Desperate Duchesses

The most cited problem is a crowded cast: multiple point-of-view characters and simultaneous subplots run at once, and one reader admits “25% in and I still wasn't clear who the hero was.” Chess gets blamed by name for killing momentum, with a reviewer complaining about “so many side stories, and chess. So. Much. Chess,” and another summing it up as “too much chess, too little romance.” The central Damon-and-Roberta romance reads thin to unhappy readers, who note the leads barely share scenes, and Damon never gets his own point-of-view chapters, so as one reviewer puts it, “we never got his POV.” Roberta's early fixation on Villiers strikes several readers as unmotivated, and Teddy's parentage is raised then dropped, left dangling for a later volume.