Desperate Duchesses - Eloisa James

I have enjoyed several of Eloisa James's books in the past and I picked this one up with great expectations. However I found it a very disappointing read.

Welcome to a world of reckless sensuality and glittering sophistication . . . of dangerously handsome gentlemen and young ladies longing to gain a title . . . of games played for high stakes, including—on occasion—a lady's virtue.

A marquess's sheltered only daughter, Lady Roberta St. Giles falls in love with a man she glimpses across a crowded ballroom: a duke, a game player of consummate skill, a notorious rakehell who shows no interest in marriage—until he lays eyes on Roberta.

Yet the Earl of Gryffyn knows too well that the price required to gain a coronet is often too high. Damon Reeve, the earl, is determined to protect the exquisite Roberta from chasing after the wrong destiny.

Can Damon entice her into a high-stakes game of his own, even if his heart is likely to be lost in the venture?

Although we know from the back blurb who the hero/heroine are the truth is that at least half the book is devoted to other characters – Beaumont and his wife Jemma. Not that I would have minded if they were to be the hero/heroine of this book, I found them much more interesting than Gryffin and Roberta and I’m a sucker for stories of couples already married or that at least have a past. Why did Beaumont let himself be caught by his wife with his mistress? And there seems to be some chemistry between them why didn’t they are tried to solve things? Villiers was also an interesting character; big parts of the book are about him and the chess game he is playing with Jemma. In the end he tells her he has few friends, was he trying for something more with her? What really happened between him and the Lady he fathered a child on without marrying her? And between him and Harriet, one of Jemma’s friends and presumably a future heroine? And what about Charlotte Tatlock, is she going to be a future heroine too?

I felt James tried to introduce too many cliffhangers for the next books, she succeeded in arousing my interest but at the same time this book became totally uninteresting to me. I could understand that Roberta might feel attracted to a man seemingly the opposite of her father but to the point of continuing to pursue it after feeling a much more real interest for someone else? And Gryffin just seems to fall in love with her as soon as she appears in the picture just because she doesn’t swoon over him. I didn't feel I had enough time with them to think something different.

Well I just know I’m going to buy the next books because I really want to know what’s going to happen to all those secondary characters but this one was just a C.