🌿The Runaway Duchess💐
by Joanna Lowell
Pub Date 1/18/22
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I loved Duke Undone with Lucy and Anthony and was happy to get a glimpse into their married life in this book. In the first book Lavinia was the darling of the ton and from the authors note she was about to write her off as a pampered vapid girl but felt bad. I’m so glad you delved deeper with her.

She did of course start off the same type of debutante but now her circumstances are changed and her mother has arranged a marriage for her, to help their reputations. All of these circumstances were not of her making so ugh having to grin and bear it sounds like a panic attack to me.

On the way to her honeymoon she tries to escape and gets mistaken for someone else and fantasizes about becoming this person and leaving Lavinia behind. If only we could escape our mistakes and life this way for something that seems more simple and fun.

Neal the plant hunter who has mistaken her for a botanist doesn’t seem to catch on since he didn’t know what she looked like and he had some ideas of his own for that botanist.

Oh Lavinia when you opened up you blossomed. There was so much hope and love that was being denied and withheld. She somehow forged a path of her own and found out more about herself when she was someone else.

🔥 And there is some historical steam, jk but there is steam!

❓ Have you ever pretended to be someone else or were mistaken for someone else?
I used to get mistaken for my sister all the time we are 3 years apart but look alike.
Also I think I have one of those faces ppl always talk to me when I’m out. So I don’t leave the house 😂😂 jk

Thank you berkleyromance and netgalley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

✨I love this walk it’s like a promenade. The girls can go fast on their scooter.

Synopsis:

A runaway bride dumps a duke and rewrites her own love story in this enchanting Victorian historical romance from the author of The Duke Undone.

Pretty and pampered, Lavinia Yardley always dreamed of becoming a duchess. But family disgrace forces her into marriage with the most vile duke in England, and she finds herself desperate for a way out. When a rustic stranger mistakes her for globe-trotting botanist Muriel Pendrake at a train station, Lavinia has a split second to decide whether to submit to her fate or steal someone else’s.

Neal Traymayne spent his youth traveling the world as Varnham Nursery’s most daring plant hunter. Now he runs the nursery and is ready to settle down with a like-minded wife who’ll fit right in with his large, happy, down-to-earth family. His correspondence with Muriel Pendrake proved they’re the perfect match. Odd that the woman in the flesh seems more like a society belle than a scientist.

As they tramp the Cornish moors together, Lavinia and Neal discover a wild and rare desire. But this blossoming love is rooted in lies, and when the real Muriel Pendrake shows up, they can’t hide from who they are. The truth may wither their hopes of happiness, or it may bloom into the sweetest love of all.