The audio ruined this one for me I think. The narrator has given Ravenna— whose voice is described in the text as HUSKY— this insipid whiny tone and its colored the whole character for me, not helped by my current least favorite trope where the unskilled FMC is insistent that she can help the professional MMC with the dangerous mission. Furthermore, she’s showing signs of TSTL and how the hell did she survive SIX months of pretending to be a boy around sailors? I don’t believe it.

I loved this. Christy Carlyle is a new author for me and she took a trope I’m getting pretty annoyed with lately— one professional, usually the MMC, plus an FMC who insists they can help with the mystery/adventure/intrigue despite having no applicable skills— and she still made it work for me. I’ve been running into this storyline so often, usually compiled with a hefty dose of misogyny, it makes me want to cry into Susan Lazarus’ skirts. But here, not only is Allie not overly insistent/doesn’t constantly insert herself when real danger is involved, but when she can help, Ben listens. Even when she’s being impulsive, she makes smart decisions. These two reach a lovely balance of partnership and it makes the story work all the better. Plus Allie is wonderfully autistic-coded, and we love the representation. Karen Cass does a solid job with the narration, giving the right inflections. 

Oh and ps, for a book with the word Duke in the title and Prince in the series, there are no dukes or princes directly involved. (He’s nicknamed Duke, her last name is Prince.) I wish HR marketing didn’t think titles are all histrom readers care about— honestly I’m so over dukes, so I was glad it was a misdirect.

Thanks to NetGalley, HarperCollins/Avon and HarperAudio for the ARC and ALC of this book to review.