I love a heroine who is exceptional in a distinct way but overlooked or dismissed by others. They can be bluestockings or spinsters, reformers or quiet and shy, but they’re all steadfast and they all derive strength from the hero’s support. In short, the love they find together makes them better people.
This book is one of my favorites because it features a strong independent heroine and a duke who decides to be a better man.
Cassandra has no patience with Ashmont—none. She is appalled by his behavior, and she isn’t afraid to tell him. He, on the other hand, is almost immediately smitten with her. It isn’t easy for him to change from a disgrace to a worthy partner, but he doesn’t give up—even when she plainly tells him she won’t marry him.
She threatens to murder him multiple times, and the fight scene with the umbrella is permanently etched into my mind. He might have been wrong about a lot of things, but he loves her exactly as she is.
USA Today bestselling author Loretta Chase continues her Difficult Dukes series with this delightful spin on Shakespeare's classic, The Taming of the Shrew.
This time, who’s taming whom…
Cassandra Pomfret holds strong opinions she isn’t shy about voicing. But her extremely plain speaking has caused an uproar, and her exasperated father, hoping a husband will rein her in, has ruled that her beloved sister can’t marry until Cassandra does.
Now, thanks to a certain wild-living nobleman, the last shreds of Cassandra’s reputation are about to disintegrate, taking her sister’s future and her family’s good name along with them.
I grew up in a reading and history-loving family. My parents read all the time, and their books of choice combined historical fiction and nonfiction. It’s no wonder I ended up teaching high school history for over three decades. The first books I read were my older brother’s hand-me-down Hardy Boys. Then, I went on to Agatha Christie. Books written in the 1920s and 30s were historical mysteries by the time I read them decades later, so the historical mystery genre is a natural fit. As for the Victorian age, all that gaslight and fog makes it the perfect milieu for murder.
I adore immersive, hands-on history. Gordan took me on an intimate, hour-by-hour tour of a Victorian day, from the morning wash routine to the five-minute hair-brushing ritual at bedtime. She tested the power of the natural bristle brush; I’ll take it on faith that one can go weeks without shampooing.
Ever wonder how Victorians cleaned their teeth before Colgate? Coal soot is the surprising answer. From what they ate to how they dressed, worked, and played, Gordon charts differences across social classes and down the century.
Ruth Goodman believes in getting her hands dirty. Drawing on her own adventures living in re-created Victorian conditions, Goodman serves as our bustling and fanciful guide to nineteenth-century life. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work celebrates the ordinary lives of the most perennially fascinating era of British history. From waking up to the rapping of a "knocker-upper man" on the window pane to lacing into a corset after a round of calisthenics, from slipping opium to the little ones to finally retiring to the bedroom for the ideal combination of "love, consideration, control and pleasure," the weird,…
I was born just before the start of World War ll. My father served throughout the war in the RAF but before that he had been a professional singer. I was interested in the idea that the war had sent people along paths that they would never have otherwise explored and I decided to write about four young performing artists and their wartime experiences. The result was the four novels in my Follies series. It meant a lot of research, in the process of which I discovered the work of the Special Operations Executive. This has provided me with material for several more novels, of which Operation Lightning Bolt is the most recent.
The tagline for this book is Spying and Crown from Victoria to Diana. It is a massive book, the fruit of in-depth research, and opens up a fascinating field of enquiry. It details how the secret services grew out of attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria and reveals how the pro-Nazi sympathies of Edward Vlll and his abdication triggered a massive security alert. Most intriguing of all is the story of how King George Vl came to cooperate with SOE in a massive deception in the run-up to D-Day.
A Daily Mail Book of the Year and a The Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2021
'Monumental.. Authoritative and highly readable.' Ben Macintyre, The Times
'A fascinating history of royal espionage.' Sunday Times
'Excellent... Compelling' Guardian
For the first time, The Secret Royals uncovers the remarkable relationship between the Royal Family and the intelligence community, from the reign of Queen Victoria to the death of Princess Diana.
In an enthralling narrative, Richard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac show how the British secret services grew out of persistent attempts to assassinate Victoria and then operated on a private and…
I grew up in a reading and history-loving family. My parents read all the time, and their books of choice combined historical fiction and nonfiction. It’s no wonder I ended up teaching high school history for over three decades. The first books I read were my older brother’s hand-me-down Hardy Boys. Then, I went on to Agatha Christie. Books written in the 1920s and 30s were historical mysteries by the time I read them decades later, so the historical mystery genre is a natural fit. As for the Victorian age, all that gaslight and fog makes it the perfect milieu for murder.
The author’s unusual lens made this a captivating history. Murphy examines Victoria’s reign through the multiple attempts on the queen’s life. While the title isn’t entirely accurate (one would-be assassin used a walking stick rather than a gun), Murphy makes a persuasive case for the monarchy’s “rebirth.”
Defying death helped the queen survive some rough patches in her reign. Through eight attempts to kill her, the queen modeled “keep calm and carry on” in the best British tradition, and the public adored her pluck. After the final gunman failed to murder the queen, the aging Victoria said, “It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved.”
'It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved.' - Queen Victoria.
Queen Victoria was attacked an astonishing eight times during her sixty-three year reign.
Victoria's would-be assassins succeeded in changing the course of British history; whose penal system, legal system and policing would never be the same again. Taking the queen's mad, marginalized attackers as his starting point for an investigation of the entire era, Paul Thomas Murphy weaves elegantly through all layers of nineteenth century society and culture. A rollicking, riveting history, Shooting Victoria is the most multi-faceted story of Victorian Britain to date.
I've always been fascinated by stories about married couples, especially when there are secrets in the marriage. My series The Rannoch Fraser Mysteries follows Mélanie and Malcolm Rannoch, whose marriage began when Mélanie, a French agent, married British agent Malcolm to spy on him during the Napoleonic Wars. As the Rannochs investigate mysteries, they grapple with personal and political betrayals and the secrets between them.
I love this whole series, but what drew me to the first book was the story of a young widow unraveling the secrets of her late husband.
It’s poignant to see her only fall in love with him after he's gone. But at the same time it's fascinating to see her finding herself even as she learns that the man she was married to was far more complicated than she realized.
From New York Times bestselling author Tasha Alexander comes a stunning novel of historical suspense set in Victorian England, meticulously researched and with a twisty plot that involves stolen antiquities, betrayal, and murder
Lady Emily's first mystery . . .
For Emily, accepting the proposal of Philip, the Viscount Ashton, was just an easy way to escape her stifling home life and overbearing mother. So when her new husband dies on safari soon after the wedding, she feels little grief. After all, she barely knew the man.
Now, nearly two years later, she discovers that Philip was a far different…
All my life, I have had a passion for history and, the moment I came upon Queen Victoria while browsing the history section in the local library, I was hooked! Far from being the dour Widow of Windsor, it was clear that she was a highly-intelligent, forward-thinking, often amusing, and often amused woman, with fascinating relatives and connections across the whole world. Her family life mirrored that of any ordinary family, with its ups and downs, its petty squabbles, and a myriad of contrasting characters, each with a unique and interesting story to tell. With so many avenues yet to explore, this is a passion that could last a lifetime!
This was the first biography of Queen Victoria that I read and, to date, it remains the best! Effortlessly combing in the personal with the political, it not only portrays Victoria as a Queen but also as a woman, who could simultaneously be one of the most dominant monarchs of the 19th century, and as nervous as a child. A brilliant portrayal of a fascinating character, playing a major role in one of the most interesting eras in history!
This biography preserves the interweaving of State with family affairs which characterized Queen Victoria's unprecedented royal career. It contains material from the Royal Archives, including passages from Queen Victoria's journals.
It’s not the dates or Acts of Parliament that inspire my love of history. It’s the people and their personalities - the Kings, Queens, Princes, and Princesses. They shape their times - but also build palaces, collect art, wear jewellery, patronise composers - it’s a far more wide-ranging subject than you would think. I have been studying, researching, and writing Royal history for many years - travelling the world to follow in the footsteps of Monarchs. Or in the case of my absolute history hero, Franz Ferdinand - weeping at the spot where he was assassinated - not just for him but for all who died in the First World War.
This was the first Royal history book I ever read and it hooked me into the world of Queen Victoria and her descendants.
It is a classic, standard biography of Victoria - an excellent overview of her life as a woman in a man’s world, her marriage and her widowhood. Many biographies since have dissected various aspects of Victoria’s life without giving a good general telling of her story. But this is what Elizabeth Longford does - with a writing style that flows and is so so easy to read.
It is “warts and all” - Victoria was not the easiest of characters, had steaming rows with Albert, was dictatorial as a mother, and a professional widow. I came away feeling as though I knew Victoria.
More importantly, this book made me want to find out more about her family, and royal history in general. It influenced me so much…
'The truth was stranger than any of the fictions that have since been offered to explain her away'
Drawing upon Queen Victoria's previously unpublished journals, Elizabeth Longford's classic biography recalls the contrasts and curiosities of an earlier era with exquisite detail - and transforms the queen from a severe, time-worn effigy into a human being who loved, feared and fumed.
Longford probes the contradictions of a woman who wore a bonnet instead of a crown at her Golden Jubilee and yet was recognised always as both dignified and formidable. She chronicles both the Queen's public life and her emotional travails,…
