*2.5 stars*

This was a sweet book. The main issue I had was there was little to no plot. It started a bit slow for me, picked up some time in but dragged in the middle again. I also did not truly find the reason for the Marriage of Convenience realistic between this 2 specific characters. Anyway, ultimately it was fine. I grew to like the characters, and this will make a good beach read.

A huge thank you to Forever Books and NetGalley for the ARC.
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Some Dukes Have All the Luck by Christina Britton
Synneful Spinsters #1. Historical romance.
Bronwyn has been a naturalists for years studying all types of bugs and insects. Her parents have forbidden this type of endeavor and insist she marry. She must find a husband or be shipped off to her strict brother.
Ash Hawkins can’t believe his two youngest wards have run away to Caulnedy Manor. Chasing them down, he finds them enamored with a young woman that seems to be somewhat able to control them? Before he can think twice, he’s proposed to Bronwyn and she’s agreed to take over raising his wards.

It was charming to follow Ash as he falls in love with Bronwyn and gets to know and care for his wards. He is tentative because of his past but all the females get under his guarded facade.
Her parents on the other hand, definitely need a set down.
Steamy and heartwarming, it’s a story of a family falling in love.

I received a copy of this from NetGalley.
4.5 ( )

Naturally Synneful!

Ash Hawkins, Duke of Buckley and owner of the premier gaming hell of London has a problem. Three tearaway wards who need taming. A marriage of convenience is not off the cards! Preferably someone who can interest the girls and later steer them through the traps of society.
Miss Bronwyn Pickering, resident of the Isle of Synne is being pushed into a titled marriage she doesn’t want by her parents upwardly mobile dreams. All Bronwyn wants to do is study her beloved insects. Maybe even have a paper accepted on her research by the Royal Society. Her only joy is a weekly gathering for tea with like minded young wome who call themselves the Oddments.
What she didn’t expect was an invitation to marriage—of convenience!
A truly delightful story spun into being from the magical pen of Christina Britton. All the ingredients are present; over reaching parents disapproving of their daughter’s pursuits, a Duke with secrets, a young woman naturalist who wants the freedom to follow her calling, and three unruly wards who always come up fighting. Put them together and we have? Well a story that surely zings!

A Forever (Grand Central) ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher. ( )

When the hero needs a wife to help with his wards, he stumbles upon the heroine. The heroine is more interested in bugs than being married, but when her parents threaten her with finding a husband for her, the heroine accepts the hero's proposal of a marriage-of-convenience. With such a perfect arrangement for the hero and the heroine, how will love change everything that they thought will make them happy within this union?

This is the first book in the Synneful Spinsters series. This book is set within the Isle of Synne world, but readers can read this book by itself without reading the other series. I enjoyed the changing relationship between the main couple and their interactions with their wards. Yet I find myself not liking the heroine's parents for their treatment of the heroine. I liked the heroine more than the hero because said hero needed a good shake. Overall, I enjoyed reading the book and look forward to reading more of the Synneful Spinters series in the future.

**Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy. All opinions and thoughts in the review are my own.** ( )

I enjoyed this author’s previous series, Isle of Synne, where we met our current heroine in the final book. Miss Bronwyn Pickering is a Naturalist who specializes in Entomology. Her selfish, social climbing, overbearing parents aren’t enamored with her bookish ways and are bent on marrying her off to a titled gentleman. Bronwyn has spent years studying, analyzing, and collecting data – she’s even discovered a previously unknown beetle and she dreams of writing a scientific paper about it. That dream comes to a crashing end when her cruel parents went into her rooms, took all of her specimens, research notebooks, written papers, instruments, etc., and smashed them – then threw them all out. The only bright spot left in her life is her friends who collectively refer to themselves as The Oddments. Her parents have also just told her she will not be allowed to associate with those ladies anymore. According to her parents, her only goal in life is to make herself into the perfect lady in order to attract a titled gentleman.

Ash Hawkins, Duke of Buckley, had a horrendous home life as a child. Nobody was spared his father’s wrath – not his wife, not his son, not the servants, not even the children on the estate. He dealt wounding and killing blows with both his fists and his words. Everyone knew of his father’s reputation and took great delight in taking it out on Ash when he was away at school. As an adult, Ash knows he can’t afford to love anyone – he’ll taint anyone who is close to him – so when he ends up with three young wards he is at a total loss in how to handle them. He hires governess after governess and the wards just run them off. Then, the two youngest wards run off as well.

Ash is sorely in need of someone to raise his wards and when he discovers that the two younger ones have befriended Bronwyn Pickering, he proposes not ten minutes after meeting her. Bronwyn is sorely in need of liberation from her parents, so a marriage in name only would work for both of them. Until it doesn’t, of course.

This was a nice read – thus the three stars – but it just didn’t resonate with me personally. I didn’t buy the chemistry between Bronwyn and Ash and, more to the issue, I think I am just done with protagonists (particularly the males) who take on the sins of their fathers. I have read several of these – my father was a brute, therefore I am a brute – stories lately and I am just tired of them. So, while this was a perfectly nice story, it just didn’t reach out and pull me in. If you decide to give the book a try, I hope you will love it.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. ( )