Elisa Braden, $4.99, ISBN 978-1310223679
Historical Romance, 2015

The back cover synopsis of Elisa Braden’s The Truth About Cads and Dukes describes our heroine Jane Huxley as shy, but she certainly isn’t shying away from trouble even a bit.

When the story opens, our heroine dresses up as a lad, in her brother’s clothes, to break into a study as a favor for a friend, and she is caught. Oops.

To think, she’s not even ruined for her own personal pleasure. No, she’s just keeping a promise to a friend. It gets better: this “friend” is Colin Lacey, the same person that has deliberately courted her, made her think of him as the poor younger brother suffocating under the Duke of Blackmore’s stifling no-fun policy, and then set her up to break into the study so that he and his friends can all point and laugh at her.

“You have always been a sensible girl. This scheme was, to put it kindly, as addlepated as any I have ever heard. What could Lord Colin possibly have promised in exchange for placing not only your reputation, but your sisters’ future prospects in jeopardy?”

Cringing, Jane muttered, “Nothing. He offered me nothing.”

His hands spread wide, beseeching heaven for answers. “Help me understand. Because right now, I simply do not.”

“I believed him a friend. He required my help, or so I thought. He gave me his word I would be in no danger.”

“Did it not occur to you that a friend—let alone a gentleman—would not ask such a thing of you? Would not conceive of placing you in such jeopardy?”

She blinked. “I supposed the circumstances to be extraordinary. He had prevailed upon my generosity before, and so I believed—”

Ah, romance heroines, sometimes I swear they are married off because their husbands want to save the rest of society from these women.

At any rate, she is ruined. Fortunately, Harrison, the Duke of Blackmore, decides to step in and marry the lady in order to keep his family name from being besmirched by scandal. Their parents were close, until Harrison’s parents died, so he should do something. Besides, it won’t do for that lady to marry his penniless brother, for as reckless and silly she had been, that would be a terrible fate to bring onto her. So no, he’d have to be the one to marry her.

Judging from the conversation I just shared earlier, the author is fully aware of what an idiot the heroine had been. Hence, the heroine being in this situation is a choice made by the author. Sigh, once again I am forcibly reminded that it is perfectly fine in historical romances for the heroine’s stupidity to be used as a catalyst for her finding love. Accountability? Who cares, when there’s a duke ready to clean up her mess for her!

Of course, it is one thing if Harrison had been broke, foul tempered, and had disgusting hygiene problems, but no, he’s hot, loaded, and good to go. So yes, the heroine is rewarded for being an idiot.

Then they get married, and Harrison turns out to be an exquisite lover as well. So, our heroine is happy, the end.

Oh wait, I’ve just reached the two-third or so point or the story. What else is there for the author to pad the pages with?

Well, clearly when the author called Jane “painfully shy”, there had to be some typo because shyness is not the word I’d use to describe Jane’s continuous efforts to do dumb things, even putting her marriage in potential jeopardy, for Colin. Yes, Colin. By the late third of this story, Jane transforms into her final form: no longer simply an imbecile, she is now an imbecilic menace to the people around her.

Naturally, she is rewarded once again for her nonsense.

Sure, the author can have Jane constantly call herself foolish, but that does not negate the fact that the heroine persists in doing things that are potentially deleterious to herself, to bring shame to her and her husband as well as her unmarried sisters. Am I supposed to root for this moron? Seriously!

This story has some lovely narrative and I like Harrison, although I don’t understand how he can fall so quickly for Jane. That hoo-hah of hers really must be magical, probably a compensation for her complete inability to make any decision that isn’t self-destructive. At any rate, the hero is okay, but my god, the heroine! Someone should have done the whole world a favor by putting her down, maybe by running a carriage over her a few times, so that poor Harry is free to marry someone that won’t drag him down with her absolute zero brainpower.