“MacLean crafts a masterpiece.” – The New York Times on Daring and the Duke New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean returns with the much-anticipated final book in her Bareknuckle Bastards series, featuring a scoundrel duke and the powerful woman who brings him to his knees.Grace Condry has spent a lifetime running from her past. Betrayed as a child by her only love and raised on the … a child by her only love and raised on the streets, she now hides in plain sight as queen of London’s darkest corners. Grace has a sharp mind and a powerful right hook and has never met an enemy she could not best…until the man she once loved returns.
Single-minded and ruthless, Ewan, Duke of Marwick, has spent a decade searching for the woman he never stopped loving. A long-ago gamble may have lost her forever, but Ewan will go to any lengths to win Grace back…and make her his duchess.
Reconciliation is the last thing Grace desires. Unable to forgive the past, she vows to take her revenge. But revenge requires keeping Ewan close, and soon her enemy seems to be something else altogether–something she can’t resist, even as he threatens the world she’s built, the life she’s claimed…and the heart she swore he’d never steal again.
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Loved the series. Ewan deserved a story. This is a series I will come back and read again.
The last of the bare knuckle bastards….yes I am morning that. This book gives you the deeper understanding of their childhoods. The understanding allows you to not only like but root for a character you’ve spent a few books hating. A wonderful read.
Daring and the Duke is the third in the series but can be read as a stand alone story; however, I suggest reading the other two first for a better understanding of the story. This is Grace and Ewan’s story of redemption, revelation and forgiveness. In their childhood, they made plans to run away together but on the final day Ewan chose to stay. Devil, Whit and Grace ran and now have built an empire in Covent Gardens. Now twenty years later, he is back and trying to win back Grace’s love and trust. Although Grace is still in love with Ewan, she is afraid to trust him and there in lies the struggle that is preventing them from finding their happily ever after. The trials, challenges, events and revelations of what truly occurred that long ago day will shed light and healing on all involved. This story was a great conclusion to the series and written with a lot of passion and emotion that will enthrall and delight the reader.
Ok I absolutely loved the story. I loved Ewan, who traveled through hell and back for the love of his life, and fought for her. I loved Grace/Dahlia and how she was strong and smart and fought for her business and her people and women. I loved the story!!
That said, there’s a lot of sex in here. I am bored with sex scenes overall, so I skimmed a heck of a lot of the book.
Love all of her books as she build wonderful realistic situations.
My heart will need time to let go of this book! Sarah writes stories that wraps her fingers around my heart and controls my heartbeats! I don’t want the books to end. Grace and Ewan are so well matched. I couldn’t help but hope for their HEA! A tremendously satisfying ending to my favorite historical romance series!
Amazing
I wanted to read Daring and the Duke from the moment I finished reading Brazen and the Beast. I needed to see how Ms. MacLean could possibly redeem Ewan, as I had serious doubts at that point. Daring and the Duke has absolutely become one of the best books I’ve read all year!
Grace Condry and her brothers Whit and Devil are known as the Barenuckle Bastards of Covent Garden and they rule the Garden together and protect all that reside in the Garden. Ewan, Duke of Marwick has wreaked havoc on the Gardens because he had been told Grace had died. He absolutely went mad and attached everything and anyone who were important to Whit and Devil. He was absolutely horrible, and in the first 2 books in the series, I wanted him to absolutely lose everything.
Grace on the other hand still had feelings for Ewan even after all he had done to hurt them. I loved this tough as nails woman had been in love with Ewan since they were children. I honestly never thought at the first of the book Ewan deserved the love Grace still felt. However, with each passing chapter we discover just a bit more about the past and all Ewan did to protect not only Grace, but his brothers as well. I found myself loving Ewan every bit as much if not more than his brother as each new fact from the past was brought to light.
I absolutely adored Grace and Ewan as a couple and had all the happy feels once they started to spend more time together and Grace started seeing all that Ewan was willing to do to make everything right. Their chemistry was fabulous and only grew hotter the more time they spent together. I loved how protective they were of one another. As Grace is one of the Barenuckle Bastards, she has no problem protecting herself and all those she loves. Ewan would do absolutely anything within his power to make sure Grace was always protected.
Daring and the Duke was everything I wanted in the end of this fabulous series from Sarah MacLean! The entire series is sublime and I can’t wait to go back and re-read it again and again to revisit characters I absolutely adore. Somehow the Barenuckle Bastards series is the first I’ve read by Ms. MacLean, and I can’t wait to devour her back list in the near future.
Rating: 5 Stars (A+)
Review copy provided by publisher
Daring and the Duke by Sarah MacLean is book Three in The Bareknuckle Bastards Series. This is the story of Ewan, Duke of Marwick and Grace Condry/Dahlia. I have read the previous books, which added to my enjoyment of this one, but if you wish to make it a standalone book I think you could. Ewan has been a villain and this is to be his and Grace’s story to get their second chance at love. Ewan did something wrong to protect Grace but this sent her into a word of betrayal where she had to take to the streets to fight which after so many years she is a strong women but when Ewan reenters her world she swears to even a score. Ewan isn’t the white knight hero because he has been trying to get his revenge too on those he feels have wrong him with Grace. This isn’t a easy second chance at love because of some many past issue that are sometimes not so forgivable. But I enjoyed this author’s writing so for me it was a good book.
Did not enjoy it as much as the first two books in the series. Most of the story had already been told. Very few surprises. Female lead disappointing. Not the strong leader you would expect. Lots of repetition of what happened in past.
Daring and the Duke is the final book in Sarah Maclean’s captivating The Bareknuckled Bastards Series.
My expectations for this book was quite high in fact the whole series, for me, has been about this book, about Grace and Ewan. The Duke of Marwick aka Ewan, has been the villain from the start of the series. In fact he has been the catalyst for the romance/story of the first two books. So the build up for the final story has been happening since Book 1. How can Ewan be redeemed and how can Grace forgive him after all thats been done?
Well all my fears have been laid to rest, Ewan and Grace’s story more than satisfied this old romantic yet pragmatic heart. Emotions are laid bare, punishments have been given, retribution placed aside. And yes love conquers all but only after so many misteps and forgiveness and a fiery grand gesture to satisfy the hurts of the past. Grace is a magnificent multilayered character and Ewan surprisingly a complex and pure one.
Whether intentional or not, it was quite amazing that the series title alludes to the males as the central character when in fact it is the females whose development and personal storyline that brings about the changes for the brothers. Basically punches thru their rage and hurts and makes them appreciate the lives they’ve built to overcome their obstacles. So to actually find out that it was a female who afforded them that life in the first place was quite bad ass as well.
Daring and The Duke will definitely keep you up all hours of the night because you just won’t be able to put it down long enough to sleep!
I was so sorry this series is at it’s end. I loved it! Love the characters and the plot. I enjoyed seeing them all again. Not doing a synopsis, it’s not my thing. My thing is telling you to buy it and read it. You won’t go wrong with a tale from MacLean. Ever.
Since her first love betrayed her when they were children, Grace Condry, has gone from being a fighter raised on the streets to the queen of Covent Garden. Her wits and fierce fighting skills have made her all but untouchable, until the return of the only man she’s ever loved.
Ewan, now known as Robert Matthew Carrick, Duke of Marwick, has spent the last ten years looking for the woman he has always loved. Though his bid to save her life all those years ago caused him to lose her, he’s determined to earn her trust back and make her his duchess as he always promised he would.
But Grace isn’t the same girl Ewan loved and she’d rather have her revenge than reconcile, but that also means keeping Ewan fairly close. That nearness rouses feelings Grace never lost and, even as it threatens the empire she’s built, Grace can’t help but cling to the bit of hope she feels.
First off, I think it’s necessary to say that I have yet to read the first and second books in this series, so I haven’t seen Ewan act the villain and that might make me more sympathetic to his actions here, though of course I can’t say that with any certainty. This was a novel full of groveling and redemption for both our hero and heroine and I did enjoy it. This was also my first Sarah MacLean and I really liked her writing. I found Ewan to be a bit mad perhaps (in a good way), but utterly adorable and sweet in his neediness. In fact, I found myself becoming more frustrated with Grace and how she kept pulling him in and then pushing him away. I felt like, by the end, he’d sacrificed so much for her while she didn’t give up much for him really and the unevenness sort of undermined the revelation of all he’d suffered. I also didn’t understand the somewhat wonky timeline here—why was all this happening ten years after the old duke’s death? It seems it wouldn’t have taken a full ten years for Ewan to find Grace and their separation was unnecessarily long. Nonetheless, these two were sweet together in a very poignant way and I liked Grace as a strong, sensible heroine, apart from those times she was so wishy-washy with Ewan. Overall, I enjoyed this story for its uniqueness and complexity, and I look forward to reading more of this author’s work.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
This was a 2.5 star read that I rounded up to three stars.
This is the third book in the Bareknuckle Bastards series. Throughout the first two books, Sarah MacLean built up Grace and Ewan to be an epic love story. I pushed through the first two books just to get to their story. MacLean had her work cut out for her. It was going to be a heavy lift to redeem Ewan after he’s been such a horrible monster in the previous two books. So bad that he caused the death of several dockworkers and almost killed his sister-in-law in his quest for revenge.
Unfortunately, MacLean couldn’t deliver the redemption that was needed. I wanted so badly for it to be the epic story that it was built up to be. Ewan’s reasons for turning into the monster that he was weren’t really compelling. His forgiveness came too easily. There was no transformation. There’s a large time jump in the book–one chapter he’s still the monster and the next chapter he’s back in London after a year a changed man.
I still found myself engrossed in the book. MacLean is a great writer. My rating is more about how much I was looking forward to this book and how much it didn’t really work out for me.
This has to be one of the best grovel novels I’ve ever read. It has an incredible heroine who doesn’t pull her punches, a hero who pulls his, and a second chance romance that you don’t know if it’ll work or not to the very end. I almost passed out holding my breath through this one. Another amazing story from Sarah!
4.5 stars
It’s been a long time since I’ve waited for this story.
I’m not really sure what I was waiting for to happen or how high my expectations were but overall I enjoyed it quite a lot.
Grace is the same perfect heroine that we got to know from the other books in the series and Ewan is …Ewan. I was expecting for him to grovel more, for their love story to be more angsty actually.
The chemistry and sexy moments are off the chart for sure and Sarah has a way with her words to make you hot and bothered while reading them.
Overall , the book was great and once again, I remembered why the author is one of my favourite of all times.
This third book in the Bareknuckle Bastards series absolutely must be read in order to fully appreciate the story. The other two books, as brilliant as they were in their own right, were setting the stage for this final story in which the villain becomes the hero. Fans of the other two books were concerned about how author Sarah MacLean would pull that off. As a faithful fan, I trusted she would do it and she did not fail.
The relationship between Grace and Ewan is everything you could want from a romance. They are magnificent characters with a gripping, gut-wrenching story – both past and present. Childhood sweethearts in horrible, hopeless circumstances, he turned himself into her enemy, threatening her and their two brothers for 20 years and the previous two novels. The presumption was that he did it for greed and a title, but the reality is that he did it for love.
Even before you know his whole story, however, you are willing to forgive him his transgressions because it is so obvious that his whole being is devoted to her. Although he was the villain for two books, I immediately fell in love with him and wanted him to have everything. And Grace, against her better sense, cannot separate herself from him. They simply belong together for all time. It’s an amazing story full of moments to make you sigh. The heart of the story was simply brilliant. That she was able to pull this off after the hero had been the villain makes it even more remarkable.
What didn’t work for me – and why I broke with tradition and gave the book only four stars – is the rest of the story. I understand that the author has taken on a seedier side of London and is trying to present something edgy, but I think it went too far with most of it gratuitous, distracting, and inappropriate. Yes, Grace owns a brothel, but I have read other books that didn’t go into so much detail about the goings-on of brothels. The sex scenes were just short of erotica and, in my opinion, not in keeping with the characters. And Grace’s outfit of choice was modern steampunk rather than something appropriate for the time period, even accounting for the idea that she was intentionally trying to be bold and different. Even the final conflict at the end seems to have been written simply to make a political point (which she follows up with in the author’s note) rather than because it was necessary to the story. It was rather anti-climactic.
All-in-all, the romance was the heart of the story and it was brilliant and lovely and everything I wanted and hoped it would be. But it almost got lost in the muddle of everything else written more to assert the power of women than to support the story itself. It was definitely my least favorite of the three books, but you can’t miss it after you have invested in the other two.
Never doubt an author when she tells you that she can make you love a villain. Ewan will just break your heart!! Loved this book; a perfect ending to the Bastards. I wish there was *just a little more* between the brothers themselves but honestly nothing is missing from this book! I’m just greedy lol!!
This book is perfection! It is definitely my favorite romance book I have read to date and in the very top of the list of the best books I have ever read. The third in an amazing trilogy, Daring and the Duke tells the story of Grace and Ewan. The two have a long, troubled history with one another. Grace is exactly what I want to read in a female character today. She is a fighter, literally and figuratively. She is strong. She stands up not just for herself but for those around her. In the first two books we learn of the horrid things that Ewan has done in the past to both Grace and others around her. MacLean brings him to this book with the reader thinking there is almost no way he can redeem himself. In addition, one cannot imagine a hero deserving of and equal to the power that is Grace. However, because this author is so masterful, Ewan not only finds his redemption, he has become the very best hero I have ever read. He is the hero I never knew I wanted and definitely needed.
The writing is so good. MacLean just improves upon herself throughout each book of this trilogy with this final book showing what a master she is at her craft. There are so many lines and scenes and even little nuances that just make this story so much more than it could have been on the surface. It is a book that will stay with me for a long time and is sure to be a consistent re-read for me. While the book can surely stand alone, it is so much better for having read the first two in this trilogy so I would definitely recommend starting with the beginning. MacLean has outdone herself here and you would be wise to go purchase the first two books in preparation for this one to come out as it’s a must read you do not want to miss.
Thank you to NetGalley and Avon for an ARC of this book. The opinions here are my own.
Where to start.
Ewan is one of three bastard sons of the dastardly Duke of Marwick. And the one who claimed the title, losing his found family in the process.
The others ran and lost themselves in Covent Garden, and built themselves an empire.
Ewan did awful things in his search for Grace. Unforgivable things. But now he’s back, asking to pay penance for his sins.
If anyone can redeem the unredeemable, it is Sarah MacLean. And she did it masterfully. My heart broke into a billion pieces, and she put it all back together with gold thread.
We learned all the dark secrets Ewan kept for 20 years. Why he claimed the dukedom over Grace and his brothers. And ultimately, what he was willing to do to get them back.
This gets 5 brilliant gold stars. Brava, Sarah.