If the Duke Dares (Rogue Rules #1) by Darcy Burke (Regency)

Grumpy/ Sunshine sounds right. 

Cheryl, in the early times that I discovered historical romance (1997) it was understood that Dukes were few and far between. So rare that near as I can trace back, I didn’t read any Duke books til April 1999, and there 5 of them that month all 5 Stars. 

But I spent a lot of time reading Medievals in the beginning so could be there weren’t many Dukes in those books, a lot of Barons though. 

One of my favorite characters was Jo Beverley’s Rothgar and he was a Marquis. And just noticed when looking that up, JB only had one Duke title book on the list of 63 titles. 

You got me curious to see when Duke started showing up in titles. Since 2023 just ended went back to 1993 to see what was happening those 30 years. If someone with spreadsheet skills to separate established authors from the independent e-book authors, that would probably explain a lot.

1993 - 2 Duke Titles
1994 - 1
1995 - 2
1996 - 0
1997 - 1
1998 - 3
1999 - 2
2000 - 4
2001 - 3
2002 - 4
2003 - 2
2004 - 4
2005 - 3
2006 - 12
2007 - 7
2008 - 14
2009 - 16
2010 - 15
2011 - 11
2012 - 38
2013 - 45
2014 - 69
2015 - 93
2016 - 179
2017 - 192
2018 - 131
2019 - 134
2020 - 131
2021 - 122
2022 - 141
2023 - 163

–Janie

Cheryl, thanks for my first laugh of the day. I am terrible with numbers. We can thank the advanced search technique at FictionDb for the stats. Didn’t take very long except I kept getting sidetracked when a book would catch my attention.

Unless an author comes up with a dynamite story that sells itself, I think most of the books being written are publisher driven on whatever is trending. That’s for the established authors with publishers. Maybe the independent e-book authors follow the trends, too. Or, setting their own.

Just curious… who went from HR  to Vampires?

The Dukes are at rest for me at the moment, I’m knee deep in FBI Romantic Suspense. 😁

—Janie