Reviewed by Mal
TITLE: To Defend a Damaged Duke
SERIES: Regency Rossingley #2
AUTHOR: Fearne Hill
PUBLISHER: Ninestar Press
LENGTH: 302 Pages
RELEASE DATE: June 17, 2025
BLURB:
Benedict Fitzsimmons, the reclusive fourteenth Duke of Ashington, nurses a secret desire for his own sex he’d much prefer nobody ever found out about. Indeed, having only ever given in to his urges as a youth—and with disastrous consequences—he never imagined they would. Preferring the company of his racehorses to people, Benedict spends most of his time working on estate matters, longing for a lost love he can never have.
When an anonymous letter threatening to expose Benedict lands in his lap, he’s shocked to the core. He doesn’t have any enemies; why would anyone want to destroy him? Terrified, and with his family’s impeccable reputation at stake, Benedict joins forces with loyal friend, the Earl of Rossingley, to track down the culprit.
Risen from poverty and with a sordid past he’d rather forget, Tommy Squire has a mind dedicated to growing his business ventures and a heart shaped from stone. When the man who once broke it in a life-changing betrayal requests Tommy’s help to avoid a scandal, he finds himself embroiled in a daring scheme to bring down a blackmailer. As their plot unfolds, Tommy realises it’s more than his former lover he’s endeavouring to protect, it’s his battered heart.
This second book in the Rossingley Regency romance series turns to friends of the fourteenth earl of Rossingley, Lando Duchamps-Avery, who once again has a hand in the shenanigans set in London’s wealthy Ton society. This book can be read as a standalone.
REVIEW:
I adore Fearne Hill’s writing, precise thoughtful prose drenched with feeling and sharp emotion. This book is everything I love from a regency romance, lovers who are pulled apart because of the times they live in, a fantastic redemption arc build on the blocks of being human, love everlasting, queer found family and the intricacies of the ton.
Fiery passion starts this book off on fast clip, young lovers in the midst of an interlude torn asunder for years. The devastating loss making them into someone else when they meet again, now with guilt on one end and rage on the other. But they have graver things to deal with and with their cobbled together friendship forces they manage to find an ultimately exceedingly satisfying HEA, sharing a grand adventure along the way. Also this book was cheeky in parts, humour that made me snort out loud, check out the quotes below for a taste.
I absolutely loved Ben and Tommy, they were everything to swoon about, good lord the emotions were sublime. I definitely loved Francis and Beatrice and the rest of the found family too.
While this can one hundred percent be read as a standalone, I definitely recommend reading the first book, it was also masterful and lends so much to some of the supporting cast in this book.
some quotes that stuck with me:
“You have very little experience, I’d wager, in communicating with individuals not of your class.”
“I assure you,” contradicted the earl, “I discuss my diary with my valet and my first footman in great detail every day. I’m a very much down-to-earth sort of fellow.”
Tommy sighed. “Yes, but not this earth. I meant speak with them as my equals and friends.”
“When my first love spoke, he called me home.”
Tommy wasn’t certain if he’d reached up or the duke had tipped his head down. But it mattered for naught because he knew that when he kissed this man back, when he melded his mouth to the other’s, his mind would never hold a rational thought again.
“I shall embrace you and cherish you, young Tommy Squire, because of our differences, not in spite of them.”
RATING: 
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