Duke, Actually by Jenny Holiday

Narrated by Stacy Gonzalez

Duke, Actually is an acquaintances-to-friends, friends-to-lovers, slow burn romance which follows up last year’s A Princess for Christmas. Daniela Martinez is Leo’s best friend from the earlier book and will be his attendant at the upcoming royal wedding. Max Von Hansburg is Marie’s best friend (and former betrothed) and he will be her wedding attendant.

When I say slow burn, I am in no way exaggerating. They do not even kiss until Chapter 19. So buckle up for a long ride to the sexy times is what I’m saying. Fortunately I don’t mind a slow burn.

At first Dani is less than impressed by Max. He’s known in the media as “the Depraved Duke” (even though he’s a baron) and Dani is inclined to think of him as shallow. However over time she realises there’s much more to Max than just surface and they become best friends – he even edges out Leo in that department for Dani and likewise, Max turns to Dani first instead of Marie. In part that’s because Leo and Marie are wrapped up in each other and planning the wedding but mostly it’s because Dani and Max just want to hang.

Unlike most romance, the hero of this book does hook up with others before he gets together with Dani and for a lot of the book, Dani is actively trying to hook up with someone other than Max (Max is kind of her “coach” and cyber wingman). It’s not explicit and there is no suggestion that there is any cheating – Max and Dani have made no commitment to each other at this point. But some listeners will not like it so I think I should mention it here. It didn’t bother me – it felt realistic, particularly given how long it took for Max and Dani to become anything close to romantic. For the listener who knows it’s a romance and what will inevitably happen it’s a different story of course, but the characters take quite a bit of time to realise they belong together.

Dani was also going through a divorce for much of the book and technically was married to someone else (a jerk!). He, like Dani, was an academic and during her marriage she had acquiesced to his whims and suppressed her own desires. She has vowed never to do that again and changing her life for a man is definitely on her list of things NOT to do.

Given that was her arc, I had some questions about the ultimate resolution. I think there was a step or two missed in the story.

Also there was a significant event which happened late in the book which got extremely short shrift. I was surprised that the emotional impact was glossed over almost entirely.

I did like Max and Dani’s interactions though and there is plenty of it in this book. They were fun characters and their banter was entertaining and charming and sweet with all the chemistry we romance listeners look for.

I had mixed feelings about Stacey Gonzalez’ performance. She has a kind of Renee Raudman timbre to her voice which I liked. Her pacing was good, as was the emotion she brought to the narration. The portions of the story from Dani’s POV were (with an exception I will discuss in a minute) excellent. Her character voices for American and Mexican-American cast members of any gender were strong. Gonzalez brings an authentic Spanish accent for Latinx names, Mexican food and the like. I appreciated the representation given Dani’s ethnic background.

However, from there the accents went distinctly downhill. Max’s accent is described in the book as a cross between French and German with a little generic Europe thrown in, aka “posh European”. Marie shares the same accent, as do the other aristocratic cast. All of them, as portrayed by Ms. Gonzalez, were… not great. At best they were inconsistent. At worst they sounded like a caricature and were obviously manufactured.

I felt a particular disservice was done to a character by the name of Lavinia. Marie did not fare well either but poor Lavinia not only had a terrible accent, she also had an unusual and annoying voice- kind of giggly and high-pitched – neither of which fit with the character as depicted by the text.

Dani’s mother was born in England and hails from Leeds. Ms. Gonzalez’ voice for Dani’s mother was also not great, the accent slipped in and out of a believable one and also tended toward caricature.

There was one other thing. I mentioned that an authentic Spanish accent was used for Latinx/Hispanic names. When Dani was speaking or thinking, that made sense. It made less sense when in Max’s perspective. Max did not say Daniela Martinez with a Spanish accent. Why, then, would he think her name in an accent?

I’d listen to Ms. Gonzalez again – but perhaps in a book which only had American or Latinx characters in it. This one did not show her at her best I’m afraid. I struggled with aspects of the narration for much of the listen.

Duke, Actually was not quite the success of A Princess for Christmas which paired excellent narration with a delightful story, but in spite of my issues with the narrative performance, I enjoyed Max and Dani’s story very much.

Kaetrin

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