Confession time: I have never read a Lorraine Heath book until Falling Into Bed With a Duke. Clearly this was a mistake on my part.

When I picked up this book, I wanted something that would pull me out of crappy day and the dead mouse smell that we couldn’t pinpoint in the office. So I took this book to the coffee shop, grabbed a cup of English breakfast, and proceeded to get lost in the Victorian Era. Falling Into Bed With a Duke is good like that–it’s a one-sitting book that draws you in because you’re so in love with the hero and heroine. The only reason this book didn’t get an A is because I was disappointed a bit by the end.

This book is the first in the Hellions of Havisham series following three handsome aristocrats and friends raised without much in the way of supervision on the dark and scary moors. You know I’m going to eat that shit up with a spoon.

Falling Into Bed With a Duke opens with Miss Minerva Dodger on a mission to get some action. Fist bump, Minerva. She’s a wealthy heiress, but she’s never married because every proposal she’s gotten has really been for her money, not her heart. She’s determined to have a love match or nothing at all–and it’s starting to look like nothing at all. She’s very near being on the shelf and has no hopes for the marriage she wants, but she doesn’t think that means she has to die a virgin.

Minerva gains entry to The Nightingale Club– a place where men and women of quality can meet discreetly for the sexxytimes. The women wear masks to conceal their identities. At the club she meets the Duke of Ashebury and they head upstairs for the sweet, sweet lovin’.

Ashe is the requisite bachelor-rake-duke in tight pants. He’s sexy as hell, a world traveler, an adventurer, and a rogue. He’s not the sort of man Minerva feels she could attract in real life. Minerva doesn’t find herself to be very attractive;  her face isn’t classically beautiful at least. Whether this is objectively true or the result of Minerva being hyper-aware of her wealth attracting suitors is left fairly ambiguous. Regardless, Ashe finds her beautiful and wants her (although half her face is hidden by a mask).

Ashe is also a photographer, and he wants to take a boudoir photograph of Minerva–specifically of her bare legs and ankles (dude has a thing for a nice ankle). All of this is too scandalous for Minerva. When she discloses to Ashe that she’s a virgin, they agree to part ways. He doesn’t do virgins (figuratively or literally) and she’s too nervous to proceed.

Afterward Ashe finds that he can’t get the mysterious woman out of his head. Minerva never gave Ashe her name, asking to be called Lady V (for virgin) instead. Ashe is so smitten with Lady V he doesn’t even want to smex other women. Ye Gods. He embarks on a mission to find Lady V’s true identity and enter into an arrangement of the gentials with her.

Ashe suspects Minerva is Lady V fairly early on, but can’t confirm it. Minerva desperately wants to reveal herself to Ashe, but she’s afraid of rejection–if he finds her so incredibly intoxicating then why didn’t he ever approach her when they crossed paths in real life?

A lot of this book is verbal foreplay. Ashe and Minerva dance around each other, each suspecting the other knows, but both afraid to outright act on it. What resulted was Elyse pulling on her hair yelling, “JUST KISS ALREADY OMG YOU TWO.” Lorraine Heath writes amazing sex where no actual sex occurs. The scenes where Ashe and Minerva are just talking in front of other people very politely are so laden with sexual tension that they could impregnate someone.

I really like the “hero/heroine in disguise” trope. I love the anguish of “but would he/she love me for the real me, not just the masked me” thing. I loved The Scarlet Pimpernel and when I was really little I watched the old Superman TV show with George Reeves and wanted Lois to fall in love with Clark for God’s sake. Later on, when Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman came on, I was OBSESSED and too young to catch all the ways the creators shit the bed on that one. I mean, she’s supposedly an amazing investigative reporter BUT A SINGLE PAIR OF FUCKING GLASSES MAKES HER INCAPABLE OF RECOGNIZING THAT THE DUDE SHE SEES EVERY SINGLE DAY IS SUPERMAN. Jesus, Lois. Get your shit together.

The other thing I like was that, despite his origins growing up as one of the lost boys on the moors, Ashe really has no angst. In fact, he’s troubled very little even when he loses nearly all his money in bad investments. He’s sort of like, “Meh, we’ll figure it out.” I’m used to heroes who grew up in shitty circumstances (on or off the moors) wandering around as adults, punching walls and moaning “Caaattthhhhyy.” It was a nice change of pace.

The only thing I didn’t care for was how quickly the conflict driving the black moment occurred and how easily it was resolved. For me, the primary issue was Minerva accepting herself and that Ashe loved her and not “Lady V.” The secondary conflict (external versus internal) wasn’t totally necessary. Had it been woven into the plot earlier, I would have found it more satisfying. As it was, a lot of things happened pretty quickly and felt tacked onto the end.

Despite that I really enjoyed Falling Into Bed With a Duke and I will absolutely be reading the rest of the Hellions of Havisham series as well as looking up Heath’s backlist.