Review: Duke du Jour (Lords in Time #1) by Petie McCarty

Print Length: 337 pages

Publisher: Wild Rose Press (January 15, 2018)

From Goodreads.com: Jared Langley, present-day Duke of Reston, tumbles into an abandoned fountain on his ducal estate and travels back in time to the year 1816. There, Reston servants and local villagers think him a dead ringer for his namesake and rakehell ancestor—the seventh Duke of Reston, gone missing at the Battle of Waterloo. Unfortunately, Seven got mixed up with French spies out to assassinate the Duke of Wellington, and an unwary Jared ends up in their crosshairs.

Lady Ariana Hart has loved Jared Langley, the seventh Duke of Reston, since she was twelve years old, until the night the rogue broke her heart. Given up for dead, her rakish neighbor makes a miraculous return from Waterloo—only Jared shows up a changed man and reignites all the feelings Ariana had long ago buried.

Jared is in a race against time. He must waylay the suspicions of his quirky servants and neighbors, get to Wellington before the French spies do, fix his fountain—before Seven shows up—so Jared has a way home, and definitely not fall in love with the irresistible Lady Ariana.

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My Rating: 3 stars out of 5

This is more of a 3.5 star read. I loved the spy aspect that was woven in, and the mystery of who was involved and why. There were definitely some surprises along the way, and once that part of the story got moving, I couldn't put it down. I also enjoyed the time-travel aspect. It isn't something that you see a lot of, and what you do see sometimes is a little "out there", but this was well done. The interactions between the MALE characters were interesting, and I enjoyed watching Jared of "now" become close with the people the Jared of "then" knew. I also liked the fact that although there were some close encounters, this remained a sex free novel. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE a good sex scene, but so often they are thrown in for the sake of having one, or moving the characters relationships along (and lets be honest here, the author could have had one and cleared some things up in the end), however the fact that they chose NOT to do that spoke volumes. 

What kept this from being a solid 4 star read for me was two things. To begin with, the outcome was painfully obvious. I knew there was only one outcome, and I feel like anyone who reads this will come to the same conclusion. The second (and bigger) issue for me was that I do not like Ariana. I could not like her. I TRIED. But it seemed like she was always and forever running away and bursting into tears over something she had overheard. Where was the backbone that she showed the rest of the novel? Why didn't she stand her ground and stand up to Jared during these times when she seemed to have no trouble doing so when they were alone? 

DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.

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                     Duke du Jour (Lords in Time #1) is available from Amazon.com