Title: The Duke
Author: Anna Cowan
Publication Date: April 28, 2026 by St. Martin's Griffin
Genres: Historical Romance
Protagonist Gender: Female
While there's no doubt that The Duke is ambitious, clever, and often genuinely engrossing, it never quite became the sweeping sapphic romance I expected from the opening chapters. The premise had a great hook, with a feared female duke, an ambitious French courtesan, political blackmail, and social maneuvering, all in a queer-normative Regency world, but it didn't feel like Cowan did enough with it.
The first part of the book was deliciously tense and decadent, full of toxic attraction, manipulation, and chemistry that promised something darker and messier than the average historical romance. I went in expecting an intense enemies-to-lovers story, driven by passion and moral ambiguity, but the book shifts into something more focused on political intrigue and court maneuvering instead.
Ironically, while that shift took away from what I was expecting of The Duke, it also took it somewhere that I enjoyed. The betrayals, scheming, and social politics kept me engaged, and I appreciated that the characters were intelligent enough to anticipate each other's moves. The romance, though, felt overshadowed by the political storyline, and I never fully bought into the “epic love” the narrative was trying to sell. So much of the relationship between Celene and Kate is built on lust and class-driven tension that the emotional connection felt underdeveloped, especially once the story moved more into politics.
Admittedly, I also struggled to connect emotionally with either Kate or Celine. They’re intentionally cold, ambitious, manipulative characters, and while that made them interesting on paper, they were difficult to empathize with early on. The story gradually softens Kate's edges and explains away much of her cruelty, which allowed me to warm up to her, but also made her feel less interesting.
Even with those frustrations, I largely enjoyed this. The prose is strong, the atmosphere is immersive, and the combination of sapphic yearning, class tension, and political drama made it hard to put down - once the story found its rhythm, that is. While the romance didn’t land for me emotionally, the book succeeds at creating a rich, dramatic world full of power plays and longing. It wasn’t exactly the book I expected, but it was still a compelling and memorable one.
Rating: ♀ ♀ ♀ 1/2
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