The Duke's Obsession Bundle

by Grace Burrowes

SYNOPSIS

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Grace Burrowes delivers remarkable characters, intriguing plots, and freshly imagined Regency settings in this unforgettable trilogy about three noble brothers. A Regency era battle of wits, wills, and the sexes, with a wily old duke determined to see the succession of his line secured, and his three headstrong sons equally determined to resist the bonds of matrimony.
THE The Earl of Wyndham, weighed down by responsibilities, is determined to avoid the summer rounds of matchmaking mamas, so he stays in his London townhouse for the summer. There he discovers a potentially perfect duchess in his lovely, mysterious housekeeper.

"The heroine of Grace Burrowes' erotically charged romance is a woman of such mystery that both the hero and the reader become obsessed with her."—USA Today

"Burrowes debuts with a luminous and graceful erotic Regency... a refreshing and captivating love story that will have readers eagerly awaiting the planned sequels."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Burrowes' outstanding debut is a witty, sensual, Regency romance featuring complex characters who ring true to the time period, leaving readers saying huzzah!"—Booklist, starred review
THE Devlin St. Just, the Duke's oldest, but illegitimate, son, arrives at his new estate weary in body and spirit. There he finds that the previous owner's bastard daughter and her beautiful cousin are his responsibility and are making his life almost unbearably complicated.

"Captivating... Burrowes's straightforward, sensual love story is intelligent and tender, rising above the crowd with deft dialogue and delightful characters." —Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

"Burrowes returns with a powerful story that touches readers' hearts. Her powerful and complex characters will enthrall you. There is a quiet, yet intense power to Burrowes' simple prose and such depth of feelings that it will be difficult to forget this marvelous story." —RT Book Reviews, 4 1/2 Stars, Top Pick of the Month

"Burrowes continues her winning streak with a delicious, sensual historical romance capturing the spirit of the time." —Booklist

"With lots of humor and steamy romance, these books are always a delightful read, a treat for fans of Regency romance at it's best." —Night Owl Reviews, 4 1/2 Stars, Reviewer Top Pick
THE Gifted pianist Valentine Windham, youngest son of the Duke of Moreland retreats to the country after an injury robs him of his musical ability. There he learns from beautiful young widow Ellen Markham that he can be loved even when his music falls silent.

"Burrowes's exceptional writing and originality catch the reader and keep the story moving."—Publishers Weekly

"Burrowes creates memorable heroes... intelligent, sensual love stories show us this author knows what romance readers adore."—RT Book Reviews, 4 Stars

"Reminiscent of the heroines in Amanda Quick's romances... Another outstanding entry in a strong series."—Booklist

"Quite sensual."—USA Today Happy Ever After

"Filled with wonderfully touching relationships, interesting and intriguing characters, witty and delightful humor, and steamy and romantic seduction... Outstanding."—Night Owl Reviews, 5 Stars, Reviewer Top Pick

"Perfection, enchanting and stunningly sensual..."—The Romance Reviews

Genres: Historical Romance, Romance, Historical Fiction

902 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

Grace Burrowes started writing as an antidote to empty nest and soon found it an antidote to life in general. She is the sixth out of seven children, raised in the rural surrounds of central Pennsylvania. Early in life she spent a lot of time reading romance novels and practicing the piano. Her first career was as a technical writer and editor in the Washington, DC, area, a busy job that nonetheless left enough time to read a lot of romance novels.

It also left enough time to grab a law degree through an evening program, produce Beloved Offspring (only one, but she is a lion), and eventually move to the lovely Maryland countryside.

While reading yet still more romance novels, Grace opened her own law practice, acquired a master's degree in Conflict Transformation (she had a teenage daughter by then) and started thinking about writing.... romance novels. This aim was realized when Beloved Offspring struck out into the Big World a few years ago. ("Mom, why doesn't anybody tell you being a grown-up is hard?")

Grace eventually got up the courage to start pitching her manuscripts to agents and editors. The query letter that resulted in "the call" started out: "I am the buffoon in the bar at the RWA retreat who could not keep her heroines straight, could not look you in the eye, and could not stop blushing--and if that doesn't narrow down the possibilities, your job is even harder than I thought." (The dear lady bought the book anyway.)

To contact Grace, email her at graceburrowes@yahoo.com.

Reviews

[Kari Maass · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great

This is a wonderful three story set. Each one is witty, heart breaking and ends happily. My favorite was the second book. The Soldier and St. Just was so well done and I loved every page. Highly recommend!

[BJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Heir, the Soldier and the Virtuoso: classic Burrowes characters and writing style. Loved seeing these angsty people overcome a range of obstacles to get their HEA. Long winded but lovely.

[AerinLuvs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of Class Differences in The Heir (Duke-Housekeeper) and The Soldier(A New Lord who was born a bastard-Pastry Chef/Baker). The Third novel, The Virtuoso, is the best in my opinion because the love story seems to develop organically (the protagonists are already acquainted and interested in each other) and the Hero makes his first move early on in a natural way. I am also partial to Heros who have great hand coordination, and in the Virtuoso he is an accomplished pianist.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a very enjoyable read. Really liked the characters (both main and secondary) and their interactions had definite tones of "sweetness" or "warmth" for lack of a better word. I'm starting to think I'm going to need to make charts or timelines for the chronological order of the books :)

[oyadancing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely but unrealistic heros with needlessly secretive yet boring heroines. Book 1 is best. 2 is tolerable. 3 had me puzzled throughout, both lead characters insecure, stubborn, and myopic. Avg 3 stars.

[SidneyKay · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Atsa fine I'll have a nice cold glassa lemonade."
- Chico Marx, Duck Soup

After finishing the wonderful Captive Love series by Grace Burrowes, I decided to delve into her debut series about the Windham family. According to her website, Ms. Burrowes was/is quite a prolific writer and had 20 or so books under her belt before she became published. That's a boat load of books and connected characters! I'm very happy she's been published. Here's the deal - the first three in the debut series needed an editor or a writing buddy or someone to say, "whoa, I know all of your words are like babies you've given birth to, but really, you need to cut some.”

Let's do some exploring of these three books, The Heir, The Soldier, and The Virtuoso, starting with ,The Heir.

Rubbing my hands together and chuckling with glee I started to read The Heir. The Heirbegins with a bang, especially when one considers the hero is bonked over the head by the heroine. Knocked out cold. Yes, our heroine, Anne Seaton clobbers Gayle, Earl of Westhaven over the head because she thinks he is abusing a housemaid. Now, this could be a problem. You see, she's his housekeeper and one should probably not knock ones employer out. Not good for employee/employer relationships and all that. Anyway, Anne realizes she may have been mistaken and decides to play nursemaid to Gayle. Maybe he won't fire her if she helps him recover. Once he is awake and on the slow road to recovery, a romance slowly starts to take place. Of course there is always a rough road to romance and this one is no different.

Gayle is hiding out from his father's manipulations. His father wants grandchildren and he doesn't really care how he goes about it. Even going so far as to employ Gayle's latest mistress into becoming pregnant. Anyway, Gayle is hiding out at his estate. As you may know, in Romanceland both the male and female leads have to have problems and a manipulating father seems to be Gayle's. Anne is the one with the biggest problem because she has a secret - a bigggg secret. Be warned, this is one of the pattern's I found in the Windhams series. It is always the female lead who has the dark deep secret, the one that is more troubling, and the one that makes all of these women skate close to being TSTL.

As much as I loved the Captive series, I could not find it in my heart to love these three stories. The Heir started out well and I was thrilled. In the beginning I loved the hero and heroine, but then something happened about three fourths of the way through. The story just kept going and going and going. When I perceive a story has reached its ending but it keeps on going, then I find myself becoming irritated with things that only a few pages ago were acceptable.

Lemonade. Let's start with the lemonade. Just how many lemon trees were growing on Westhaven's estate? Every time you turned around Anne was breaking out the lemonade. This is Regency times for Pete sake, it's not as if one has a container of Country Time instant lemonade handy. We are talking real lemons. Squeezing and squeezing and squeezing tons of those little yellow things. I used to watch my dad make lemonade. It takes tons of lemons to make just one pitcher of lemonade. The amount of lemons Anne had to go through must have been phenomenal. She must have had some mighty strong digits - they came in handy later. Let's move from the oral fixations of lemonade to the romance irritates.

Trust and hy-po-cri-sy. A lot of times in romance novels trust and hypocrisy walk hand and hand. Oh no! Say it ain't so! Yes, my little petunias, I say trust and hy-po-cri-sy! Anne has trust issues, and, she should, because her brother is a real piece of work. But she can't seem to trust her employer, Gayle, who is a nice guy and with whom she falls in love. Even though she's falling in love with him, even though she's allowing him intimacies, even though she allows him to brush her hair, even though she spreads her wings wide - she cannot trust him. It was a continual lovely scene followed by I can’t' trust you. It went on waaaay toooo long.

And, what's with a servant allowing her employer to brush her hair? If you are looking for any kind of historical accuracy, look elsewhere. The lines between servant and master are nonexistence and this story stretches a lot of boundaries. But, I can allow for historical inaccuracies. I can believe a relationship between servant and master. I read Julia Quinn after all. But there was tooo much of a struggle to get to the end. There was just too much churning of the same things over and over again. The not knowing when to end was too bad, because there were some mighty lyrical words in this book. But those find words were overshadowed by one too many chapters.

On to the next in the series, The Soldier.
Be warned: I had numerous digressing moments when I read this story. This tale is about Devlin St. Just, the illegitimate son of Percival Windham, the Duke of Moreland and the half-brother of Gayle from The Heir. For our heroine we have Emmaline Farnum who lives on the Rosecroft estate and is a guardian to Winnie, the previous Earl of Rosecroft's by-blow. Through some kind of legal maneuvering, which we didn't get to read - thank goodness - Devlin is now the new Earl of Rosecroft. By the way, the old Earl of Rosecroft was the villain in the last piece.

As with the other book, our heroine, Emmie has a dark secret and she cries all the time and she is tired and has unexplained bruises which have nothing to do with the story. She makes apple tarts and lemonade. Oh no - not lemonade! She also thinks she is a proper guardian for the six-year-old Winnie. Winnie, for some reason, is a wild creature. Digressing question: if one thinks one is a proper guardian for a - say, a six-year-old, would said proper guardian leave that child with a perfect stranger? A male stranger? Of course, they have dinner together for about an hour or so and he does have big thighs, so I guess it's ok to leave a child with somebody one doesn't know.

By the way, the estate Devlin's father maneuvered for him was pretty run down - thanks a lot dad.

The Soldier is almost a carbon copy of The Heir. It started out good, then just kind of ran out of steam and the same old song and dance routine of trusting someone enough to confide in came into play. So, we had another woman who has her hair brushed, cries and doesn't trust someone but is willing to jump into bed with that person.

On to another distraction. I call this my touchy-feely distraction. I confess: I do not come from a touchy-feely family, and none of my friends are touchy-feely. When I come across it, I think "oh isn't that nice." But in this book there were some eye-brow raised moments. One of them involves Devlin and his brother. Devlin's head on his brother's lap and his hair being caressed. Touchy-feely. Odd. But another one came into play with Devlin's friend Douglas and the rubbing of the lotion. It just had an odd feel about it. I like buddies in books. I like the male comrades who would do anything for their friends. But most of those guys don't touch each other. That's a whole different kind of romance, one I don't have anything against by the way. It's just this time it didn't feel right. Even when we are talking about shared war memories. I think back to two of my friends who were in a war together - one was a sniper and one awarded a Purple Heart. So, these two friends had some pretty intense things happen to them. With all of the pain they shared and the bond that was between them, they were not touchy-feely; they didn't have to be. The presence of their friendship, the support they gave each other became the "touch" between them.

While The Soldier once again had wonderful language, the story went on too long and everything that made it good was lost. The conflicts just kept on churning. The heroine cried and was tired and made lemonade and apple tarts and just could not confide to the man she loved.

The Virtuoso
On to the third brother, Valentine. Valentine plays the piano, he is a virtuoso, hence the title The Virtuoso. However his hand is swollen and painful. He has been told by his doctor that the hand needs to rest, so he goes off to a run-down country estates and starts doing physical labor. How that "rests" his hands I was never able to figure out. It must be the cream that our heroine made and rubbed on it. Her name is Ellen, Baroness Roxbury and guess what. She has a dark deep secret. A guilty secret. Something she blames herself for. Something which when it is revealed I had a "you have got to be kidding me" moment. "How could you possibly blame yourself?" AAArrrgh.

This is basically a repeat of the other two books, except the names are different. Although, there wasn't as much lemonade in this one. But there was a lack of historical feel about it, a lack of proper space between the main characters. And, we have a friend unbuttoning another friends pants in this one. Not sure why, doesn't add anything to the story.

Adding things to stories. I am of the opinion that unless one is going to use something later on in the story, its presence in the book is a waste of time. It's filler. If it doesn't add to the atmosphere, the smell, the time period, it isn't necessary to add it.

Our couple Valentine and Ellen shared a kiss a year before the story begins. It is a kiss which neither of them can forget. And, it seems to have lessened the 19th century principles of these two people. There is a certain 21st century easygoing feel to this book. They bare their feet, roll up their pant-legs/dress and splash around in a pond. While the conversation between them was lovely, the scene was improbable and my eyebrows went up. Ellen was a hot and cold person when it came to propriety. He couldn't use her given name, but they could make love in the open air.

There were a lot of characters in this book, and that was a tad bit overwhelming. As with the other two books, the ending was in the wrong place. The guilt trip, the angst, the boo-hoo went on waaay too long. The couple was engaging and their language was lyrical, but then they are thrown into a situation that is problematic historically and all that loveliness gets lost.

Bottom line. I'm very glad I started with the Captive series and True Gentleman series and not this one. I know from reading those two series that Ms. Burrowes can write up a storm, but The Heir, The Soldier and The Virtuoso were a miss for me.
KaysBlog

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This trilogy focuses on three sons of a Duke and though each has a strong female heroine, these books are about the sons. First up the heir apparent Windham, then his illegitimate son St. Just and the third son is Valentine. All of them are dealing emotionally with the loss of their other brothers.

Grace Burrowes is an adept romance author. The books flowed well. Each main character developed emotionally as the book progressed. The secondary characters are also fleshed out.
The intimate scenes are very well done. Very well done. And I enjoyed the family relationships.

The thing that drove me crazy about these books, however, is that the main conflict keeping the couple apart relates to a secret that the heroine can’t bring herself to disclose to the hero. And the problems seem like ones that the heroes are well positioned to resolve. I’d rank these books higher ), but I just kept shaking my head at these women. Just tell him what is going on – he’s the son of the Duke. He can help you. Or, you can solve the problem yourself. The bottling everything up just made the conflict feel artificial.

The other thing that drove me crazy is that the villain in each story seemed like a stock villain. Each one was just a terrible human being, with no redeeming characteristics. How about a merely flowed character?

Not sure how to rate this. I enjoy aspects of Ms. Burrowe's style but this repeated use of the female needing to be saved from her secrets gets really old.

[Adena Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Regency period has never felt so steamily romantic. The Windham family has a lot in common with the Bridgerton family - both have a number of adult children who, in their parents' eyes, need to set up their nurseries. Fortunately for the Bridgertons, Violet is not so direct and unsubtle as Percy. Still, it is fascinating to see how the Windhams each go on, careers and relatives and responsibilities and, for the oldest sons, finding the ladies who complement them. I definitely recommend this series to fans of Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series.

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent weekends rereading!

For the most fun and entertainment, I would pick a Grace Burrowes book anyday. She is someone I continue to read and reread thru the years. Quality writing , charming characters and satisfying story lines.

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Historical mommie porn. Just didn't appeal to me. I tried really hard to enjoy the story but gave up 1/3 of the way through the first book.

[Bonnie smart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good quick read, much like her other books.

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three very sweet and untraditional love stories

[Helen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reviews are separate:

Book 1: 3 stars - The Heir (Duke's Obsession, #1)

Book 2: TBR - The Soldier (Duke's Obsession, #2)

Book 3: TBR - The Virtuoso (Duke's Obsession, #3)

[Arlene Downey · Rating 5 out of 5]

From piano player to composer!

Valentine acquires a property that needs work and arrives to fix things. Living on the property in a cottage is a widow who grows flowers! And was kissed by Val a year earlier! Many friends arrive to help. Of course there is a villain who trys to drive Val off.

Off he goes, and good thing follow!

I really want to read Axel's story! It's coming soon.

[Eileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the series and how the family memembers become people you believe in. Good character development in Burrowes books in a field that is rather tedious at times. I don't like books that are basically romantic porn, and the sex scenes belong in the story. Even though you know the ending you like the people and are part of their lives. So worth reading if you like the genre.

[Ginny · Rating 4 out of 5]

All three were good. Really like d the heir.