The Governess Game (Girl Meets Duke #2) by Tessa Dare

source: purchased
title: The Governess Game: Girl Meets Duke 2
author: Tessa Dare
published: August 28, 2018
pages: 373 pages
genre: regency romance
first line: Alexandra Mountbatten had common sense.
rated: 3 1/2 out of 5

blurb:
The accidental governess.

After her livelihood slips through her fingers, Alexandra Mountbatten takes on an impossible post: transforming a pair of wild orphans into proper young ladies. However, the girls don’t need discipline. They need a loving home. Try telling that to their guardian, Chase Reynaud: duke’s heir in the streets and devil in the sheets. The ladies of London have tried—and failed—to make him settle down. Somehow, Alexandra must reach his heart… without risking her own.

The infamous rake.

Like any self-respecting libertine, Chase lives by one rule: no attachments. When a stubborn little governess tries to reform him, he decides to give her an education—in pleasure. That should prove he can’t be tamed. But Alexandra is more than he bargained for: clever, perceptive, passionate. She refuses to see him as a lost cause. Soon the walls around Chase’s heart are crumbling… and he’s in danger of falling, hard.

my thoughts:
The Governess Game is book 2 in Tessa Dare’s Girl Meets Duke series but reads perfectly well as a stand-alone. I read the first installment called The Duchess Deal last year. I loved Emma and Ash in that first book as that story  had a Beauty and the Beast vibe going on.

In this second book Alexandra Mountbatten a.k.a. Alex fixes clocks for a living to support herself. When she shows up at Chase Reynaud’s front door he actually ends up hiring her to be a live in governess for his two out of control young wards. She takes the job because she is trying to save up money to buy her own house one day. Hence, Alex becomes an “accidental governess”.  Alex actually ran into Chase at a bookshop months earlier and always remembered him as “The Bookshop Rake” and “Lord Literature” so when she sees him again she is really flustered because she never forgot him after that initial run in.

Ruffled brown hair, fashionable attire, cologne that smelled like bottled sin-and a smile no doubt honed from boyhood as a means to make women forgive him anything.
-p. 2, The Governess Game by Tessa Dare

A Week to Be Wicked by Tessa Dare

source: purchased
title: A Week to Be Wicked Book 2 of 5 in the Spindle Cove Series
author: Tessa Dare
genre: regency romance
pages: 322
published: March 27, 2012
rated: 4 out of 5 stars

first line: When a girl trudged through the rain at midnight to knock at the Devil’s door, the Devil should at least have the depravity-if not the decency-to answer.

Blurb:
When a devilish lord and a bluestocking set off on the road to ruin…
Time is not on their side.
Minerva Highwood, one of Spindle Cove’s confirmed spinsters, needs to be in Scotland.
Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne, a rake of the first order, needs to be… anywhere but Spindle Cove.

These unlikely partners have one week
to fake an elopement
to convince family and friends they’re in “love”
to outrun armed robbers
to survive their worst nightmares
to travel four hundred miles without killing each other
All while sharing a very small carriage by day and an even smaller bed by night.

What they don’t have time for is their growing attraction. Much less wild passion. And heaven forbid they spend precious hours baring their hearts and souls.

Suddenly one week seems like exactly enough time to find a world of trouble.
And maybe…just maybe…love.

My thoughts:
A Week to Be Wicked is book two in Tessa Dare’s Spindle Cove series. Having read and enjoyed book three, A Lady by Midnight a few years ago, I happily dove into this one when I was in the mood for a nice regency romance. I know I’ve been reading this series backwards but they are standalone reads so it hasn’t made much difference.

In this installment we have Minerva Highwood from Spindle Cove who wants to stop  Colin Sandhurst aka Lord Payne from marrying her sister. Minerva thinks the notorious ladies man Payne is not the right match for her sister. She thinks that Payne is looking to marry so that he can get his inheritance so Minerva makes him an offer he cannot refuse.

Married Sex: A Love Story by Jesse Kornbluth

source: free ARC via AmazonVine
title: Married Sex: A Love Story
author: Jesse Kornbluth
published: Open Road Media (August 25, 2015)
pages: 246
genre: fiction
first line: The most beautiful woman in the world is a woman reading a book.
rated: intriguing and thought provoking
4 out of 5 stars

blurb:
When a husband convinces his wife to join him in a tryst with another woman, there are unintended consequences in this sharply observed erotic tale about the challenges of modern marriage

As a divorce lawyer for Manhattan’s elite, David Greenfield is privy to the intimate, dirty details of failed marriages. He knows he’s lucky to be married to Blair—a Barnard dean and the mother of their college-age daughter, she is a woman he loves more today than he did when they tied the knot.

Then seductive photographer Jean Coin asks David to be her lover for 6 weeks, until she leaves for Timbuktu. Tempted, David reasons that “it’s not cheating if your wife’s there.” A 1-night threesome would relieve the pressure of monogamy without wrecking their marriage. What harm could come of fulfilling his longtime sexual fantasy?

My Thoughts:
Another AmazonVine find that I have been meaning to review,  Married Sex: A Love Story pleasantly surprised me. I like stories that delve beneath the surface and bring up hidden truths and desires from its characters.

David and Blair have been married for over two decades. Now in their mid-forties, their careers are successful, they live in Manhattan and their daughter is off at college. David is a divorce lawyer and Blair is a school Dean. From the outside looking in, you would think they have it all, but two years into their marriage David had an affair. When Blair caught him, she made him promise if he were ever be tempted to stray again, he would have to bring the person home to her first. It became somewhat of a pact between the couple.

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan

source: purchased
title: The Duchess War (The Brothers Sinister)
author: Courtney Milan
published: September 10, 2013
pages: 283
genre: historical romance
first line: Robert Blaisdell, the ninth Duke of Clermont was not hiding.
rated: totally worth it

blurb:
Miss Minerva Lane is a quiet, bespectacled wallflower, and she wants to keep it that way. After all, the last time she was the center of attention, it ended badly—so badly that she changed her name to escape her scandalous past. Wallflowers may not be the prettiest of blooms, but at least they don’t get trampled. So when a handsome duke comes to town, the last thing she wants is his attention. But that is precisely what she gets. Because Robert Blaisdell, the Duke of Clermont, is not fooled. When Minnie figures out what he’s up to, he realizes there is more to her than her spectacles and her quiet ways. And he’s determined to lay her every secret bare before she can discover his. But this time, one shy miss may prove to be more than his match…

my thoughts:
I have had The Duchess War sitting in my Nook for a little while now after purchasing it on recommendation from SBTB. They are fans of Courtney Milan over there and it is one of my “go to” blogs for romance recommendations and great reviews.

The Duchess War is my first time reading this author and this is book 1 in The Brothers Sinister series.
For some reason, it took me forever to get through this book. I refused to give up on it and read it over the course of a few weeks in between other reads. I can’t pinpoint why it took me that long, I may just have not been in the mood for it.It is actually a good historical romance, nicely written too. It is smart and sexy. Smexy. Some of these characters are having discussions about science and Darwinism.