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A Duel With Destiny
Markisen av Swayne skadas i en olycka och förs till läkarens hus. Där vårdas han av Rowena, den äldsta av läkarens döttrar som är förtrollande vacker. Markisen förälskar sig i Rowena och hans kärlek blir besvarad. Men då Rowena upptäcker att börd betyder mer för markisen än kärlek, beslutar hon sig för att sätta honom på plats. Ska hon lyckas i sitt uppsåt?Cartlands böcker äger rum i de finare engelska kretsarna och i exotiska miljöer. Kärleken är häftig mellan de passionerade hjältarna och vackra hjältinnorna, men gång på gång går de igenom prövningar. Men äkta kärlek är alltid starkast och det finns ingenting den inte kan besegra.
160 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1977
6 people are currently reading
70 people want to read
About the author
Barbara Cartland
1,592 books834 followersBorn in 1901, Barbara Cartland started her writing career in journalism and completed her first book, Jigsaw, when she was just 24. An immediate success, it was the start of her journey to becoming the world’s most famous and most read romantic novelist of all time. Inspiring a whole generation of readers around the globe with her exciting tales of adventure, love and intrigue, she became synonymous with the Romance genre. And she still is to this day, having written over 644 romantic fiction books.
As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, plays, music, poetry and several advice books on life, love, health and cookery – totalling an incredible 723 books in all, with over 1 billion in sales.
Awarded the DBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 in honour of her literary, political and social contributions, she was President of the Hertfordshire branch of the Royal College of Midwives as well as a Dame of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and Deputy President of the St John Ambulance Brigade.
Always a passionate advocate of woman’s health and beauty, she was dubbed ‘the true Queen of Romance’ by Vogue magazine in her lifetime. Her legend continues today through her wonderfully vivid romantic tales, stories that help you escape from the day to day into the dramatic adventures of strong, beautiful women who battle, often against the odds, eventually to find that love conquers all.
Find out more about the incredible life and works of Dame Barbara Cartland at www.barbaracartland.com
As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, plays, music, poetry and several advice books on life, love, health and cookery – totalling an incredible 723 books in all, with over 1 billion in sales.
Awarded the DBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 in honour of her literary, political and social contributions, she was President of the Hertfordshire branch of the Royal College of Midwives as well as a Dame of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and Deputy President of the St John Ambulance Brigade.
Always a passionate advocate of woman’s health and beauty, she was dubbed ‘the true Queen of Romance’ by Vogue magazine in her lifetime. Her legend continues today through her wonderfully vivid romantic tales, stories that help you escape from the day to day into the dramatic adventures of strong, beautiful women who battle, often against the odds, eventually to find that love conquers all.
Find out more about the incredible life and works of Dame Barbara Cartland at www.barbaracartland.com
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 9, 2025
One of the few without an OW. instead the Hero wants the heroine to be the OW 😝🤦🏻♀️
The Hero is injured in an accident and needs to recover in the house of the heroine, who is the daughter of the town doctor. As the eldest she is tasked to take care of the Hero. They have cute banter together because she bullies him into doing what the doctor orders, and obviously the Hero is used to getting his own way.
The Hero realizes that the family is quite poor and its a strain even feeding him, so he has his staff bring food and treats for the family. Eventually he is well enough to go home. He and the heroine have a moment together and he confesses his love to her. The heroine is ecstatic, she is also in love with him, they start making plans….the Hero tells her he will get a house for her in London and BAM! Yes its the mistress position. The heroine is horrified!
A side note to this, the Hero’s hobby is genealogy. He has been working on his family tree and bloodlines are very important to him. The heroine knows that the Hero thinks her bloodlines are not good enough for him! This heroine is not the clinging vine submissive type. She has a strong backbone and is quite opinionated herself.
She refuses his offer, naturally and sends him on his way. She is quite down since she loves the douche. The douche …ahem Hero, continues to hound her, he even offers to send her brother and sister to school. Clearly a bribe since he knows its her greatest wish for the family. But the heroine stays firm and makes her own plan.
She knows the Hero is going to London for a ball in the palace so she plans her revenge. She also goes to London to her grandfather. He is an Earl. Her mother had run away w her father, a country doctor, to the disapproval of her father. The heroine explains her predicament to her grandfather and tells him that the Hero would never have insulted her in such a fashion if he had known she was as “blue blooded” as himself. Grandfather agrees that the Hero needs some comeuppance! So he brings the heroine to the ball, all dolled up as a lady of fashion. The Hero is surprised, to say the least, when the heroine is introduced to the Prince as the granddaughter of the Earl.
During the ball, when they have a moment together, the Hero repeats his avowals of love and asks to marry her! OF course she refuses him! She wasn’t good enough as the daughter of a doctor, but now that she has proved she has as good as bloodline as his, suddenly she is wife material!! So yes, this is her revenge.
Anyway, the next day she heads back home. Her grandfather promises to invite her family back for visits and to his castle in Scotland so they can meet their other cousins. On the road home, her carriage is stopped. Its the Hero. She thinks something has happened to one of her family members, so she goes w him, but he takes her to his estate. He has arranged a wedding for them at his chapel.
After a token resistance, 🙄she capitulates and they get married. She’s a bit sad, but then the Hero brings her into his library where he has 2 assistant genealogists, she shows her that even before going to London, he had already asked them to add her bloodline to his chart and her name beside his as his wife. Proving that he had decided to marry her even before knowing her antecedents.
So presumably its a forever happy ever after ❤️
Would have been a 4-star but I felt she gave in too easily, but actually, she put up a better fight than many of BC’s other heroines.
The Hero is injured in an accident and needs to recover in the house of the heroine, who is the daughter of the town doctor. As the eldest she is tasked to take care of the Hero. They have cute banter together because she bullies him into doing what the doctor orders, and obviously the Hero is used to getting his own way.
The Hero realizes that the family is quite poor and its a strain even feeding him, so he has his staff bring food and treats for the family. Eventually he is well enough to go home. He and the heroine have a moment together and he confesses his love to her. The heroine is ecstatic, she is also in love with him, they start making plans….the Hero tells her he will get a house for her in London and BAM! Yes its the mistress position. The heroine is horrified!
A side note to this, the Hero’s hobby is genealogy. He has been working on his family tree and bloodlines are very important to him. The heroine knows that the Hero thinks her bloodlines are not good enough for him! This heroine is not the clinging vine submissive type. She has a strong backbone and is quite opinionated herself.
She refuses his offer, naturally and sends him on his way. She is quite down since she loves the douche. The douche …ahem Hero, continues to hound her, he even offers to send her brother and sister to school. Clearly a bribe since he knows its her greatest wish for the family. But the heroine stays firm and makes her own plan.
She knows the Hero is going to London for a ball in the palace so she plans her revenge. She also goes to London to her grandfather. He is an Earl. Her mother had run away w her father, a country doctor, to the disapproval of her father. The heroine explains her predicament to her grandfather and tells him that the Hero would never have insulted her in such a fashion if he had known she was as “blue blooded” as himself. Grandfather agrees that the Hero needs some comeuppance! So he brings the heroine to the ball, all dolled up as a lady of fashion. The Hero is surprised, to say the least, when the heroine is introduced to the Prince as the granddaughter of the Earl.
During the ball, when they have a moment together, the Hero repeats his avowals of love and asks to marry her! OF course she refuses him! She wasn’t good enough as the daughter of a doctor, but now that she has proved she has as good as bloodline as his, suddenly she is wife material!! So yes, this is her revenge.
Anyway, the next day she heads back home. Her grandfather promises to invite her family back for visits and to his castle in Scotland so they can meet their other cousins. On the road home, her carriage is stopped. Its the Hero. She thinks something has happened to one of her family members, so she goes w him, but he takes her to his estate. He has arranged a wedding for them at his chapel.
After a token resistance, 🙄she capitulates and they get married. She’s a bit sad, but then the Hero brings her into his library where he has 2 assistant genealogists, she shows her that even before going to London, he had already asked them to add her bloodline to his chart and her name beside his as his wife. Proving that he had decided to marry her even before knowing her antecedents.
So presumably its a forever happy ever after ❤️
Would have been a 4-star but I felt she gave in too easily, but actually, she put up a better fight than many of BC’s other heroines.
February 19, 2017
Jag trodde att den här boken skulle vara förutsägbar hela tiden men det var den inte. Visst, vissa grejer var förutsägbara men den tog överraskande vändningar väldigt ofta. Huvudpersonen Rowena gör verkligen hela storyn, om hon inte haft de egenskaperna hon faktiskt hade i boken skulle den bara vara ännu en klyschig kärlekshistoria.
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October 1, 2025My favorite book of 2025, so far. I think Barbra Cartland with her glamorous looks and her romance novels are now officially part of my personal ethos. After reading this book, what would we like to talk about? Morality? Class? The intersections of class and gender? The philosophy of desire? The difference between romance and erotica? Or how about my personal favorite- The decadent and salacious nature of paperback fiction that one might find in a grocery store novel?
My point of this review is neither to enflame the book not the author to the point of literary excellence. There are hundreds of years of romance novels and authors whose work explore the same ideas of the push and pull of romance, unrequited, whose names have stood the test of time. Barbra Cartland is certainly on a different strata than Jane Austen. But what I argue for is that Barbra Cartland be revisited and appreciated for providing exactly what she offers- something kind of bad, and isn’t that delicious?
In my attempts to understand taste and how it relates to class (see 1977 Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Clause Passeron’s idea of cultural capital), there is something to be said about the works of and Cartland herself. Cartland is seemingly obsessed with mimicking the aristocracy, without being a part of it herself. She uses the cultural signifiers of the elite. Her glamorous personal style, the subject matter of writings, and her attempted hobnobbing with the English monarchy (a là Princess Diana) all in attempts to distinguish herself from the likes of the middle class and other romance authors (https://youtu.be/NtXmlZH7Ldw?si=eOxfS...). Yet I still argue her books are not elevated to this same degree to which she may think. Which is exactly why I love this book and Cartland.
I believe what I am arguing here is that the cultural capital or whatever image Cartland is attempting to convey through her dress and this book, is camp. And I am gobbling it up.
Can a book be campy? Still unknown. What I do know, as conveyed by this book, I am obsessed with Barbra Cartland. May she guide me further into my exploration of frothy and scrumptious content.
True literary opium for the masses. Thank you for your service, Mrs. Cartland.
My point of this review is neither to enflame the book not the author to the point of literary excellence. There are hundreds of years of romance novels and authors whose work explore the same ideas of the push and pull of romance, unrequited, whose names have stood the test of time. Barbra Cartland is certainly on a different strata than Jane Austen. But what I argue for is that Barbra Cartland be revisited and appreciated for providing exactly what she offers- something kind of bad, and isn’t that delicious?
In my attempts to understand taste and how it relates to class (see 1977 Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Clause Passeron’s idea of cultural capital), there is something to be said about the works of and Cartland herself. Cartland is seemingly obsessed with mimicking the aristocracy, without being a part of it herself. She uses the cultural signifiers of the elite. Her glamorous personal style, the subject matter of writings, and her attempted hobnobbing with the English monarchy (a là Princess Diana) all in attempts to distinguish herself from the likes of the middle class and other romance authors (https://youtu.be/NtXmlZH7Ldw?si=eOxfS...). Yet I still argue her books are not elevated to this same degree to which she may think. Which is exactly why I love this book and Cartland.
I believe what I am arguing here is that the cultural capital or whatever image Cartland is attempting to convey through her dress and this book, is camp. And I am gobbling it up.
Can a book be campy? Still unknown. What I do know, as conveyed by this book, I am obsessed with Barbra Cartland. May she guide me further into my exploration of frothy and scrumptious content.
True literary opium for the masses. Thank you for your service, Mrs. Cartland.
September 15, 2023
Well, not my favorite Cartland but for one fun feature surrounding the main lead Rowena going to London surprise twist that shall not be named. The guy was just too stalkerish and rude and arrogant in the wrong way. I didn't like the chosen ending so as usual I chose a different one for my own hope for a favored character's happiness.
December 2, 2023
I can't quite but my finger on exactly what I find so unpleasant about the ending? The high handed ness of the hero? But usually high handedners is something I like in heroes. Jack of proper groveling perhaps? On the heroine being faced with her marriage as a fait-accompli as in ok here you go now just shutzupanddoas you're told
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February 9, 2024
Jednoduchá zápletka a k tomu historická - takže ma rozčuľoval nielen chlap, ktorý sa správal ako hlupák, ale ak žena, ktorá bola pre zmenu ako sliepočka. Pointa - bohatý markíz sa zaľúbil do dcéry zverolekára, ale nemôže si ju vziať kvôli postaveniu. Navrhne jej, nech je jeho milenka. ona sa urazí a tak ďalej..
September 4, 2018
Not the typical book of BC, and kind the kind of book I would really enjoy on my bad mood days.
March 7, 2020
I enjoyed reading.
December 25, 2021
I usually love Barbara Cartland, but I hated this book. The herione was weak and the ending was awful. I could not even barely like the forceful guy she married.
April 24, 2023
When the handsome Marquis of Swayne is injured in a nasty carriage accident, his servants carry him to the house of the local physician, where he is nursed back to health by Doctor Winsford’s beautiful eldest daughter, Rowena.
On his way to recovery the Marquis is surprised to find that the family is unable to provide the fine food and drink he is used to and discovers that the household and its children are considerably impoverished by the doctor’s over-generosity to his poorer patients and anyone else he feels sorry for. And immediately the Marquis sets about remedying the situation.
Almost at first sight the Marquis falls in love with Rowena, and she with him, and it seems that all her dreams of love and happiness have come true until she is horrified and disillusioned to find that the Marquis’s excessive obsession with his family name and social status means that he will not marry her.
Instead he means to keep Rowena in a luxurious house in London as his mistress.
With her dreams in shreds Rowena’s love turns to hate and she is determined to beat the man she loves in a battle of will and wits and with a little assistance from her family.
But she cannot avoid her destiny. And nor can the Marquis.
"Rowena, daughter of the village doctor, finds herself nursing an injured Marquis after a carriage accident. As she is the oldest of two sisters and one brother, all of them of a rather strange beauty considering their humble origin, she must take her dead mom's place as head of the family and she feels responsible of all her siblings' future. If not the prettiest of the doctor's daughters, Rowena has a unique beauty, more spiritual and soft. When the Marquis is good enough to leave the doctor's house, he confesses his love to her, and promises all what she always dreamed. All, but one thing: a wedding ring."
On his way to recovery the Marquis is surprised to find that the family is unable to provide the fine food and drink he is used to and discovers that the household and its children are considerably impoverished by the doctor’s over-generosity to his poorer patients and anyone else he feels sorry for. And immediately the Marquis sets about remedying the situation.
Almost at first sight the Marquis falls in love with Rowena, and she with him, and it seems that all her dreams of love and happiness have come true until she is horrified and disillusioned to find that the Marquis’s excessive obsession with his family name and social status means that he will not marry her.
Instead he means to keep Rowena in a luxurious house in London as his mistress.
With her dreams in shreds Rowena’s love turns to hate and she is determined to beat the man she loves in a battle of will and wits and with a little assistance from her family.
But she cannot avoid her destiny. And nor can the Marquis.
"Rowena, daughter of the village doctor, finds herself nursing an injured Marquis after a carriage accident. As she is the oldest of two sisters and one brother, all of them of a rather strange beauty considering their humble origin, she must take her dead mom's place as head of the family and she feels responsible of all her siblings' future. If not the prettiest of the doctor's daughters, Rowena has a unique beauty, more spiritual and soft. When the Marquis is good enough to leave the doctor's house, he confesses his love to her, and promises all what she always dreamed. All, but one thing: a wedding ring."
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews