SPORTOCHICK’S MUSINGS: Author Anna Harrington creates a dramatic intense love story of redemption.

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The Duke’s Only Desire
Book 3 of The Dukes of Darkness
by Anna Harrington

Pub Date Feb 21 2025
Dragonblade Publishing

DESCRIPTION

A simple twist of fate brings a second chance at love.

HIS ONLY DESIRE

Lady Sophie Winter and Shay Douglass fell in love the moment they met. But she had been contracted for marriage to his older brother John, and, as a second son, Shay had been destined for a soldier’s life. Their love could never be…until a tragic fire changed everything. Cursed by the events of that night and accusations he murdered his own brother to claim the dukedom—and his brother’s fiancée—for himself, Shay retreated to his isolated estate a scarred and broken man, determined to live out the rest of his days in self-exile and never see Sophie again.

IS THE WOMAN HE CAN NEVER HAVE

Yet fate has other plans. Ten years later, on the night that Sophie plans to announce her engagement, Shay returns to enforce the old marriage contract that weds her to the Duke of Malvern…to him. Forced unwillingly into a marriage to the man who irreparably shattered her heart, Sophie must find a way to finally exorcise the ghosts of their pasts and heal the scars that still torture both of them, or forever end all hope for love.

REVIEW

Author Anna Harrington creates a dramatic intense love story of redemption.

Sophie Winter’s character has a very interesting chain of events. Forced into a marriage contract when she was twelve years old that ended in tragedy now years later, she is ready to marry someone she doesn’t love but hopes she’ll come to love. Her life is filled with trauma and sadness, and she just wants peace. I admire the author’s way of making this come across the pages with ease. I felt her sadness and the loss of her real love, Shay, along with everything she desired for her future life. What I didn’t get from her character was a sense of despair but a woman who decided what her life would like in the future she picked.

Shay Douglass decided on the eve of her marriage announcement to take Sophie as his wife and enforce the clever marriage contract her grandma brokered even though he doesn’t feel he deserves her. Bravo Shay for finally stepping forward after 10 years.

Shay and Sophie take the reader on a merry chase with this love story that doesn’t want to be a love story. The events in this storyline show the readers that true love always tries to persevere despite all the odds against it. I was extremely satisfied with the ending, and I look forward to hearing if other readers feel the same way.

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Dukes of Darkness

Book 1 – The Duke and the Darkness

Book 2 – The Duke of Deceit REVIEW

Book 3 – The Duke’s Only Desire REVIEW

Book 4 – The Devil’s Own Duke

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