I received a free copy of this from NetGalley and this is my freely given review. I have to admit I loved this series from the first book. It is a fun series that is part cozy mystery and sweet romance. I love Beatrice Hyde-Clare, newly-minted Duchess of Kesgrave, her intelligence, lack of arrogance, curiosity, love of books, lack of confidence. I quite enjoy her relationship with her new husband, and their dynamic. She cannot quite believe that she, a prior wallflower over-looked for many seasons, managed to stand up to him, and confront him as a possible murderer in the first book, to being a friend and co-investigator/enabler in subsequent stories, to developing an abiding attraction and love later on. In this book, she is now settling into her new role as Duchess, and has been married for over a month to Kesgrave, and they are still working out what that means for the two of them, and she is still not sure how to go about dealing with some aspects of her newly elevated role. For one, she is having trouble finding a way to tell her staff about her dislike of pineapple and how it has invaded her meals, despite requesting it as a rare and exotic treat when she first became the lady of the house. Bea does not intend on trying to find any dead bodies this time. Much of her time seems to be taken up learning self defense, on Kesgrave's direction, since she was almost murdered in her own home in the last novel. That, and trying to figure out a way out of the pineapple conundrum. So much time taken away from her reading! One day, she gets a visit from a nemesis from her past, who decided to make up for a wrong by informing her of a danger to her life. Apparently Kesgrave has an uncle; the younger brother of the previous Duke, who thought he would be in line to inherit as the Duke was widowed and with no heir. That was until he got his mistress pregnant and chose to marry her. Apparently this uncle made several attempts to have his nephew killed as a child. Bea was distressed to find out that not only has her marriage now made her a potential target for this uncle, but that there was a lot she did not know about her husband's past. This goes down the path of finding out if what the nemesis says of the uncle and his plans to have Bea killed or not is true, which leads the finding of a dead body (not Bea or her husband) and obviously they have to investigate further. Again, I like the humorous, light hearted dialogue, but also the sweet dynamic between the new spouses. I also like the secondary characters. Flora seems to be developing more depth and Bea is noticing this as well - though it is not a smooth path to self-awareness for Flora. Bea seems to have earned some appreciation and respect from her staff; despite the inundation of the pineapple. She and Kesgrave definitely need to work out their new roles as spouses and learn to to be true partners, as opposed to the roles expected by Society. As always, I found this to be an enjoyable addition to the series, though I was thinking, especially as everything so far is written from Bea's point of view and Kesgrave at times can be quite quiet and contemplative, it would be very interesting to hear a bit more of his mind and perspective, similar to that tangent Lynn Messina went with the novel written with Flora as the central character going off on her own adventure, to find out what happened with the (fictitious) beau that Bea invented in the past. A fun 3.5 stars, and I hope there is more to come.
