The Heiress Gets a Duke

I love this cover (historical accuracy in the dress be damned) - I know illustrated covers are “controversial,” but I'm not a huge fan of the old-school clinch covers either, and this photo cover is just gorgeous. I haven't read a ton of them, but the “brash rich American collides with (relatively) poor nobleman” is one of my favorite historical subgenres - see [b:It Happened One Autumn 827412 It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers, #2) Lisa Kleypas https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388206425l/827412.SY75.jpg 1823891] for the best one I've read. This book was fascinating to me in the way it actively pushed back on that trope, with August early in the book attending the engagement party/wedding of one of her friends who's been forced into marriage with a truly awful duke for the prestige it'll give her family. (I know that's how these marriages went more often than not, but historical romances are fantasies as it is, so.) I loved August and her determination to not let her sister get trapped into the same bad situation. Evan was a little less developed of a character for me, but I did love his commitment to his family and his mother. One negative thing: this could have used another pass with a copyeditor. There were several instances of words being used twice within a sentence or two of each other, which always reads oddly to me, and a couple of times the flat-out wrong word was used. Nothing major, but distractions from an otherwise-good novel.