I received a copy from Bold Strokes Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Joan didn’t particularly care for the Duke of Stanmere, but she did enjoy her life as a Duchess. Unfortunately for her, it turns out her late husband barely mentioned her in his will, causing people to assume she was cheating. Now that her step children and in-laws seem to be up to no good, Joan has one massive scandal on her hands, which is why she flees to her secret home in Inverley. Now she’s disguised as the widow of a sailor and watching the scandal play out in the gossip rags. To further her disguise, she takes on a boarder: Maeve Balfour. Surely no one will expect the Duchess to rent rooms out!
I picked this up expecting a fun romance with some mystery involved. We follow Joan and Maeve through their rotating perspectives beginning with their lives turning upside down. Joan has a cheating scandal on her hands and is dealing with the theft of nearly everything she owns. Meanwhile, Maeve’s mother just remarried and left her to fend for herself. Maeve refuses to marry because she has no desire to ever be with a man, but she’s used to living the lavish life her parents' money provided. Now she’s left to find a husband or find a job, and it turns out that finding work is much harder than she ever anticipated!
I really liked Joan. There’s certainly some foul play going on with her in-laws, and it’s interesting to watch it develop as she tries to come out of it unscathed. She seems like a caring character who married well only to be left hiding out in a house her father pressured her to buy in secret. I think I would’ve liked the book more if I liked Maeve more, but she’s rather spoiled and truly out of touch with reality for the first half of the book. I had a hard time reading Maeve’s chapters mainly because Joan usually had far more interesting chapters than she did. I feel like Maeve finally grew a solid personality about halfway through the story, which is when I really started to enjoy her chapters.
The mystery of sorts was really interesting to follow and that was probably my favorite part of the book. It was crazy seeing what Joan’s in-laws were doing and seeing her slowly learn who her husband really was as a person. The slow revelations were predictable but crucial to the story, and seeing who really had Joan’s back and was willing to help and defend her was excellent. The romance was very light and cute, but Joan’s backstory and crazy life events was the core of the book.
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