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Moving right along with Elizabeth Hoyt's Maiden Lane series, I came to the recent villain of the series in Duke of Sin. This is the 10th book of the series and the first in the last chunk of books, what I'll refer to as the Lords of Chaos.
Our couple is the Duke of Montgomery himself, Valentine and his housekeeper Bridget. This book was a little bit of a struggle for me. Val has suffered a lot of trauma and had a very terrible childhood. As a result, his main goal in life seems to be to obtain power to control everyone around him to protect the few he loves. We've seen him blackmail several of our previous main characters (on top of being behind Phoebe's kidnapping attempts). Where I get torn is he's supposed to be the villain, but he doesn't feel like a villain. Yes he does things that are not cool and have hurt those we've come to adore in previous books. At the same point it didn't feel like evil intent to me. It almost felt like the Psy from Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling series where he doesn't quite understand emotions and how they actually make someone feel. He knows and understands some, but is very stunted emotionally.
If I were to be more specific in rating, this would be more of a 3.5-star rating. I didn't quite like the way that Bridget and Val's relationship evolved. She was fine and I liked that she was a spy to help her mother and other ladies in the syndicate. I just didn't feel the emotional attachment to her and the sudden attraction felt weird. I understand and have enjoyed insta-lust and insta-love before, but I just found it weird that she didn't find him appealing at all, especially when studying his life-size nude painting (which let's be honest, I kind of love that he has), but then face to face suddenly she can't stay away from him. At this point she's been his housekeeper for several months (at least). I also didn't like how all of sudden she was taken in as Lazarus's sister. I wish that aspect had happened earlier in the book and we could actually see their connection form. I wanted more from that plot point.
With Val's emotional deficiencies I wanted more of a morality chain feel from Bridget as well. However, she obviously had her own issues and wasn't completely good/right. On top of the fact that he didn't feel evil enough to need a morality chain. I know I just contradicted myself, but that's how this book makes me feel. He just was a bad guy that did bad things, but still didn't feel aware of how his actions would effect those around him. It was like he was a manipulative mastermind, but only on a surface level. I guess I just wanted him to feel and be a real villain. Just dive right in and be dark through and through.
I still enjoyed the writing and most of the time I enjoyed the banter and conversations between Val and Bridget. And then he went and kidnapped Hippolyta, so that happened. It was such a throw away event though. It happened and Bridget immediately rescued her, then it was over. I'm excited to jump back into the series and finish it up after I'm done with a book club book. I'll definitely read Once Upon a Moonlit Night (the 10.5 novella) next because we get to see what happened to Hippolyta after she escapes Val. I'm a little sad she didn't get a full length book though since she's intrigued me since we first met her. I can't believe I only have two full length books left, but am excited to finish the series!
Have you read Duke of Sin?
Bookishly Yours,
Stasi🍎
STATISTICS: Duke of Sin, Elizabeth Hoyt, 4-stars, 1 day, eBook, 338 pages, published in 2016
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