Bennett's Up All Night with a Good Duke (NetGalley review/SPOILER-FREE)
Up All Night with a Good Duke SPOILER-FREE NETGALLEY REVIEW
Stars: Excellent ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ( (strong woman; hot misunderstood hero; some mystery; the BEST alliteration you will ever find in a book)
Heat rating: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Cover Rating: A
Well, guess who just became an Amy Rose Bennett fan? This squirrel!! I am brand new to ARB’s work, but liked how the description of Up All Night with a Good Duke sounded, and decided to request the ARC and give it a whirl. Man, am I happy I got approved. I could NOT put it down! I would like that thank Amy Rose Bennett for the bags under my eyes and the trebly-snoozed alarm clock, because after I finished this ARC this weekend, I raced to Amazon to grab more of her books, then stayed up to the wee hours devouring them.
It’s going to be so hard to talk about Up All Night without spoiling it, and I worry that folks won’t know how totally bomb (that means AMAZING) this book is! We have Artemis Jones (who wins for best heroine’s name), a 29-year old spinster who has no intention of marrying, stuck teaching at a horrible finishing school (the headmistress’ motto is “no gentleman wishes to wed a woman with a masculine level of intelligence”), while simultaneously writing risqué Gothic novels under the nom de plume Lydia Lovelace (the similarity to Linda Lovelace HAD to be intentional and I. AM. HERE. FOR. IT) and dreaming of opening an actual academic college for women. One of her besties, Lucy, is being forced into a Season by her clueless, but well-meaning father, and she begs Artemis to come back to London to do it with her. Artemis has a 24-year old sister, Phoebe, who has been told by their guardian, Aunt Roberta (who hates that Artemis is a bluestocking) that she won’t get a Season unless Artemis does one. Phoebe, unlike big sis, WANTS a Season and to get married. Well, that makes this a win-win, so our heroine tells the horrible finishing school to kick rocks, and she’s London bound.
Enter Dominic, the Dastardly Duke of Dartmoor (this book is alllll about clever alliteration) who is a widower with the world’s most precocious 15-year old daughter. He needs a wife, he needs something more than work in his life, he needs someone to teach him more about 15-year old girls (because his is making him crazy), he needs to rehabilitate his terrible reputation (people think he killed his wife—gasp). Even though he’s hot as fire and a Duke, no less, Dominic is barely received because of the wife-killing rumors.
Artemis and Dominic are on a collision course (literally, lol) and their lives are about to become seriously entangled, to the detriment (and benefit) of them both!
This book made me laugh out loud. I am not kidding about the alliteration. “Hell’s blasted bells” and “Lucifer’s love truncheon” are just two examples. I will repeat that last one until the day I die. I hope Amy Rose Bennett trademarks that one, because it is straight fire.
This book stayed interesting, and you immediately fall in love with the main characters. It has honestly been a long time since I have enjoyed both main characters from their first introduction until the last page. I rooted for them both consistently the entire time I was reading. Artemis is just an amazingly strong woman trying to be herself in a time when women like her are NOT accepted or appreciated. She’s tough. She stands up for herself. She’s one of the first heroines that I’ve read about who tries to tell someone that something isn’t a good idea, and when they don’t listen, she’s like FAFO—I loved that about her! Sure, she can come up with some dumbass ideas that cause hella shenanigans, but she among us who hasn’t done some legit stupid shit thinking it was brilliant can cast the first stone. Dominic is a progressive guy and caring father who is unfairly maligned by rumors surrounding his wife’s death. Their back and forth is hilarious and hot at the same time (seriously, this is an impressive feat—magical). The spicy parts are delightfully spicy. The villain is an odious POS baddie. The secondary characters are three-dimensional and interesting—you don’t mind when the plot veers off toward them; you actually want to know what they’re thinking and what happens to them. There’s some mystery, the ending was good, and there is an epilogue (I’m a fool for epilogues!). I like EVERYTHING about this book (even the cover is 5 star). This is definitely a 5-star read. I expect there will be at least two more books (featuring her best friends Lucy and Jane) and I am ready for them!
I wasn’t kidding about the alliteration, by the way. It’s magical. "His colossal column" . . . I howled. Even the names: Miss Mabel Babbington are awesome. . . I legit said that one out loud a few times like it was a limerick.
I cannot WAIT for this to be published and for everyone to read it and I can give it the Squirrel treatment it deserves. Pre-order this bad boy now! Tell ‘em Squirrel sent you!
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