2015 book 36

Sara Ramsey's Duke of Thorns
OK, this is easily the most hilarious romance I've read so far, but I can't tell whether or not it's on purpose! Our girl is British but has mostly lived in Baltimore, when her father (the youngest son of an Earl) dies, leaving her in charge of his shipping business--which she quickly converts to privateering (semi-legal pirates!!). Then she decides to return to England to find a husband (for reasons that weren't entirely clear to me, something about her pirate captain not respecting her), and also there's a whole thing where her dead grandfather's will leaves everything to whichever granddaughter marries the best dude she meets at a random month-long garden party (?????). Of course, there she meets our dude (and the title here is WAY too on-the-nose, since he's the Duke of Thorington, that's just TERRIBLE), and HIS deal is even crazier--he's the oldest of a TON of siblings (and the younger bunch may or may not be illegitimate), and he somehow got cursed by an Egyptian curse that made him super rich, except now his friend has BROKEN the curse and he's lost everything and needs to marry off his sibs, stat. And that's just the first twenty pages! So she's looking for someone meek who won't interfere with her business, and he's determined to marry her off to his youngest brother (who is appalled by her American manners) and obviously they are super into each other and all other plans go by the wayside. Things get somewhat less crazy/entertaining toward the end, but I liked all these characters a lot and will probably read more books by Ramsey. B+.