Review: The Duke's Christmas Wish by Vivienne Lorret (Season's Original #0.5)


The Duke's Christmas Wish is the prequel novella in the Season's Original series from author Vivienne Lorret and was published in December 2015 as part of the multi-authored All I Want for Christmas Is a Duke holiday anthology. In this short story, Miss Ivy Sutherland accompanies her best friend and her best friend's aunt to the sprawling estate of Northcliff Bromley, the Duke of Vale, to attend the Christmas Eve Ball that his aunt has put together. People in the ton assume that the event is a way for His Grace to find a suitable wife to marry, but what he truly intends is to find the perfect opportunity during the period his guests are gathered to let them know that his Marriage Formula has been perfected, a formula meant to calculate suitable matches between qualified individuals in polite society. But when the duke meets incorrigible Ivy, her presence alone and his reaction to her defy logic. The Marriage Formula has been tried and tested, but the one consideration he never accounted for was his connection to Miss Sutherland.

I absolutely adored this love story! Admittedly, I don't read as many regency and historical romances as I used to in my twenties, but it's stories like this one that make me miss the romance sub-genre and make me want to read more of it. North may have come off as a stiff snob in the beginning, but he's actually so dumbfounded by meeting Ivy that has his all quiet. I liked how he struggled to find reason within his uncharacteristic actions and reactions to the woman, and even when did have some sort of excuse for them, they would flit away once he glanced her way. It's all that propriety and restraint that made it such a refreshing read from my usual romance fare. This man didn't believe in fanciful things like love and romance, but just like his labeling of Ivy as inconsequential to his formula, North learns a thing or two about love and romance, and ultimately about himself and has to live with the consequences that come with it. Using The Frog Prince was one of my favorite elements. Five stars for The Duke's Christmas Wish. ♥

Date Read: 20 April 2016

Learn more about Vivienne Lorret.

Purchase The Duke's Christmas Wish via All I Want for Christmas Is a Duke on Amazon | B&N | Kobo.

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