The Duke’s Got Mail by Samara Parish

Tracy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series: England’s Sweethearts #2

Release Date: April 28, 2026

Miss Eleanor Wright’s life is just about perfect; she is the premier compositor in London and is in high demand. Thanks to her salary, she is independent and can afford to indulge in all the books she could want, pretty gowns and a spacious apartment. She has also recently begun a new pen-pal relationship with the brother of her secret pen-pal and they have really connected. Life is good, until it isn’t… She is blindsided by the Linotype machine, a new technology that will forever change the publishing industry and will make her obsolete and costing her job and her self-worth. And the man responsible for her misery? Peter, The Duke of Strafford and the primary investor of the Linotype.

Peter, The Duke of Strafford has not been having the best year, he was jilted by the woman he planned to marry, when he was in a coma and she fell for his younger brother and now he has been roped into acting as his sister’s personal secretary as she is recovering from eye surgery. But there are bright spots, first after years of worrying about providing for his family and his estate, he has finally found an investment that will secure his finances for years to come, the Linotype and he has been corresponding with an amazing woman. Everything is going great, until it isn’t… the woman he has been falling in love with is the same woman whose life has been upended by the Linotype. He knows that there is a price to be paid for progress, but he never imagined it would cost him the love of a lifetime.

I am not a huge fan of movie adaptations, but I will give credit where credit is due – Ms. Parish didn’t just rewrite the plot of the hit 90’s Rom-Com “You’ve Got Mail” and call it a day – she took the idea of that story and made it her own. Yes, there are a lot of similarities to the movie, but there are also a lot of original ideas that give this adaptation its own flair. Unfortunately, I think one of the biggest changes was in Eleanor’s character, who is plagued with atychiphobia (the fear of failure) and is a perfectionist who is unwilling to try anything new and be deemed less than perfect, something that she has struggled with all her life, seemingly thanks to her parents. I tried to feel sorry for her, but unlike her movie counterpart, her dislike of Peter came off as nasty and shrewish, and I felt like she was being unfair to blame Peter for everything. So overall, it was a good read, but it did seem overly drawn out and the romance was bland. I did enjoy the story and appreciated the new twist as well as the cute epilogue, making it a book that I would recommend, but I probably wouldn’t read again. This is the second book in the series, but each book can easily be read as a standalone title.

*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher/author. All opinions in this review are my own. *