While THE DUKE IS MINE is undermined by its own heavy-handed metaphors, Eloisa James ultimately creates a pleasant, absorbing story. Loosely based on "The Princess and the Pea", the amount of fairytale similes bandied about is, at times, overwhelming and tiresome. Rather than the most overdone scenes involving long, torrid descriptions of connubial bliss, they instead are the tired mentions of Prince Charming, white knights, Sleeping Beauty, and so on.

While James is clearly tipping her hat to the wish fulfillment present in both her genre and in these tales, it comes across awkwardly. Her inspiration, while at least different from the overused tropes of "Beauty and the Beast" and "Cinderella", comes across as rather ludicrous, with our heroine, Olivia Lytton, playing the Princess and the "pea" being sadly all too literal.

However, this is not to say that the novel as an overall work is not enjoyable! Eloisa James is well into her stride as a romance author and it shows in this book as much as any other of her works. There are dashing heroes, well- developed side characters, witticisms, banter, unchaperoned jaunts in the sensual countryside and even wild rescues and mustache-twirling villains. Olivia, besides a tendency to focus overly-much on her atypically voluptuous figure, is a fun, mischievous young woman and her handsome paramour is cut from the usual brooding-aristocrat-with-heart-of-gold stock. There's also a scrappy dog, Lucy, who's missing half her eyelid and is adorably loyal. If you've enjoyed James in the past, you'll be more than pleased to spend another afternoon with her writing.