I can always count on Lorraine Heath books to get me out of a slump. The Return of the Duke is the third book of the Once Upon a Dukedom series and I loved it.

Marcus Stanwick is working to return honor to his family and expose whoever else was involved in the plot to take his father / family down. His search leads him to the one woman he knows hurt his family - his father's mistress...or so he thinks.

Esme has secrets and reasons for wanting to discover who is behind the conspiracy to kill the queen. When she comes face to face with Marcus, she is definitely attracted but she can't trust him with any of her secrets.

Despite all of that, they quickly realize that they should be working together and they quickly find themselves fighting hard to ignore the attraction they feel for one another but that isn't easy and have to decide if love is worth the risk of losing what each of them have been working to do for a long time.

I loved how the relationship built and eventually changed for these two. It was clear they had some difficult decisions to make in terms of what was most important to them and how they could / would make things work.

If you're looking for a great historical romance, I recommend this series and if you haven't read the other books yet, go read those first but make sure you wrap up with this one. I can't wait to read more from Lorraine Heath!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.