Review: Julie Anne Long’s AFTER DARK WITH THE DUKE.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

📖 Q: if you were staying at a genteel boardinghouse, what would you drink at social hour & what game would you play with your boardinghouse mates? I’d drink a glass of champagne or a margarita & play Rook 🤩.

A disgraced opera singer & a national hero General-turned-Duke meet at the Grand Palace on the Thames—a genteel boardinghouse by the docks—& it is *not* love at first sight.

After all, one of them, Mariana, is being harangued in the papers for causing two men—both, supposedly her lovers—to duel over her & the other, James, is a man who can do no wrong for most of his countrypersons; he’s roundly viewed as the prime example of a gentleman.

In After Dark with the Duke, the latest scintillating installment in Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues series, the delicious enemies to lovers vibes between the leads are turned into something more heated & sweet by forced proximity & when it finally turns physical I was awed by how fantastically it’s written.

Ask me one of my fave communities found in the pages of a romance novel & one of them will be Julie Anne Long’s Grand Palace. With this book, too, I loved returning to a world that’s warm & loving & true—I feel like I can see scenes before the drawing room fire during social hour play out before my eyes.

Add to that a thrilling relationship arc between main characters, sex scenes that feel raw & epic, & some funny & crushing moments that pull at my emotions & you’ve got a historical that ticks so many of my boxes.

The Duke comes a long way in this way & his gesture at the end is meaningful, his speech is stirring, but I wanted even more. Like for maybe him to say I HAVE BEEN AN IDIOT, You are worth more than 1,000,000 of them etc.

But mostly everything is so well done in this book, including the emotional terrain both leads have to traverse, & the whole thing is just splendid.

5 ⭐️. Out now!

CWs: Mariana is vilified, called a harlot, & basically chased out of her home. She’s assaulted by a colleague who doesn’t take no for an answer until James gets involved.

[ID: a copy of the book rests on a white faux fur blanket. On the left is a sprig of red berries & on the right are two green & gold coin purses .]