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A Duke in Shining Armor
When her family was slaughtered and she was forced into a life of servitude by her aunt and uncle, Emily Moncrief had given up all hopes of having a family of her own. When the handsome Duke of Norchess arrives he vows to honor and protect Emily, but will secrets from her past keep them from a future together?
This is the first book of the Regency Heroes Series about gentleman who are noble and rescue their lady loves no matter the cost.
This is the first book of the Regency Heroes Series about gentleman who are noble and rescue their lady loves no matter the cost.
58 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 17 reviews
April 27, 2012
Run on sentences. Incorrect words (protocol instead of prodigal for example). Chapters that were one long, long paragraph. Not good. Read like a bad 'wanna be' Barbara Cartland.
May 22, 2018
I have Nothing good to say about this book! Nothing! Zilch! Nada! Not one damn word! And I always make it a point to give praise where praise is due. Now let's get into the list of things I do have to say.
1. Run on sentences.
2. Use of wrong words as.
3. Bad grammar.
4. Bad writing with no imagination.
5. Plot that could have been good but isn't.
6. Zero character development.
7. Dialogues that are too on the nose, too cliche, too much like the dialogues you'd find in a historical romance spoof.
8. You can not relate to or connect with anyone.
9. Flat emotional tone.
10. What feels like writing.
11. No exploration of relationship dynamics or it's development.
12. No apparent reason for the mcs feeling the way they do. (a trope in a lot of books, but more apparent and unenjoyable here cause bad writing!)
13. Sexual tension between them reads false or forced, or just sudden out of the blue.
14. None of the witty banter and sweet romantic dialogues for which one picks up a historical romance novel.
15. Female Mc is a toe tag, a proper maiden in distress. I don't blame her for her parent's death or her mistreatment by her relatives. But lady! Show some spine! I've read books with that go along the Cinderella lines, step parents, blah blah... But the MCs still showed a lot more agency, which made them a lot more real.
16. Almost all other characters seem to be throw away characters! With no real importance to the plot or it's progression.
17. The interactions between the characters are too short to give the reader, a read (wink wink) on their relationship dynamics so you can't get emotionally invested or in anyway interested in the book.
###### THIS BIT IS SPOILERY####
18. Everyone becomes the best of friends with everyone at a glance! No literally! They do. Juliet the male mc's sister who is vaguely interesting discusses her wish that Jon should pay her attention in front of Mc on their first meeting. She then says "who are you" first sentence to Emily that's the female Mc, then "well apparently you know how it's done if you have already stolen my brother's heart, tell me how on earth do you get a man to notice you?" (with just that one comma in that entire run on.)
###### SPOILER OVER#######
19. Missed commas!
20. How Emily and the male protagonist's first meeting and second meeting and every interaction go.
21. How instantly Emily trusted a random dude (male Mc) with her life story and life... How she then also obeys him from that point on.
22. Fact that the book and it's characters are so forgettable, that I've forgotten the male mc's name, (despite the fact that I am reading the book while, writing the review. See I realized the book was shit and decided to finish just so I could write a full review. I am now switching back and fourth between my good reads app and the reader app. The short length of the book is good for this and for my sanity... Hey! I found something good to say about the book!) now on to the next problem...
Problem 23. Time just flies by! The book keeps making time jumps during which the relationship dynamics of characters change, the reader never gets to experience that gradual change that we see in most books. We read these books to vicariously experience those relationships and how they change and flow, it's what keeps us wanting to read more, what let's us connect... And what is glaringly missing here!
24. Badly written foreplay that seems to be sloppily and half heartedly put in by a virgin with no imagination.
25. "I love you" that comes out of the blue, cause you're not expecting it. You're not expecting it, cause there was no buildup to it, except some badly written nipple pinching. There was no buildup to it cause time jump! I love the "I love you" moment in books, it's kinda the semi climax before the actual climax in romance novels. It's the POINT OF the ROMANCE NOVEL. hello! It's a ROMANCE NOVEL!! Give us the romance! Don't just time jump it!
###### THE REST IS ALL SPOILERY ######
BUT THE ENTIRE BOOK IS ALREADY SPOILED... SO REALLY, DON'T BOTHER CARING.
26. This whole fucked up scene...
####Premise: At some point in the book, male Mc, (I know I must have read his name a few times! But fuck it I have forgotten it again.) Anyway male mc: my mom is annoying, she's meddlesome, she says I can't marry a girl without her approval. And she wants me to marry Elisabeth.#####
The scene
Male mc: I will talk to my mom get her approval.
(Me: ooh! The book will have conflict now and maybe, just maybe become interesting.)
Male mc: mama I wanna marry Emily
Mama: OK! Go for it.
(Me: should have known, lazy writing at it's laziest.)
27. Badly written sex! Oh gosh! So so so so so badly written sex! With the corniest most cringe worthy pillow talk!
28. Plot points that aren't sufficiently explored.
Example this scene...
Emily: I overheard my uncle and aunt say I'm a bastard... My pop isn't my pop.
(Me: conflict of emotions!)
Male mc: don't care!
Emily: OK great.
28. The scene where she finds out her parent's death was her uncle and aunt's fault cause they made shady business deals. She then grows a spine and says I will deal with this... Male Mc then says, nah don't bother your pretty self, you just look after the wedding preparations, I'll take care of this! She says, oh you handsome man OK! Here take my agency again and here's a knife, cut off the balls I just grew!
29. "just wait till Jon sees you in that dress Juliet. I bet he will think of you as a child no more." Emily says to the tomboy Juliet... Translation, "don't be yourself! Just dress pretty."
30. Suddenly Emily becomes an expert in the affairs of the heart and gives advice... Again... Out of the blue lines, preceded by time jump. This is literally the second scene after the "cut the balls I just grew" scene. FYI, the scene after that is her wedding and the book ends.
I've changed my mind, there's one more flaw here... 31. the book was too long!!!
32. This read like a sloppily written *Cinderella* book for adults!
Have no spunk and have no spine?
Oh oh lady, that is just fine!
For a man will find you by pure chance!
And ask you wed him, with or without a dance.
He, will make all your problems go away.
You just look pretty and "I love you" he'll say.
Sounds familiar?
1. Run on sentences.
2. Use of wrong words as.
3. Bad grammar.
4. Bad writing with no imagination.
5. Plot that could have been good but isn't.
6. Zero character development.
7. Dialogues that are too on the nose, too cliche, too much like the dialogues you'd find in a historical romance spoof.
8. You can not relate to or connect with anyone.
9. Flat emotional tone.
10. What feels like writing.
11. No exploration of relationship dynamics or it's development.
12. No apparent reason for the mcs feeling the way they do. (a trope in a lot of books, but more apparent and unenjoyable here cause bad writing!)
13. Sexual tension between them reads false or forced, or just sudden out of the blue.
14. None of the witty banter and sweet romantic dialogues for which one picks up a historical romance novel.
15. Female Mc is a toe tag, a proper maiden in distress. I don't blame her for her parent's death or her mistreatment by her relatives. But lady! Show some spine! I've read books with that go along the Cinderella lines, step parents, blah blah... But the MCs still showed a lot more agency, which made them a lot more real.
16. Almost all other characters seem to be throw away characters! With no real importance to the plot or it's progression.
17. The interactions between the characters are too short to give the reader, a read (wink wink) on their relationship dynamics so you can't get emotionally invested or in anyway interested in the book.
###### THIS BIT IS SPOILERY####
18. Everyone becomes the best of friends with everyone at a glance! No literally! They do. Juliet the male mc's sister who is vaguely interesting discusses her wish that Jon should pay her attention in front of Mc on their first meeting. She then says "who are you" first sentence to Emily that's the female Mc, then "well apparently you know how it's done if you have already stolen my brother's heart, tell me how on earth do you get a man to notice you?" (with just that one comma in that entire run on.)
###### SPOILER OVER#######
19. Missed commas!
20. How Emily and the male protagonist's first meeting and second meeting and every interaction go.
21. How instantly Emily trusted a random dude (male Mc) with her life story and life... How she then also obeys him from that point on.
22. Fact that the book and it's characters are so forgettable, that I've forgotten the male mc's name, (despite the fact that I am reading the book while, writing the review. See I realized the book was shit and decided to finish just so I could write a full review. I am now switching back and fourth between my good reads app and the reader app. The short length of the book is good for this and for my sanity... Hey! I found something good to say about the book!) now on to the next problem...
Problem 23. Time just flies by! The book keeps making time jumps during which the relationship dynamics of characters change, the reader never gets to experience that gradual change that we see in most books. We read these books to vicariously experience those relationships and how they change and flow, it's what keeps us wanting to read more, what let's us connect... And what is glaringly missing here!
24. Badly written foreplay that seems to be sloppily and half heartedly put in by a virgin with no imagination.
25. "I love you" that comes out of the blue, cause you're not expecting it. You're not expecting it, cause there was no buildup to it, except some badly written nipple pinching. There was no buildup to it cause time jump! I love the "I love you" moment in books, it's kinda the semi climax before the actual climax in romance novels. It's the POINT OF the ROMANCE NOVEL. hello! It's a ROMANCE NOVEL!! Give us the romance! Don't just time jump it!
###### THE REST IS ALL SPOILERY ######
BUT THE ENTIRE BOOK IS ALREADY SPOILED... SO REALLY, DON'T BOTHER CARING.
26. This whole fucked up scene...
####Premise: At some point in the book, male Mc, (I know I must have read his name a few times! But fuck it I have forgotten it again.) Anyway male mc: my mom is annoying, she's meddlesome, she says I can't marry a girl without her approval. And she wants me to marry Elisabeth.#####
The scene
Male mc: I will talk to my mom get her approval.
(Me: ooh! The book will have conflict now and maybe, just maybe become interesting.)
Male mc: mama I wanna marry Emily
Mama: OK! Go for it.
(Me: should have known, lazy writing at it's laziest.)
27. Badly written sex! Oh gosh! So so so so so badly written sex! With the corniest most cringe worthy pillow talk!
28. Plot points that aren't sufficiently explored.
Example this scene...
Emily: I overheard my uncle and aunt say I'm a bastard... My pop isn't my pop.
(Me: conflict of emotions!)
Male mc: don't care!
Emily: OK great.
28. The scene where she finds out her parent's death was her uncle and aunt's fault cause they made shady business deals. She then grows a spine and says I will deal with this... Male Mc then says, nah don't bother your pretty self, you just look after the wedding preparations, I'll take care of this! She says, oh you handsome man OK! Here take my agency again and here's a knife, cut off the balls I just grew!
29. "just wait till Jon sees you in that dress Juliet. I bet he will think of you as a child no more." Emily says to the tomboy Juliet... Translation, "don't be yourself! Just dress pretty."
30. Suddenly Emily becomes an expert in the affairs of the heart and gives advice... Again... Out of the blue lines, preceded by time jump. This is literally the second scene after the "cut the balls I just grew" scene. FYI, the scene after that is her wedding and the book ends.
I've changed my mind, there's one more flaw here... 31. the book was too long!!!
32. This read like a sloppily written *Cinderella* book for adults!
Have no spunk and have no spine?
Oh oh lady, that is just fine!
For a man will find you by pure chance!
And ask you wed him, with or without a dance.
He, will make all your problems go away.
You just look pretty and "I love you" he'll say.
Sounds familiar?
June 28, 2012
DNF - misspellings, wrong words and an entirely ridiculous plot line.
July 5, 2012
3.5 really. A sweet, short read. A few editing mistakes, that weren't numerous enough to pull me from the story but were frustrating because it is something that could be so easily fixed.
August 19, 2021
One of the worst books I have had the displeasure of reading. Don't waste your time or money!
Wow. If there was ever a reward for a poorly written and edited book, this author is worthy of the prize! The story is rushed, and formulaic in the worst possible way. Beta readers and a halfway decent editor would help a lot! The plot is unrealistic, and when combined with the poor editing, make the story hard to follow. A little plot development goes a long way, and clearly, no thought was put into the plot or story development in this instance.
I get that most romance books follow a set formula, but this book relies solely on the formula, and has little else to recommend it.
It is hard to read, because there is little to no editing, so paragraphs blur together, and it is hard to know who is speaking. The few descriptions that the author does give are so brief and senseless, they may as well have not bothered!
The dialog is unrealistic and it is hard to buy into the storyline because of it.
Overall, if I could give zero stars, I would have! The book (if you can call it that) is that bad.
Wow. If there was ever a reward for a poorly written and edited book, this author is worthy of the prize! The story is rushed, and formulaic in the worst possible way. Beta readers and a halfway decent editor would help a lot! The plot is unrealistic, and when combined with the poor editing, make the story hard to follow. A little plot development goes a long way, and clearly, no thought was put into the plot or story development in this instance.
I get that most romance books follow a set formula, but this book relies solely on the formula, and has little else to recommend it.
It is hard to read, because there is little to no editing, so paragraphs blur together, and it is hard to know who is speaking. The few descriptions that the author does give are so brief and senseless, they may as well have not bothered!
The dialog is unrealistic and it is hard to buy into the storyline because of it.
Overall, if I could give zero stars, I would have! The book (if you can call it that) is that bad.
November 1, 2024
A delightful read but I must admit I skipped a chapter or two to move it along!
Read
January 31, 2026Very good
September 4, 2012
I was desperate for a good read when I was stuck at a hospital. There was nothing but my phone with its wifi and 3g off, so I raided my phone's Kindle app for free-for-one-day novellas I downloaded and somehow forgot. The first on the list was Macy Barnes's A Duke in Shining Armor.
It wasn't long before I realised the 'first come, first served' principle wasn't necessarily a good idea. The author did try her best to provide an entertaining story, bless her socks, but reading A Duke in Shining Armor was like being trapped in a room with Connie Mason who’d decided to write a Regency-era novella after chugging a bottle or two.
I wrote a summary, but it made the story look so silly that I deleted the lot. Besides, it’s only a 64-page novella, so read it yourself if you’re dying to know. I wouldn’t bother if I were you, though. The book blurb should be good enough to get by, because that’s pretty much what you get without feeling the painful death of your eyeballs.
My English is obviously crap, but this novella? It suffers misspellings, grammatical errors, odd usage of vocabulary, continuity errors (stable boy’s name alternates between Jed and Jeb, for instance), and many instances of incoherency. Also from major and minor anachronisms, modern dialogue, inconsistent characterisations, odd editorial decisions and – surprise! – plot holes. The author also doesn't seem to have a firm grip on Britain's class system, peerage, legal system, culture and geography. There were times when I felt I was reading a story set in the Deep South, U.S.A.
Basically, A Duke in Shining Armor is poorly written, poorly researched and badly edited with a plot that pretty much goes nowhere. In short, there’s a nice story idea in A Duke in Shining Armor somewhere, but shame the author couldn’t provide a map, a compass and a gaslight lamp to show me the way.
Like I said, the author did try to provide an entertaining story, but it’s all too clear that she’d benefit from a couple of writing workshops, basic history lessons and a good editor. Let’s hope she’ll consider those options for her future stories as I do think she has the making of a fun storyteller.
You might like it if you’re looking for a short-ish Cinderella-type tale of Emily, our blue-blooded heroine in rags, who gets rescued by Clint, our six-foot-two-tall, black-haired, grey-steel-eyed, broad-shouldered, muscular-built duke hero.
It wasn't long before I realised the 'first come, first served' principle wasn't necessarily a good idea. The author did try her best to provide an entertaining story, bless her socks, but reading A Duke in Shining Armor was like being trapped in a room with Connie Mason who’d decided to write a Regency-era novella after chugging a bottle or two.
I wrote a summary, but it made the story look so silly that I deleted the lot. Besides, it’s only a 64-page novella, so read it yourself if you’re dying to know. I wouldn’t bother if I were you, though. The book blurb should be good enough to get by, because that’s pretty much what you get without feeling the painful death of your eyeballs.
My English is obviously crap, but this novella? It suffers misspellings, grammatical errors, odd usage of vocabulary, continuity errors (stable boy’s name alternates between Jed and Jeb, for instance), and many instances of incoherency. Also from major and minor anachronisms, modern dialogue, inconsistent characterisations, odd editorial decisions and – surprise! – plot holes. The author also doesn't seem to have a firm grip on Britain's class system, peerage, legal system, culture and geography. There were times when I felt I was reading a story set in the Deep South, U.S.A.
Basically, A Duke in Shining Armor is poorly written, poorly researched and badly edited with a plot that pretty much goes nowhere. In short, there’s a nice story idea in A Duke in Shining Armor somewhere, but shame the author couldn’t provide a map, a compass and a gaslight lamp to show me the way.
Like I said, the author did try to provide an entertaining story, but it’s all too clear that she’d benefit from a couple of writing workshops, basic history lessons and a good editor. Let’s hope she’ll consider those options for her future stories as I do think she has the making of a fun storyteller.
You might like it if you’re looking for a short-ish Cinderella-type tale of Emily, our blue-blooded heroine in rags, who gets rescued by Clint, our six-foot-two-tall, black-haired, grey-steel-eyed, broad-shouldered, muscular-built duke hero.
July 18, 2013
I'm giving this book 3 stars. Yes, it is a VERY short story... and short stories do have an issue with a lack of character and story development. There just isn't enough time to really get to know your characters and the stories can be really rushed. Even with that in mind, I do enjoy a short story every once in awhile in between books in a series to kind of break it up for me. So, I do enjoy them for what they are... super quick, fun, short stories. I liked this one and thought it was fun with a nice story.
July 8, 2012
Looks like the author may have updated/edited the book as many of the problems previous reviewers mention with spelling and formatting are fixed. A cute short read. I miss regencies where sex waits until after marriage so this one has more sex than I like to see in a regency. I picked this'd up when it was a free promotion. It was entertaining.
May 2, 2012
Good story but someone needs to proofread it.
May 4, 2012
It was short,but still a cute book. Strong characters and I can't wait to read the next book about the Duke's spunky sister.
September 25, 2012
A decent short story.
September 27, 2012
Short and sweet read with likeable characters with the exception of the relatives of the heroine.
Read
November 20, 2013This was a short but sweet romance. Thing seemed to go a bit too easy for them.
January 6, 2017
My review
I loved the characters in this story but I was distracted by the placement of words and phrases that did not belong. Please fix them.
I loved the characters in this story but I was distracted by the placement of words and phrases that did not belong. Please fix them.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 17 reviews