11 Books Like The Duke and I to Read Next
"I burn for you" did permanent damage to an entire generation of readers, and we are not sorry. If Daphne and Simon's sham courtship left you hunting for the next brooding duke who catches feelings mid-charade, this list is your prescription: eleven books built on fake relationships, convenient marriages, and bargains that stop being business.
What makes a book feel like The Duke and I? The engine is the lie: two people agree to perform a romance for practical reasons — deflecting matchmaking mamas, securing an inheritance, dodging a scandal — and the performance becomes the realest thing in either of their lives. Add a duke (or a reasonable facsimile) with a wound he refuses to name, and a heroine who gets under his armour precisely because none of it is supposed to be real. Every pick below runs on that engine. Here they are, grouped by flavour.
If you want another fake courtship
1. The Duchess Deal — Tessa Dare
The Duke of Ashbury needs an heir; Emma Gladstone needs to be paid for a wedding dress. His proposal is pure transaction — hers is pure chaos. The single most beloved marriage-of-convenience romance of the last decade, and the closest thing to Daphne-and-Simon banter on this list.
2. A Summer to Remember — Mary Balogh
Kit Butler proposes a sham betrothal to the impeccably proper Lauren Edgeworth to escape his family's matchmaking — the exact bargain Daphne and Simon strike, executed with Balogh's devastating emotional precision. The slow melt of the pretence is the whole delicious point.
3. Slightly Married — Mary Balogh
Aidan Bedwyn marries a stranger to honour a deathbed promise, intending to walk away immediately. He does not walk away. The first of the beloved Bedwyn saga, and the genre's gold standard for "we agreed this meant nothing" slowly becoming everything.
4. Caught in the Viscount's Bed — Margot St. James
Framed for murder, apothecary Verity Templeton strikes a desperate deal with a dying viscount: she'll unmask his poisoner if he claims her as his own and shields her from the gallows. As a blizzard seals Malden Manor, the cold calculation dissolves into a masquerade neither can tell from the real thing. The Duke and I's fake-attachment engine, snowed in and turned up several degrees.
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If you came for the duke
5. Devil in Spring — Lisa Kleypas
Gabriel, heir to the most notorious rake in romance, is caught in a compromising tangle with wallflower Pandora Ravenel — who flatly refuses to marry him, because a wife legally ceases to exist. Kleypas at full power: swoon, steam, and a heroine with somewhere better to be.
6. A Rogue by Any Other Name — Sarah MacLean
The Marquess of Bourne lost everything at cards and will marry his childhood friend Penelope to get it back — whether she is willing to be ruined into it or not. If Simon Basset's brooding was your favourite flavour, Bourne is that flavour concentrated.
7. My American Duchess — Eloisa James
Merry Pelford, twice-jilted American heiress, accepts a proposal from the wrong brother — the affable one — while the duke himself burns quietly across the ballroom. Mistaken engagements, ferocious longing, and one of Eloisa James's warmest standalones.
8. Seducing the Duke Before Dawn — Margot St. James
Cressida Belmont returns from exile as an instrument of the underworld, sent to steal a royal cipher — and a violent storm traps her in a remote lodge with Magnus Roche, the duke she once broke. His ultimatum: the cipher by dawn, or a life as his captive. Second chances, rising floodwaters, and a bargain with teeth. Part of the ten-book collection →
If you want to stay in the Bridgerton world
9. The Viscount Who Loved Me — Julia Quinn
The obvious next step, and many fans' favourite of the series: Anthony Bridgerton's cold-blooded hunt for a convenient wife runs headfirst into Kate Sheffield, the one woman in London determined to stop him. Enemies-to-lovers with a bee scene of historic importance.
10. When He Was Wicked — Julia Quinn
Book six, and the tonal outlier — Francesca's story trades ballroom froth for grief, guilt, and years of forbidden longing. If what got you in The Duke and I was Simon's wounded interior, this is the Quinn that will wreck you properly.
11. The Wallflower Wager — Tessa Dare
Lady Penelope Campion keeps rescued animals; ruthless developer Gabriel Duke needs her respectable and gone. The bargain they strike — he helps rehome the menagerie, she rejoins society — is fake-dating logic at its most charming, from the same series as The Duchess Deal.
How to pick your next read
If you loved the fake courtship itself, go Tessa Dare or Mary Balogh — A Summer to Remember is the nearest one-to-one match. If you loved Simon's brooding, go Sarah MacLean or the darker Margot St. James titles. If you just want more Bridgerton, read the siblings in order and thank us at book four. And if you would rather download a whole shelf of duke-and-bargain romance at once, a curated ten-book bundle costs less than a single new paperback.
Frequently asked questions
What should I read after The Duke and I?
Continue the Bridgerton series with The Viscount Who Loved Me, then try Tessa Dare's The Duchess Deal and Mary Balogh's Slightly Married for more marriage-bargain dukes. If you want a whole stack at once, a curated 10-book Regency bundle keeps the binge going for weeks.
Is The Duke and I the first Bridgerton book?
Yes — The Duke and I (2000) is book one of Julia Quinn's eight-book Bridgerton series and the basis for season one of the Netflix show. Each subsequent book follows a different Bridgerton sibling.
What trope is The Duke and I?
It is the classic fake courtship: Daphne and Simon stage a sham attachment for mutual benefit, and the pretence collapses into real feeling. Readalikes lean on the same engine — fake relationships, marriages of convenience, and compromise-forced betrothals.