Score: 5/5 Bookmarks

Steam Level: 🍆🍆 /5

Thank you to Avon and Harper Audio for gifting me review copies of Duke Actually by Jenny Holiday. I loved her last Christmas romance, A Princess for Christmas, but I adored this one even more!

Dani Martinez was in the last book, and is Leo’s best friend. But with Leo a world away, getting ready to marry the love of his life (the Princess of Eldovia) things have been a bit lonely. To top it off, Dani is going through a rough divorce and has vowed that she’ll never let a man impact her life in that way again.

Enter the Princess’s best friend, and proclaimed manwhore, Max von Hansburg Baron of Laudon. Honestly, Dani can’t stand Max but they’re thrown together for wedding preparations as best woman and man of honor. They start texting and spending more time together and it turns out that there’s more to Max than just being the Depraved Duke. He ends up being there for Dani more than anyone ever has and the two of them get to know each other better than anyone else. And do they start to develop some serious chemistry? Oh yes, yes they do.

I loved watching their friendship and relationship unfold, and the banter between the two (both in-person and via text messages and calls) was my favorite part of the book. Jenny holiday knows how to write dialogue that will have you laughing out loud and turning the pages with abandon. They each learned a lot about themselves throughout the book too and had some hard decisions to make for their future.

I read part of this one and listened to the rest on audio. The audiobook is narrated by Stacy Gonzalez, who is quickly becoming one of my favorites. In particular, she brought all the dialogue in the book to life and it was just pure gold. The audiobook is just under 10 and a half hours in length, but I screamed through it in no time because I just didn’t want to put it down!

Basically, if you need a good holiday romance, with dialogue that jumps off the page and that will make you laugh out loud one moment and pull at your heartstrings the next, you absolutely can’t go past this one.

You can download a copy of the audiobook via the button below, or grab a physical copy here.

Synopsis:

USA Today bestselling author Jenny Holiday follows A Princess for Christmas with another delightful contemporary Christmas romance between a playboy baron and a woman who has said goodbye to love.

Maximillian von Hansburg, Baron of Laudon and heir to the Duke of Aquilla, is trapped. Under pressure from his domineering father, he must marry a suitable bride before he inherits a title that feels like a prison sentence. In New York to meet a prospective wife, he ditches his responsibilities and appears on Dani Martinez’s doorstep. He’s been intrigued by the no-nonsense professor since he met her at the Eldovian royal wedding and is determined to befriend her.

Newly single Dani is done with love—she even has a list entitled “Things I Will Never Again Do for a Man”—which is why she hits it off with notorious rake Max. He’s trying to escape relationships, and she’s resolved to avoid them at all costs. All they want from each other is friendship and a distraction from their messy lives.

As their bond begins to deepen, so does their attraction, until they end up in bed together. Falling in love was never part of the plan—Max’s family doesn’t see Dani as a perfect match, even as his heart tells him she’s the one, and Dani isn’t sure she can make it in Max’s world. Can they find the courage to live they life they desire, even if it means risking everything?