Book Review

The Duke of Olympia Meets His Match by Juliana Gray

Here are some things that might make some of you grab this book immediately:

  1. It’s a novella.
  2. The hero, the Duke of Olympia, is in his 70s.
  3. He’s also a spy, but he’d probably get very sniffy if you called him that.
  4. The heroine, Mrs. Penelope Schuyler, is in her 50s, and is an American widow and now paid companion to a young heiress named Ruby.
  5. They’re on a steamer ship crossing the Atlantic, and there’s caper-ing and investigating and disguising with pasted on beard-ing, large nightgown-ing and a mystery element plus romance-ing.
  6. It’s set in 1893.

Here are the opening two lines, which grabbed me immediately:

At half past six o’clock in the evening, the White Star liner Majestic, four hours out of New York with a cargo of American heiresses, steamed past the tip of Long Island and into the open ocean.

His Grace, the Duke of Olympia, who happened to be crossing the threshold of the first-class saloon at that moment, felt the triumphant surge of the engines through the soles of his shoes and smiled.

The Duke of Olympia is on board because he knows that a certain anarchist has given papers that are of Great Interest to Great Britain to one of the passengers, and he wants to intercept them before the courier, whomever she or he may be, delivers them to their contact in Liverpool. So there’s a mystery, a spy caper, and a romance – a few of them – happening in a confined space in a relatively short amount of time.

The period and setting were a delightful mix of familiar elements like titles (lofty ones at that) social and class boundaries, somewhat mutually beneficial arranged marriages, and hours-long multi-course dinners, which contrasted with the new elements that seem determined to upset the balance of the old. The book takes place when social classes and culture were shifting massively, and the tension of traditional and modern added to the tension between the characters.

Olympia was interesting, but it was Penelope who I adored. She’s caught under the weight of maintaining her respectability as a penniless widow, and she’s not sure doing so is worth the effort. When she has the opportunity to give in to desire, initially she resists and chastises Olympia for his tactless and thoughtless assumption that she was as free to do as she pleased as he was. But the more she thinks about it, the more she realizes the tangible value of happiness and financial security in the short and long term. The approval of society hasn’t done much for her, and the prospect of a relationship, even one that would mean permanent exclusion from the circle of people with whom she dines presently, seems increasingly appealing. Her desire to pursue a less traditional option is echoed by Ruby’s pursuit of an unsuitable man, but Penelope’s decision carried with it more thought and purpose. Instead of the determination and optimism of youth, Penelope has the wisdom and experience of having lived inside and then on the fringes of society to know that she’d be just fine without it.

Penelope is also struggling with the signs of her age as markers of her social position, and vice versa:

Her skin might be taking on lines, and her bosom no longer resided at quite the same height as in happier days, but her hair remained thick. And her eyes were bright, she thought, staring intently into the mirror. Not so luminous as Ruby’s wide hazel mantraps, perhaps, but then she wasn’t trying to trap a man, was she?

No, of course she wasn’t. At her age, in her lowly condition. The idea.

Penelope has been told in various ways that her life is over, or might as well be. Her late husband killed himself after losing everything in a financial crash. She lost everything, every asset, and has no money with which to support herself. As a graduate of an exclusive Swiss school for women, she has a great deal of culture and exhibits all the manners and personal markers of higher class, but those assets are not worth much in practicality.

Olympia is also confronting the end of his life. He’s pleased with what he’s accomplished, and he isn’t frail or in ill health, but he also doesn’t particularly want to go gallivanting all over a ship in the cold north Atlantic at night chasing a spy. He’s facing change, and decline, and isn’t sure what to do with himself:

He had first noticed it last year, when his family had gathered together for the birth of his grandniece, every last loving couple billing and cooing, every last great-grandchild running about unchecked. A man should have felt satisfaction at a moment like that. A job well done; a life well spent protecting those he loved, defending the country he worshipped.

Instead, he had never felt more alone. He had never felt so empty of purpose, as if he had sailed unexpectedly into a calm sea, without a breath of wind to urge him onward, without even the sight of land to yearn for.

Curious.

Olympia’s feeling adrift without a guiding wind forms a meaningful compliment to the feeling he experiences in the first sentence, when he knows from the vibration that the engines beneath his feet are carrying him and the passengers onward as they stand still in the saloon, maneuvering into position for dinner.

There’s a lot of maneuvering and strategy in this novel, too. Ruby’s mother, in particular, is very skilled at manipulating circumstances to try to land her daughter a duke, never minding the fact that he’s 50+ years older than she is. Olympia is trying to manipulate his opponent, and Ruby is trying to escape notice as she pursues someone who is most certainly not the duke while Penelope tries to both keep Ruby relatively safe from scandal and leave her enough room to experience fun, passion, and excitement.

I loved the dialogue, especially between Penelope and Olympia, and I loved that their story, which was unique due to their age, experience, and relative social positions, was the center of the story. Ruby’s interest in a man of a different class is a familiar one; Penelope’s struggle with social acceptability against the temptation of passion and happiness was much more interesting – to say nothing of all the spy caper investigation going on around them. My only disappointments were the quickness of Penelope’s change of heart (and mind), and the fact that her decisions and awareness of her role on the ship at the end were a little unclear (I am trying to avoid spoilers here, so pardon the vagueness). I also wanted a little more past the end scene to show what happened next… and again, vagueness because I don’t want to spoil anything. In the final pages, let’s say, I was mostly satisfied, but still wanted a bit more to underscore the end of the story.

I think this novella would appeal to readers of romance, mystery, historical fiction, and all of the above. Plus, as a side note, there are no explicit sex scenes, so you can give this one to every reader you know who might like it. This was the type of story that I didn’t know I wanted until I started reading it, and then I couldn’t think of reading anything else. This novella is also the start to a series, and the description of the first book, A Most Extraordinary Journey, has a bit of a spoiler for this one, so be ye warned if you go looking.

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The Duke of Olympia Meets His Match by Juliana Gray

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  1. PamG says:

    Clicked and claimed. The only thing that would make this better would be Mrs. Schuyler being 70 and the Duke being 50.

  2. I saw the review for this go up over on Dear Author, and I’ll say here what I said there: as a resident of the state of Washington, my immediate reaction to this title was “wait, since when did our state capital have a duke? Does our governor know about this?” XD

    That said, the cover is delightful and I think I want to read this just based on the cover all by itself. Bonus points for an older couple.

  3. bnbsrose says:

    So happy to see this! I have adored Olympia since his first appearance. Thanks for the review. Pardon me while I go click.

  4. Connie says:

    Being close to the Duke’s age, I’m with PamG!!!!

  5. JenM says:

    Doing my part to encourage publishers to put out more romances starring older characters by one- clicking! It also doesn’t hurt that I love this time period also. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

  6. Andrea R. says:

    bnbsrose, where else does the Duke appear? I loved this novella and want to track him down!

  7. Julia aka mizzelle says:

    Andrea R, I think the Duke shows up in Juliana Gray’s Princess in Hiding series.

  8. Lora says:

    This sounds WONDERFUL!

  9. bnbsrose says:

    @Andrea R, he is the father, uncle and grandfather of the men in the Affairs by Moonlight trilogy and peripherally connected to the Princesses in Hiding trilogy. I recommend them all. Interestingly, the son is actually a by-blow, but not unknown or unloved by the rest of the family. Also a redhead, which is catnip for me! The third book in the second trilogy features an exceptionally well written redemption story for a character from the previous trilogy. There are definitely two sides to every story.

  10. Clicked so fast it made my head spin.

  11. Andrea R. says:

    Thanks @bnbsrose! I will be glomming the backlist!

  12. Jindra says:

    Was nobody disturbed by the difference in age between the Duke and Penelope? Even if she’s already in her fifties (yay for older heroines!), 20-25 years is still an enormous gap!

  13. Dora says:

    @Jindra: Yes, I was! Juliana Gray seems to go in for age gaps, because both Princess Emily and Princess Luisa are 20+ years younger than their lovers. I don’t mind the large age gap per se, but when the couple is older, it begins to smack of, well, hypocrisy: like, she’s still attractive enough in her fifties, and he’s still attractive enough in his seventies.
    AND Juliana Gray has REALLY explicit love scenes in the other novels, but with the old folk we get a tactful sentence or two. C’mon. Not cool.
    But this is incidental niggling. These novels are superior rom-com in every way, and I recommend them wholeheartedly!

  14. Gala says:

    Love stories with older couples! And just for that I loved it. Although the age gap was not all that cool and I still have my doubts about some plot points. Still it was lovely, wish it was longer!

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