And if, like me, you’ve never read a historical romance before but the idea of a transfem lead in a historical romance sounds great, look no further. After a couple of years she has to face an old friend, Gracewood is grieving the loss of his best friend and Viola is the only person who can help him heal. He has excruciating physical pain from a leg injury sustained at Waterloo, but it’s his mental state that is the most perilous.

Of course, I could have used more humor but I think I just love Alexis Hall when he does funny so much that I craved it here also. There's a lot of emphasis on gender roles and what men and women are meant to be doing in those times. And how Alexis brings historical queer characters to life and lets people back then accept queer family and friends so easily. By telling this story in a time period where women were so defined by the rules of society, it sheds an even bigger light on some of the more absurd notions of masculinity and femininity that we still hold to this day.The writing is witty, and [the] chemistry is irresistible, but it's Hall's insights about trust and self-worth that set the story apart. And I really liked that the story was not in first person so we were able to see what Gracewood was thinking as he was processing his feelings on this. A story of drama, self-worth, doubt and love brings you this very beautifully written historical romance. Rumors had swirled regarding d’Eon’s gender for years, and were so fervent that “in 1771, London bookmakers started taking bets on his gender—3:2 odds that he was a woman”. But this is also a world where queer people exist and thrive, where language isn't as stiff as it should be and where women are more outspoken than usual.

I feel like the initial plotline only stretched so far, and then side plots were brought in to flesh it out and then things felt watered down, if that makes sense. Alexis Hall also weaves in some entrancing family drama, several marvelous scenes of the ton behaving badly, and fills the pages with the clever banter which is the hallmark of Alexis Hall’s writing. It was a messy process of wavering back and forth, saying too much and too little, not having the right words and being unable to utilize the ones I do have in a way that does this book justice. If you want to feel something deep in the dredges of your heart, you have to get yourself to a copy of this book by any means necessary as soon as humanly possible.As for this particular story, well the trademark AH humour is back in full force, I cried real tears for Gracewood's PTSD and Viola's misery, and of course this story is joining several of the author's previous works on my Creme-de-la-Creme bookshelf here on Goodreads. Viola is so confident in her lifestyle, and even when she’s not, she has the full support and backing of family. Viola somewhat echoed this sentiment as well—not that she ever considered herself a man or ever refers to herself as such, but in the manner she refers to her life before her transition; “You loved a phantasm… Someone who wasn’t there”. I'll pick a book now and then from different time periods, but regency romance has never been something I would normally choose to read. Viola knows she's playing with fire—how long can she hide her very-much-alive presence from her oldest friend?

When she gets word that her closest friend, the Duke of Gracewood, has retreated into grief years after the death of his best friend. She says she can’t marry him because he might be laughed out of his clubs and because she can’t give him biological children. Since it’s left up to us, I entertained various versions of Viola’s experience as she dragged herself from the battlefield, and all the steps she must have taken to become who she is at the start of A Lady for a Duke; putting her past behind her, and crafting an existence for herself in nineteenth century England. Gracewood is upset that Viola didn’t trust him with her truth, and that he would never have known if he hadn’t figured it out on his own.

I hope we’ll see much more from this world, and that some of the supporting characters from A Lady for a Duke might get their own novels.