Review: No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean
I've taken too much time to write this review, I typically like to write much closer to when I actually finished the book.
This is the third installment in MacLean's Rules of Scoundrels series. We are following Temple, the Killer Duke, who got that moniker when he unknowingly went home with his father's bride-to-be (who was several years Temple's junior) and woke up next to a pool of her blood with no memory of the evening. That girl, Mara, has spent the last ten years using an assumed name and now is living and working in London. She suddenly has need for money that requires her to reveal herself to Temple. Temple is equal parts relieved to finally know he didn't commit murder, and furious to have been set up (as well as being furious with Mara's current actions).
I really liked a lot about this book. I think Mara, and heroines like her, get a lot of really unfair criticism. In this very series, one of the male leads literally kidnaps his romantic interest, on like page 50, and people seem to mostly like him just fine. But a woman does one thing that is bad (admittedly it is quite bad) but does not have ill intent, is shown to have been backed into a legitimately terrifying corner, and clearly has remorse and is largely hated (if GoodReads reviews are indicative of sentiment). It is so frustrating that so many romance readers require the women in their books to behave perfectly at all times. It genuinely makes books worse if only men can behave poorly. Romance needs interpersonal conflict, that will sometimes need to come from a woman's actions. I wish people who didn't want 'unlikable heroines' would examine their internalized misogyny and that the threshold for unlikable wasn't so incredibly low.
I needed that rant out of the way because my biggest issue with this book was I thought Mara was too kind. I really liked the exploration of guilt and shame that Mara went through. But I so wish that Mara had been living a life of adventure and not a life of service. She literally had been running an orphanage and living incredibly frugally and taking care of her younger brother's emotional wellbeing. She has largely been an ideal selfless woman. I wanted her to have been unabashedly selfish.
I felt like if the gender roles had been reversed the 'murdered' male character would have had a journey around selfishness in a way I would have found fascinating, and I really wanted that from Mara. But the more you actually learn about Mara the more selfless and traditionally feminine she becomes. Which is fine, I just get a little frustrated that this is so ubiquitous in the genre. Even when the plot would be perfect for a truly 'unlikeable' woman. A woman who I would love by the way. Truly this series has deeply explored men who have all made truly bad choices at some point in their lives, but they are redeemed through their pursuit of love and happiness and I really would have loved it if the same could have been true for the women of this story.
But aside from that point of frustration I really enjoyed my time reading this book. I lost some momentum reading because of this, but on the whole, I think the book was paced really well. I liked the speed at which Mara's inner life was revealed to both the reader and Temple. I liked the conflict between revenge and happiness, I tend to be a sucker for a conflict that pits the past against the future. I thought there were a good amount of cameos from our previous couples. I really liked the big reveal we got at the end, I am so bummed I accidentally spoiled myself for it (I read the back of book four not realizing that a HUGE spoiler would be present).
I shall continue on my Sarah MacLean journey quite happily!
I gave this book four stars.
