My Last Duchess by Daisy Goodwin

I'll show my prejudice now. I was a bit wary of taking a book by an author called Daisy. I associate the names of flowers, in authorship, more with soft romance and bodice-rippers than with the kind of books I normally choose, but choose this one I did.

Cora Cash is the rich, rather spoilt, only child of an American industrial tycoon. Her mother, a social climber of renown and considerable success, is determined that her daughter will marry an English aristocrat. This is the turn of the 19/20th centuries and quite a few American heiresses are on the same mission - it's fashionable to exchange wealth for titles and both sides benefit.

Daisy dislikes the cold, old fashioned and run down English houses of the great and good and dreams of how they could be improved with some solid American money. She's  sponsored into English society by a well-connected hostess and, in a convenient twist of fate, is thrown from her horse, while on a hunt, in woodlands belonging to a rather reclusive and impoverished Duke. So far so usual.

However, Cora's ingenuity and strong will are put to the test severely when she makes a series of serious mistakes in her new life as an English Duchess. She finds herself to be the subject of gossip and, when her reticent husband absents himself on several important occasions, Daisy is left wondering if he has any feelings for her at all.

Does Cora give up and go home with the childhood sweetheart who comes to re-claim her? Or does she tough it out to become what her mother always wanted her to be? Will her father's money come between her and her new husband, or will it revive the fortunes of the house, the title and the estate?

OK, so this is a pretty standard romance, but Daisy Goodwin write well and keeps the story moving forwards without any sticky-sweet cliches (apart from the horse episode). It's not bad, and kept me entertained as I enjoyed the summer afternoons in the sunshine. Mind you, I still don't know why the words "My Last" are in the title.

"My Last Duchess" is published by Hodder Review, ISBN 978-0-7553-4808-4