Book Review: Portrait of the Duke by Alexa Aston

I recently started Alexa Aston’s latest regency series, Suddenly a Duke. I started with book one, Portrait of the Duke, and it was yet another fantastic book by Aston! She is one of my favorite Regency authors, though she also writes in other genres. Her books take on a deeper, more brooding edge and tackle male characters who may not be likable initially but are redeemed by love throughout the book. The Portrait of a Duke is cut from the same cloth.

Title: Portrait of the Duke

Author: Alexa Aston

Series: Suddenly a Duke, Book 1

Page Count: 309 pages

ASIN:  B0BPVV9NSX

About the Book

It seems to be a trend this year in the regency world to have books that span a longer chunk of the heroine and heros life. Bree Wolf, Beverley Oakley, Aline Francis, and now Alexa Aston are all doing it. Just to name a few! 

This book spans about a decade, starting when the heroine, Lady Margaret Townsend, is but 15. She meets the 22-year-old Daniel Judson, then just a “lowly” Viscount, as he visits her older sister as a suitor. She warns him away from her sister as her sister and mother are out for the wealthiest lord with the highest ranking title for the young lady.

As for herself, well, she doesn’t wish to wed, ever! She longs to be a painter and paint portraits of the ton. She even paints Daniel after meeting him only once at fifteen. This portrait is tied in throughout the story and later resurfaces at the end of the book, and it is one of the fascinating elements of foreshadow. 

Over the next decade, tragedy strikes, and Margret loses both of her parents, loses touch with her panting but not talent and is later launched into society, already almost on the shelf at the age of 24, by her older sister, who is now a marchioness. She landed the lofty title ten years prior. 

Daniel Judson, through a series of deaths in his family, finds himself the Duke of Westfield and a man that started as a bit of a haughty lord, mellowed out and came to value hard work and being a leader of the ton and England as a whole. Dukes, after all, set a precedent for everyone else.

Through paintings, love, and a lot of wooing on Daniel’s part, he manages to secure the hand of Lady Margaret in a flourishing public display of groveling and begging that is the final marriage proposal.

This style of public marriage proposals also seems to be a rising trend in the Regency era and mirrors today’s style of public proposals. I am not wholly on board with it because it really seems like the high-school equivalent of a public prom proposal. It backs a person into the corner and forces their hand or else social ridicule. 

However, the public marriage proposal is at its peak in society today, with people doing all sorts of proposals, from writing them with airplane trails to singing and more. The literature mirrors the times. 

Like all of Aston’s books, this book offers a happily ever after, witty banter, strong female leads, and a really deep storyline.

Where can you buy this book?

You can now get a copy of this book in ebook, paperback, or Kindle unlimited format on Amazon. I give it five stars for its excellent storytelling and three flaming hearts on the clean to steamy regency scale.