Alexis Hall is a big hit with our sapphic book club, and the mutual enjoyment led me to exploring his other works. The bookish Internet at large has lauded A Lady for a Duke, so to the library I went to fetch.

After being declared dead at the Battle of Waterloo, Viola returns home to be herself. “Hired” as a lady’s companion by her brother, she has decided to live quietly at her family’s side and retire to a pleasant spinsterhood. Life has other plans for her. When she accidentally reconnects with her childhood friend Justin de Vere, she’s shocked to find him cutting a lonely, sorrowful figure instead of the flush-cheeked, happy youth of her memories. She can’t leave her former friend in such a state, but a promise to heal his grief threatens to unravel the secrets of her own heart.

A Lady for a Duke is so full of feelings, and it gave me feelings. In the past couple years, the Regency period has become a more popular setting, with varying oscillations of historical accuracy and fantastical gloss. Hall’s different books themselves straddle the lines of historical grit and historical fantasy. The Something Something series enjoys more modern language, frolickying tendencies, and ideas of gender, but lacks the outright speculative elements like Mortal Follies’ fae and old gods. A Lady for Duke slides further towards the historical reality end of the scale, with more modern niceties (everyone has nice teeth), but no magic (no fairy godmother waves her wand and changes Viola’s body). A Lady for a Duke is a typical historical romance novel, albeit incredibly well-written and featuring the rare trans woman protagonist.

Hall reserves the unflinching gaze of truth for the characters’ emotional journey. Viola and Justin really get into the weeds of what happened to them both–patriarchy, cisheteronormativity, and war do not leave people unmarked. While Viola’s transness is the summary’s attention grabber, Justin has PTSD and a heavy limp (which don’t magically disappear!). These adults have adult responsibilities too, and Hall has a realistic take on how caring for others can both be a distraction from underlying issues and a powerful motivation for healing. This story is romance with a capital R, so a happy ending is guaranteed, but even I flinched sometimes at how searingingly real Viola and Justin’s discussion got. What do you mean I have to uncover and confront insecurity to achieve long term fulfillment and happiness??? Goddamn it.

This character work is on top of beautiful, snappy prose. I wrote several quotes in my writing journal and mulled over them all for days afterwards. A Lady for a Duke takes them on a healing, revealing journey like no other and stays with them after. At one point I think there was going to be a sequel, and I hope the plans for it are picked back up again when Hall is ready. If you like historical fiction, if you love a love story, I heartily recommend A Lady for a Duke.