Lord Sebastian's Secret

November 28, 2016
Ashford’s third Duke’s Sons Regency (after What the Duke Doesn’t Know) introduces more delightful characters who feel appropriate to the period while dealing with challenges that resonate with the modern reader. She seasons the story with plenty of teasing brotherly warmth and good-natured hijinks in the name of love. Soldier and self-proclaimed dullard Lord Sebastian Gresham travels to the country home of his clever betrothed, Georgina Stane, and is welcomed by her distracted mother’s roving pack of pugs, an elegant guest from India brought in to indulge her father’s current obsession with reincarnation, and two younger sisters intent on pushing Georgina and Sebastian’s wedding date up in the hopes of a quicker escape to their sister’s future London household. Sebastian navigates the challenges of the Stane family with ease but fears humiliation if Georgina and her family discover that he cannot read. Ashford’s vivid characters and lively plots that drop surprise adventures in the midst of courting give the series a spirit of fun. The underlying message, that quirks and struggles should be no impediment to familial or romantic love, is conveyed with warmth and tenderness.

December 1, 2016
They're perfect for each other--but their families aren't.Lord Sebastian Gresham has done the unbelievable and somehow landed himself the beautiful and intelligent Lady Georgina Stane as his future wife. As a younger son of the Duke of Langford, he's unlikely to inherit, so he has made a career in the military while hiding his dyslexia from everybody except his valet and trying to avoid notice. As the book begins, his happy ending is in sight: he just has to get through a few weeks with his future in-laws. This turns out to be harder than he anticipates, because even though Georgina's father, the Marquess of Pembridge, comes from a very proper noble line, he and his family are unusual. "All families had their oddities," as Georgina says hopefully, but hers has a father of intense academic obsessions, a mother who breeds and keeps pugs, and two nosy sisters. Sebastian and Georgina simply want to marry and spend a quiet, normal life together, but the weeks before their wedding keep presenting challenges. Georgina is the model of a perfect Regency heroine, with her family her only flaw, so it is in Sebastian that the book finds its true protagonist. His trouble reading and belief that he's "thick" are important to the plot, but rather than using them to elicit pity, Ashford shows that intelligence and heroism can take many forms. The plot meanders and is stuffed with several pratfalls, including an ongoing clumsy attempt to portray how the British might have misunderstood Hindu theology. But though Ashford (What the Duke Doesn't Know, 2016, etc.) has a tendency to distract from the sweet and pure romance between Sebastian and Georgina, it is their love that ultimately brings the book together and makes it satisfy. A busy and steamy romance where the conflict is a bit manufactured but the love is not.

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December 15, 2016
When it comes to marriage, Georgina Stane has one ironclad rule: any man who wants her as his wife must also welcome Georgina's family into his life. Georgina knows this might be a deal-breaker for some men because her family might be considered a tad eccentric. Fortunately, Georgina believes she has found the perfect fiance in the person of Sebastian Gresham. Not only does Sebastian seem to be unfazed by the unconventional lifestyle of Georgina's family, his kisses have a way of melting Georgina's heart. What Georgina doesn't yet know is that Sebastian has a secret of his own that he has been hiding from everyone but his trusted valet, a secret that he is afraid to tell Georgina in case it might cost him her love forever. Ashford (What the Duke Doesn't Know, 2016) continues the Duke's Sons series with another marvelously inventive Regency romance with a cast of characters, including a pack of pugnacious pugs and a duo of meddling younger sisters who would be perfectly at home in You Can't Take It with You.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)