Today, we’re mixing things up a bit with a review a bit outside my usual wheelhouse here. I don’t usually talk up romance novels, but something about Anna Cowan’s The Duke struck me as being worthy of focus. Maybe it’s because it’s a queer romance, maybe it’s because it’s set in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Regardless, it’s fun.
Celine is a courtesan, desperate to escape the political turmoil of France in the late 1700s. When a client and protector, Bastien, is informed that his own head is on the line, he promises Celine that he’ll match her with the Duke of Howard, a British noble and childhood friend of his coming to visit. Celine knows that name and the reputation that follows. The Duke of Howard is a woman, Kate, known for her refusal to take a man into her bed. That very night, Celine finds herself cornered by a stranger in Bastien’s home. The two briefly exchange words before Celine realizes that this person rifling through Bastien’s desk in search of something is none other than the Duke herself, arrived nearly a week earlier than anticipated. Tensions rise quickly, and the two pass the remainder of the night in a heated flurry of kisses and climaxes. In the morning, the Duke departs, convinced that Bastien is no longer in possession of a letter she had once written him. With his impending demise, Kate thoroughly believes that no one in France now knows of the secrets it contained. Her business concluded and her appetites exhaustively sated, Kate returns to England, but not before leaving a gold ring on Celine’s finger. The remainder of the ongoing revolution should have erased any other traces of her trip.
Three years later, the Duke has established herself in her role in London and its politics. All is going her way until a guest calls at her estate, bearing her once-gifted ring. Celine, it seems, has survived the turmoil in Paris and made her way across the channel. She informs Kate that, not only did she find Bastien’s letter from long ago, she read it. Celine is now aware of the potential treason that Kate committed in youth, the act that removed the rest of her family from society and established herself as the Duke of Howard. Furious at being used and abandoned by Kate, Celine threatens her with blackmail. She demands that Kate find her a husband and a place in society so that she will never again know want or loneliness. Not entirely unreasonable, considering how the Duke treated her. With everything to lose, Kate begins her hurried plan to find the most eligible bachelors in London, trying to make Celine over from prostitute to proper lady.
Years, though, have done little to curb the deep desire that both women still feel for one another. For Kate, guiding Celine through the parts of British society that she had personally shunned for years only serves to increase her need for the other woman. Neither of them is fully willing to forget what they had that one night in Paris. Will Celine give up her pursuit of a husband if she can win over the Duke? Will Kate surrender to her long-hidden emotions and allow herself to publicly take a wife? They could be the most powerful couple that London has seen… if they don’t kill each other first.
The Duke is a spectacularly well-written sapphic romance. Anna Cowan weaves a tale of a version of London that might have been, seamlessly blending regency standards with compelling queer characters and ridiculously intense sex scenes. It’s out in the world as of yesterday, 4/28/26, and I would highly recommend that you check it out. My thanks as always to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.
The Swords of the Ancients 