Book Review: How To Entice An Enchantress

Author: Karen Hawkins
Publication Date: September 17, 2013
Publisher: Pocket Books
Series: The Duchess Diaries # 3

The third sizzling novel in New York Times bestselling author Karen Hawkins’s Duchess Diaries series, featuring three unruly sisters and their headstrong godmother with a penchant for matchmaking.

Reclusive Viscount Kirk, horribly scarred by a tragic accident that stole the life of his beloved first wife, is a man defined by fury. For years he’s eschewed society, growing abrupt and curmudgeonly. But now, when he’d given up on life, he’s fallen madly in love with the refreshingly naive daughter of his neighbor, dainty and charming Dahlia Balfour. Desperate to win her attention, Kirk calls in a favor from the Duchess of Roxburghe and asks that she transform him into a fashionable suitor for Dahlia’s hand. But what’s easy to change on the outside, isn’t as easy to change on the inside…

Dahlia’s always dreamed of a fairytale romance. Although Viscount Kirk is only seven years her senior, because of his cantankerous ways and lack of social graces she thinks of him as her “older neighbor,” and is blissfully unaware that he sees her as anything other than an acquaintance. She is shocked to see him at the duchess’s grand house party, trying to fit with the very societal rules he so frequently mocks. Surprised by his attention, irritated at his bald honesty, and intrigued that he finds her worth the effort, Dahlia regards Kirk as the opposite of Prince Charming. Without the pretty words and grand gestures she yearns for, can true love find its way into her unwilling heart?

“I’ve been married before. I’ve tasted the grand passion, as some call it, and I’m done with that chaos. Now, I want peace, quiet, and the enjoyment of a quality companion.”

I’ve stepped from a coach and into a fairy tale!

He was smiling at her. Smiling as if he weren’t the somber, reticent man she used to know. What had happened to change him?

Karen Hawkins in one of my favorite historical fiction authors, and I have followed this series from book one! I always get so excited whenever I realize there is going to be a new Karen Hawkins release, and so I should. Karen has the ability to make worlds and the characters in them come alive like no one else I know. In this book, we are given a story featuring the youngest Balfour sister, Dahlia, as the Duchess of Roxburghe is once again up to her matchmaking schemes. Dahlia does not expect to ever fall into the arms of a man like Viscount Kirk, but the scheming Duchess has far more plans for these two than they could ever dream up on their own!

Dahlia is climbing the list as possibly my favorite Balfour sister, but I have to say that she still shares the number one spot with Rose. Dahlia is just a hopeless romantic with a strong desire for finding true love. She wants to have success in love just like her two older sisters before her. Dahlia, at first, overlooks Kirk, but some of my favorite parts were when she started to realize that maybe he could be more than just a friend or acutance to her. The chemistry between them started out as a bit more than subtle, but was so charming!

Lord Kirk is scarred from the sudden death of his first wife and remains a recluse until the Duchess and Dahlia come along. These two women are just what someone in Kirk’s situation needed. This is such a fun read, as were the first two books in the series, but Hawkins writes outstanding characters with remarkable pasts, who you think might be so wrong for each other, but end up being more than right!

***A copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers at Pocket Books in exchange for my honest review***