Started: July 11th
Finished: July 22nd
TSM Rating: 4/5
Another highly anticipated read for me. While I liked it, I was so frustrated with Dani in this book. I understood her motivations, but I wanted her to make different choices. Prince Jameson wins by being charming, kind, and sexy.
The Duchess Effect is the sequel to American Royalty. Jameson and Duchess are still riding high in the early stages of their romance, although they’ve spent most of their time behind closed doors and away from the public. It’s easy to be in love and make promises when you aren’t putting your relationship to the test by letting it exist in the real world.
It’s the test and how Duchess responds to it that almost breaks them. Instead of trusting that Jameson would help her and show up for her, she decides to hide the truth from him.
At the beginning of the book, they make a pact to stay out of each other’s professional lives. To keep their relationship solely about them, but when Duchess’s professional future becomes unfortunately tied to Jameson, she does. There are several moments when she can come clean but chooses not to out of a misguided — albeit based on past trauma — belief that he’ll leave her.
For his part, Jameson is a little bit obtuse about certain things. He publicly declared to the media that he and Duchess were in love but then tried to put them back in the box by avoiding the press. Jameson doesn’t fully grasp what kind of pressure truly being together puts on Duchess. Also, there are points where different parts of her personality come out — Spades, anyone — and he internally balks as if she doesn’t contain multitudes.
Overall, I liked the book. It was a worthy follow-up and answered many questions left open in the first book.
The Saucy Mama 