I read the latest Loretta Chase, Ten Things I Hate About the Duke, and I have OPINIONS I NEED TO SHOUT INTO THE AETHER, even though I'm mostly shouting at myself at this point.

So, to get the small but not-insubstantial imperfections out of the way:

1. The pacing is stumbly and weird. This is, at the craft level, one of Chase's most consistent problems when she struggles with a book. Not much happens, AHHH LOTSA STUFF CRAMMED INTO A SMALL SPACE VERY EXCITE AHHH, not much happens, AAHHH MORE STUFF!

2. Too many many short, choppy sentences, and too much repetition. Yes, Cass brings to mind Boadicea; yes, she was an elfin child, etc.

Those are my two beefs, neither of which are new, and neither of which are dealbreakers.

Now the good bits, which are SO FUKKEN GOOD.

The awesome stuff about Ten Things I Hate About the Duke, which are legion.

Ashmont, the hero. I braced myself for a beautiful, uninteresting lummox, but he ISN'T. He finally learns from his mistakes? And works to fix himself? And his transformation is wonderfully convincing?

Chase has a history of writing rich, powerful, obnoxious heroes who reform in ways that matter--by which I mean, they change their fundamental worldviews such that I find their reform meaningful and likely to last.

A lot of cishet historical romance hero reform boils down to "I finally found the magical vagina that excludes the heroine from my deep-seated misogyny and allows me to be faithful/not hate women any more/maybe listen to the heroine once in a while when it suits me."

(My standard disclaimer: I've read and loved romance novels in this mold! My faves are problematic! This is not a moral indictment of what anyone finds enjoyable to read OR write! My hobby is ruthlessly interrogating all things that bring me joy! It's a pretty terrible hobby!)

But back to Ashmont and Chase's reformed rich dudes. Firstly: Ashmont's wake-up call is deeply convincing: he comes within a literal hairsbreadth of killing his best friend in a duel. This forces Ashmont to Ponder His Life Choices, and he doesn't like 'em, for good reason.

He's a rich, powerful guy who has his way far too often, with far too few consequences. Money makes his problems disappear, and whatever money can't solve, his beauty and consequence does. This fucks up people, and Chase shows how this twists him in Very Bad Ways.

Chase also shows him slowly, painfully grappling with his actions, and how he realizes he's a turd, but doesn't want to be a turd any more. And the chief way he stops being a turd: he starts respecting people's boundaries, especially the heroine's.

Ashmont is a big, beautiful, not-very-bright bulldozer. He wants something? TIME TO BULLDOZE RESISTANCE INTO OBLIVION. It's how he gets his first fiancee, and it's why he loses her. But with Cassandra, the heroine, he finally realizes he can't afford to do this any more.

But Ashmont doesn't learn this right away. He still tries to bulldoze! And it works--sometimes; I mean, if you need to move a buncha shit in a hurry, a bulldozer is GREAT. Chase shows how Ashmont clings to this tactic because it's adaptive--until it's not.

Lots of romance novel heroes break through heroines' boundaries, both her stated boundaries and unspoken, customary boundaries. We have fucked-up notions of manliness, and we've valorized boundary-breaking in our culture as being brave? Strong? Independent?

At worst, disregarding personal boundaries is rapey. At best, it's oblivious. It doesn't take bravery to violate a personal boundary. It takes not giving a shit, or caring more about achieving your particular outcome than the person whose boundary you're tossing aside.

Respecting personal boundaries requires you to listen, understand, AND CARE about the person putting up the boundary. So every time Ashmont stopped himself and pondered his bulldozin' ways before setting them aside, I fuckin' loved it, because it showed how much he loved Cass.

Ashmont's transformation from bulldozer to human being is one of the most satisfying I've seen in a romance novel. Chase pulled off a transformation of this magnitude with Varian St. George in The Lion's Daughter; she does it to a lesser extent with Dain in Lord of Scoundrels.

Each of these heroes' transformations deals with deep-seated fundamental flaws (Varian: self-loathing + being a wastrel; Dain: self-loathing + terror of being vulnerable). Ashmont's is my favorite yet, because he works SO HARD, and he LISTENS, and he finally GETS IT RIGHT.

Other things I loved, briefly summarized because Chase excels at these always:

Cassandra, another entry in Chase's pantheon of Excellent Heroines, who puts up with no bullshit from anyone, especially Ashmont. (Side note: Cassandra Pomfret is an all-time great name.)

The banter is world-class, which is pretty much a given for any Chase novel.

The chemistry between the hero and heroine, ditto.

The way Chase builds expectations for a Big Pointless Conflict at the end, then subverts it, ditto.

TLDR: Ten Things I Hate About the Duke is probably one of the worst Loretta Chase novels in terms of sentence-level writing craft, but features one of the best romance novel character arcs I've read in a while. It's worth reading and loving for that alone.