Book Review: No Ordinary Duchess by Elizabeth Hoyt
Want to know if No Ordinary Duchess by Elizabeth Hoyt is worth the read? Here’s my full review to help you decide
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Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher/author in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
No Ordinary Duchess Info
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt
Rating: ⭐⭐.5/5
Where to buy No Ordinary Duchess
No Ordinary Duchess Summary
Julian Greycourt, the new Duke of Windermere, is called the Duke of Ice because of his complete, arctic control. One glance from the duke’s icy blue eyes has been known to make men faint. Windemere is correct, dispassionate, and completely ruthless. There are rumors, though, about the scandalous demands he makes of his paramours in the bedroom.
Lady Elspeth de Moray, the thoughtful and shy youngest sister of the Duke of Ayr, only wants to end the warfare between her brother and Windermere. When Windermere suggests a truce bound by a marriage between the families, Ayr immediately turns him down. But Elspeth, knowing that this may be the only way to bridge peace between the families, secretly goes to Windermere and offers herself… as his bride.
No Ordinary Duchess Review
October was not a kind reading month for me and I thought reading a book by Elizabeth Hoyt would be refreshing and a way for me to reinvigorate my soul to continue reading in October so I could at least read half of the books in my October TBR list.
But like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, No Ordinary Duchess BACKSTABBED ME!
This book was absolutely painful for me to read both because of the inconsistency in the book and also because I am a big fan of Elizabeth Hoyt’s books, so reading one where it is less than 3 stars is just so jarring.
I WAS SHOOK THAT IT HAD TO BE THIS WAY.
Character: 5/10
More often than not, I love the characters in Elizabeth Hoyt’s books especially the women and reading, No Ordinary Duchess, I was so perplexed as to why I was having such a hard time connecting and relating to our FMC (Female Main Character), Elspeth.
Elspeth just annoyed me to no end and I felt like her characterisation was incomplete.
She is written to be this naive, innocent yet wise young woman which makes sense because she was raised by the Wise Women who nurture and educate girls to be independent and intelligent against a very patriarchal society.
So, Elspeth’s dichotomy makes sense that she would be innocent in some facets of her life yet be bold to explore and educate herself on it and I like that in my FMC’s but in Elspeth it just fell flat and her character holds no nuance.
There was no depth to her and the mission she undertook to ensure that the Wise Women would remember their core principals once she finds this relic just made her seem so selfish especially when secondary characters in this book are having a real life crisis.
Even when Elspeth is written to be a bibliophile and holds an immense love for libraries, it did nothing to assuage my annoyance for her as a character especially when reading her actions towards Julian at the end of the book.
Because as Cardi B says…
WHAT WAS THE REASON?
Why did you have to hide that diary? At first, it made sense that she didn’t tell Julian she had already found his mothers diary because she needed the time to find the Wise Women relic but after she became vulnerable to Julian and it became obvious that Julian holds affection for her and holds her in high regard, her actions became even more nonsensical and dumb.
Julian, our MMC (male main character), didn’t work for me either, his characterisation was honestly so bland and boring and in my opinion Elspeth and Julian didn’t have any chemistry together. I’ll elaborate more on this in the writing section.
Atmosphere: 5/10
It was aight on atmosphere, I mean it’s a historical romance book.
Writing: 6/10
I have read all the books in the Greycourt series and honestly this series isn’t the best from Elizabeth Hoyt. It’s missing that depth that I love so much from the Maiden Lane series.
Elspeth and Julian should work theoretically as a couple with their black cat and golden retriever energy between them but it just didn’t work for me.
Especially when reading the banter between them; their dialogue and interactions just seemed so forced like the author is holding these characters at gunpoint to ensure they follow the plot.
Plot: 5/10
Again, the plot of this book is very intriguing but the execution was lackluster.
The flow for No Ordinary Duchess is not as smooth as Elizabeth Hoyt’s other books. It felt very disjointed and the plot felt like it was crammed together at the last minute because the characters’ motives , especially Elspeth’s, just didn’t make sense to me.
Julian’s motives and actions made some sense because he was being closely monitored by his Duke uncle so there wasn’t much he could do since anything he did would be sabotaged by his uncle.
Elspeth’s on the other hand was just mind boggling, like I said in earlier parts of this review, her personal mission was to find this Wise Woman relic and this relic is in the form of a diary of the (what I assume) is one of the OG people of the Wise Women.
This is so the current leaders of the Wise Women would go back to their old ways of helping every and all women regardless of class and location. My questions are the following:
- Even if she found this relic how would it change the current status quo and administration of the Wise Women
- How would Elspeth trust that they would be honorable enough to follow said relic?
Because for me even if she found the diary, the current leadership that the Wise Women are under shows that they don’t hold the same values as Elspeth’s and that they find that the safety of the Wise Women as an idea and a secret organization is more important than actually helping women in need. So, reading an old diary won’t change things and another plot point that was just even more mind boggling for me was why did the leaders of the Wise Women send assassins to kill Elspeth?
What was the plan?
What was the motive?
Kill her and then???? THEN WHAT?
AND THEN after going through and DOING THE MOST to get this stupid diary which includes lying to Julian even after she came clean to why she was in London in the first place and them being vulnerable and essentially betraying the man that has ALWAYS BEEN BETRAYED BY EVERYBODY she procrastinates in giving the diary back because she felt bad that she hurt Julian.
LIKE WHAT???!!
I was losing hair follicles by this stage because I kept pulling my hair out, out of the sheer audacity of this bitch.
Now you want to think of how guilty you feel?
ONLY NOW YOU THINK OF JULIAN??!!
The man deserves better than you Elspeth, he actually deserves meeeee!
Also, how did she become a dominatrix so fast anyway? Isn’t she a virgin? I understand that you can learn a lot from books but if it’s your first time with sex and what not there is still some awkwardness if not shyness.
Maybe I didn’t read the book properly and missed all the scenes where Elspeth was showing her dominant/dominatrix side in public and social situations because when the sex scene finally came around and Elspeth was just a natural at being dominant it just felt disjointed and it felt like I had skipped a few chapters.
Intrigue: 5/10
The book only managed to hold my attention for so long because I just couldn’t believe the audacity that Elspeth had and by the time I wanted to DNF it was too late because I was already so close to finishing the book.
Logic: 5/10
The logic was not logic-ing, please refer to the plot section of this review.
Enjoyment: 5/10
I enjoyed the first few chapters of this book because Elizabeth Hoyt’s writing are just so enjoyable and it sets up the tension and the characters quite fast but after the first few chapters it just got more painful to read because nothing made sense to me anymore.
Conclusion
Whilst No Ordinary Duchess was not my cup of tea, I still highly recommend Elizabeth Hoyt’s other books, she is one of the few authors who is an auto-read for me where I know I will most definitely enjoy her books.
