Lords of Love: The Duke's Double

by Anita Mills

Book Overview

Joanna Sherwood had been hopelessly in love with Adrian Delacourt before he accused her of unfaithfulness and divorced her. Adrian's best friend saved Joanna by marrying her, but when she returned a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451199545
• ISBN13: 9780451199546
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Signet Book
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful Book

This woman can write, without a doubt one of my favorite authors. Anita Mills processes the technique to pull you into a story, hold you, and then disappointingly unlock you at the uninvited conclusion. Simply worded -- I didn't want this story to end. I wasn't ready. I wanted to stay in the nineteenth century, to linger in the English countryside, and to go on with the charming characters. An absolutely wonderful storyline. Anita Mills has tenderly written the story with poignance. The tale of three childhood friends tangled in the web of deceit. The primary plot -- the evilness of one monstrous woman and the dramatic effect it yielded.Helen Delacourt, the Dowager Duchess of Roxbury, so despised Joanna Milford, her son's precious wife, she created a means to get rid of her. This malicious woman accused the innocent Joanna of adultery -- a heinous crime in Regency England -- the misconduct of adultery with their childhood friend, Gareth Sherwood, Earl of Carew. Sadly within a year of her marriage, Joanna stood mute, judicially tried, scandalously divorced, and driven from England.Six years pass, Joanna is a widow and must return to England. She longs to give her two sons English heritage. Visiting the haunts of her youth Joanna unexpectedly encounters her first husband, Adrian Delacourt, the Duke of Roxbury. Shockingly, Adrian realizes he has never gotten over his first and only love, despite her suspected betrayal. Even more astounding; Joanna has her eldest son walking with her. One look at the boy and the duke understands he lost far more than a wife and a friend six years earlier. He also lost his son -- his heir.Eventually, good fortune shone down on me. I found this book in the bargain bin at the local used book store - "A ruby in a mountain of rocks". Who would dispose of this enduring gem? Not this girl -- this is a keeper. When the Canadian winter settles in, and the hours loom long; I will open this book again.Grace Atkinson.

A Powerfully Emotional Book

This is probably the strangest review I've ever written, because it's the first time I'm going to give a 5 to a book I know I'll never read again. "The Duke's Double" was a powerful, emotional piece of literature that deals with friendship, betrayal, the death of a good friend, and the redemption of a lost love. It is, without a doubt, the most poignantly bitter-sweet work I've ever read by an author of romantic fiction.The reason I won't be reading "The Duke's Double" again has nothing to do with the quality of this book...it was superbly well written. I simply won't be pulling it off my shelf again because I don't enjoy spending the better part of a day reading something that leaves me feeling dismal and slightly depressed. There are, however, many, many readers who enjoy bitter-sweet stories, and will therefore thoroughly enjoy this novel. Although I don't happen to like books that bring tears to my eyes (and this one caused me to whip out one tissue too many), I still have to rate this excellent piece of work a solid five. "The Duke's Double" pulls at all of your heartstrings, and probably a few that you didn't even know you had.

Wonderful tale of a love triangle, mistrust and betrayal

The other reviews have explained as much as I would have needed to about the plot of this book, so I can skip that part of this review. We meet Joanna Sherwood almost a year after the death of Gary, the Earl of Crewe, the childhood friend who married her after Adrian, the Duke of Roxbury, divorced her for alleged adultery. We are told that Joanna's eldest son looks very like Adrian, so much so that Gary used to refer to him as 'Duke's Double.' It is seeing Justin which first makes Adrian wonder whether it's possible that he misjudged Joanna.It's obvious early on that both Adrian and Joanna still love each other, though both feel they have much to blame the other for. The author carries off this sense of betrayal extremely well, allowing us glimpses into both protagonists' feelings and thought processes along the way.One thing I found a little odd was Adrian's persistence, when talking to Joanna, in believing that she was unfaithful, when we know that from early on in the book he was reassessing his earlier belief in that regard; but on the other hand, it's possible that he actually wanted her to tell him herself that she wasn't unfaithful.That aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

WOW! Powerful!

When trust and false accusations end in divorce and scandal, Lady Johanna Delacourt-Sherwood exiles to Capri with her second husband and best-friend. When her second husband dies, Johanna returns to England so that her two beloved sons can be raised on native soil and claim their heritage. But when her ex-husband Adrian Delacourt, the Duke of Roxbury finds out that she has returned, it makes for a very powerful love story that will touch your heart and really hope that they can work out their differences and realize that true love never dies and can survive anything, even a vindictive and ruthless mother-in-law! Wonderful, powerful and worth every minute you take to read.

Wonderfully refreshing

A very nice love story by one of my favorite romance authors. The Duke's Double can be read in one afternoon and what a great way to spend the afternoon.