A Lady for a Duke

Viola Carroll, formerly Lord Marleigh and 'killed' at Waterloo, has finally become the woman she was always meant to be but, like Marley's ghost, is weighed down by chains of guilt and fear of discovery. Her best friend, Justin, Duke of Gracewood, has never gotten over his best friend's death. Wounded himself, he uses laudanum and drink to assuage his survivor's guilt. So Viola and her meddling sister-in-law Lady Marleigh set off for Northumberland to rescue Gracewood and Mira, his seventeen-year-old sister. Viola is a great character, full of remorse for those she's hurt by her 'death' but strong in how she deals with the aftermath of the change and never sorry for what she needed to do. Alexis Hall is an excellent writer and he treads the line carefully here as Viola navigates her new world. Regency England has strong expectations on how each sex should behave and what is expected of them. The scene where Viola must serve tea for the first time is both funny and poignant; in her former life she observed the ritual many times, but actually having to serve the tea in a precise manner- well, let's just say she needed some training. Gracewood is also a wonderful character. As friends, he was a counterpoint to Viola's adventuresome nature and they both bring out the best in each other. Watching them fall in love is a wonderful gift to the reader as they navigate new feelings and expectations. Gracewood has to deal with his role as a Duke as well as the bothersome leg wound…

I wanted to give this five stars, I really did. But I felt it was lacking something important. First of all, I am a trans woman, I am out full time and have been on HRT for over five years. To start with what I liked about this, I really loved how we got to see Viola's way of thinking and how she wanted to live her life. I really like how we got full context on the choices she made to start over without telling anyone but her family. So it can be very understandable to any queer person not just a trans person as to why she made the choices she did to be herself regardless of what it costs others. And I really liked that the story was not in first person so we were able to see what Gracewood was thinking as he was processing his feelings on this. I have never seen a well done trans story that was not in first person so this was incredible and really expanded what the story could do. And of course, I absolutely loved that the principle conflict in the story was not Viola's being trans, but that she lied about not being dead, which of course was totally understandable for both sides in context, which only made the story even better. As to what I didn't like... This may dip into spoilers so... I will try my best but fair warning some spoilers will be in here. And it will dip into somewhat NSFW content, I'll try to keep it as PG as possible. SPOILER WARNING, don't read further if you haven't read the book! I didn't like that dysphoria was not even remotely a part of the…