This book is a great addition to the series and I loved reading it!

Only a Duke will Do is second book of the school of Heiresses but has characters from the Royal Brotherhood Series. Lousia North the illegimete daughter of the king. She had Simon , the Duke of Foxmoor sent to India for sevin years ago because of incident. Simon has returned to England with desires to become the Prime Minister and win over Lousia. This was a fun quick read. The first novel of the The School for Heriresses series was Never Seduce a Scoundrel.

I generally like Jeffries, but I must admit that this book didn't live up to my expectations. Generally, when I pick up a book by the time I read the first chapter, I am hooked. I can't not finish the book. I am addicted to reading. However, I had to work to finish this book. I found myself skipping pages or skimming whole chapters.

I honestly don't know if the problem was the plot and that it has been done over and over and over again, and that in my opinion nothing much has been done to make this stand out, or if it was that the characters just seemed to be repeating themselves. For example, the first time Simon and Louisa got involved he betrayed her. It was to further his position with the king. Second go round, and once again, Simon is betraying Louisa to get in better with the king. To be honest, another thing that bothered me is it seemed only Louisa's brother could see through Simon. He was the only one that wasn't pushing her to marry him and to forgive him. Simon's sister, who is supposed to be Louisa's best friend never once in my opinion supported her friend. She just kept saying that Simon's changed and he won't betray you again... which was wrong. And further when Simon's sister does find out that Louisa's been betrayed again, she says she'll have a talk with him. I felt that this book made the majority of the women out to be strong on their own, but as soon as it came to Simon they turned to mush.

If you are a huge fan of Jeffries you should probably read the book to keep up with the series, but maybe you should get it from the library. I guess that would be my recommendation for anyone if the book looks interesting. So many people loved the book, so maybe I missed something, but just in case, why not check it out of the library in stead of possibly throwing away money?

There's been an author in the historical romance genre that has caught my interest lately. Sabrina Jeffries has been writing some interesting and sultry novels set in England's Regency period, in the early eighteenth century, that are full of strong characters, a solid historical setting and quite a few unusual twists and turns to the story.

In her second series of novels, Jeffries picks up the tale of the illegitimate children of the Prince Regent, who would become George IV. The stories of the sons were covered in the 'Princes' series, but this time, it's the troubled romance of Lady Louisa North that is covered.

The year is 1821, and after many years of waiting, Prinny has finally become King George IV, but he still manages to bring plenty of controversy with him, especially when he's having to cope with politics and parliament. And when Simon Tremaine returns from an exile to India, eager to seek political fame, the King thinks he's able to solve a rather sticky situation.

Louisa North has been involving herself with social causes, seeking to better the lives of the women in Newgate Prison, as well as working very hard to stay out of the marriage bed herself. Her conduct is considered to be rather outrageous by the more conservative members of Society, but with her family connections, Louisa is able to ignore most of it. That is, until the rumors of her backing a radical for an election causes her kingly father that someone needs to take her hand and keep her under control. That man happens to be Simon, now the Duke of Foxmoor, and with plenty of his own secrets to hide.

At first, the story moves rather slowly, with Simon being very interested in Louisa after seeing her again after seven years. Despite the fact that she was the one who caused him to go into exile, he still is passionately interested in her, and when he attends an evening's entertainment, he is determined to have her, especially when her father approaches him with a deal that will help Simon get both Louisa and the political appointments that he craves.

Louisa herself isn't too sure about Simon's intense courtship of her, but when mutual desire overwhelms common sense, she finds herself married to him, and another new aspect of the relationship opens up. Both partners have plenty of secrets to hide from their pasts, and it is these questions of trust that provide the plot for the last third of the novel.

Can Simon and Louisa find trust, or will the relationship fall apart from the lies that they've had to tell each other?

Up to the two hundredth page or so, I was heartily bored by this novel. The pace was glacial, and while I was interested in the characters, there simply wasn't enough there to keep me motivated to keep going with the story. While Simon's pet monkey Raji was amusing and the antics gave some much needed lightness to the story, there wasn't any sort of fire between the main characters. Simon is certainly interested, but Louisa was such a flat character, I had trouble buying the story of deception and reluctance at all.

It wasn't until Louisa discovers the trickery that her father and Simon have done -- on her wedding night, of all times! -- that the story finally catches hold. The tension in the story increased enough to keep me wondering how they were going to resolve this and manage to find a common ground.

It was also refreshing to see a heroine that had enough self-respect for herself to stand up to her hero, no matter how good he was in the sack, and stick to her principles. All too often, both sides of the partnership tend to bully one side or the other, and the situation is at times rather revolting to read about to my modern mind. These two, instead, actually learn to compromise, without turning into ninnies about it, and that was such a lovely change.

While I don't like all of Sabrina Jeffries' work, this one is likely to stay on my shelves. Despite the problems, it gets four stars from me. Included in the book is a tiny preview of the next entry in the School for Heiresses series, a collection of short stories to be published in January 2007, and a family tree that explains all of the connections in the Princes and School trilogy.

I reviewed before I finished reading. Upon completion I realized that I'd spoken to soon. Now I think it deserves a 3.5-4 rating.I don't know what happed. I was reading. It was great, and then all of a sudden it was bad. In the first half I liked the chemistry between Simon and Louisa but then it all seemed to go wrong. This is especially the case with Simon. In the beginning I really liked him but throughout the course of the novel he and seemed downright mean just came apart. Louisa was no better. She started off a strong heroine then...she wasn't. I had very high expectations going into this book. After reading it I don't think that they were met at all. It's a descent read but it is not the caliber book I was expecting from Ms. Jeffries.