Review: All Duke and Bothered (Dukes and Secrets #1) by Mariah Stone

   

Print Length: 261 pages

Publisher:  Stone Publishing (July 23, 2023)

From Goodreads.com: Vengeance. Preston Seaton, the Duke of Grandhampton will bring down the man who killed his brother through any means necessary. So when Lord Neville Beckett auctions off his daughter’s hand in marriage to pay his debts, Preston makes a bid Beckett can’t refuse—evidence of murder.

Dreaming of a career as an artist, Penelope welcomes her future as a spinster. So when her father accepts the proposal of a man who despises her, she longs to flee. But she cannot abandon her poor, old father to his destruction. Moving into the powerful duke’s huge mansion, she wonders if she will ever escape this cold, dark prison.

Convinced Penelope played his brother for a fool and got him killed, Preston has no intention of losing his heart. But the sunny artist is soon filling his home with light and joy. Could a forced marriage forged from hatred ever lead to true happiness? And can Preston forgive himself for desiring the only woman his brother ever loved?

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My Rating: 1.5 stars out of 5

Right off the bat, it was very hard to like Penelope. At every turn, she seemed determined to side with her father over her husband, no matter how many times it blew up in her face. Her husband tells her not to give her father money (because he's an unrepentant gambler among other things), so naturally, she does. Her father asks her to steal something from her husband that would supposedly clear his name, and she almost goes through with it. He then sets fire to her home, nearly killing both her and her husband, but somehow that’s brushed off as an “accident” although it conveniently, destroyed the evidence Preston had against him.

And just when you think Penelope might finally see the light; after she learns about all of her father’s misdeeds, including his role in the previous Duke’s accidental death and his attempt to sell her off to the highest bidder, she still sides with him. To the point that she actually leaves her husband. Yet, she has zero qualms about using her allowance (read: her husband’s money) to put herself and dear old dad up in a hotel after Preston buys her father’s debt and repossesses his house. At that point, I was genuinely hoping Preston would just cut his losses and leave her to wallow in her own stupidity.

What made her loyalty to her father even more infuriating was the way he treated her. He humiliated her, belittled her paintings (and her obvious artistic talent), and went so far as to declare that women were far inferior to men, useful only for having babies. And yet, she still bent over backward to defend him at every opportunity. There’s blind devotion, and then there’s this level of willful ignorance.

I also wished there had been more to the supposed “friendship” between Penelope and Spencer. As it stands, there’s no real explanation for why Spencer would have believed she harbored feelings for him. From what we’re told, she merely "smiled" and "was polite", hardly the behavior that would spark scandal. And speaking of scandal, their friendship would never have been tolerated within the ton without rumors flying. While there’s a brief mention of one such rumor, it’s barely a blip. The real reason Penelope couldn’t marry had nothing to do with whispers about Spencer, it was because her father had run their family so deeply into debt. 

And as if that weren’t enough, her precious father gets off scot-free. No repercussions, no justice, nothing. In fact, not only does Preston forgive him, but he also gives the man a property in the country so he can live comfortably. Because apparently, consequences are optional in this world.

Then there’s the “plot twist” at the end, which was so wildly unrealistic instead of coming across as the perfect set up for a sequel,  read more a blatant money grab. I’ll admit, it worked on me for a minute as I was curious to see just how far the author would take it, but by the time I reached the end, I was rolling my eyes.

And speaking of the end, someone really should’ve caught the editing error where the gaming hell Tyche (where Penelope’s father lost his fortune and tried to sell her off to pay his debts) magically morphed into Elysium, a completely different establishment that was not a gaming hell, but a brothel. A small detail, maybe, but one that perfectly sums up how sloppy the entire ending felt.

In short, between Penelope’s infuriating loyalty to the worst father imaginable, a hero who deserved so much better, a nonsensical friendship subplot, and a finale that felt like an afterthought, this story had potential, but buried it under a mountain of poor decisions and missed opportunities.