All’s fair in love…

And matchmaking!

Proposal planner Aphrodite “Ditty” Oliver believes romance should be planned and executed to perfection. That’s what keeps her in business.

In attempting another successful engagement, she instantly comes to blows with her client’s brother, dashing duke Henry Paisley!

Henry believes meddling in matters of the heart is counter to a true connection. While Ditty has learned that true love only exists in fairy tales, she’ll show him that it must be engineered in real life!

Yet while they’re battling it out, they’re too busy to fight an all-consuming attraction neither saw coming…!

Titles in The Unconventional Oliver Sisters series include: The Duke’s Meddlesome Matchmaker ~ The Marquess’s Wagered Wife ~

This story may contain language, violence, and/or sexual situations intended for an adult 18+ audience.

Title:  The Duke’s Meddlesome Matchmaker
Series:  The Unconventional Oliver Sisters #1
Author:  Emily E. K. Murdoch
Published: January 15, 2026
Publisher:  Harlequin Historical
My Rating:  4 stars

The Duke’s Meddlesome Matchmaker begins The Unconventional Oliver Sisters series with a delicious grumpy/sunshine couple who will keep you on your toes as they battle out their completely opposite thoughts on love and happily ever afters… while falling, completely unexpectedly, for each other.  Aphrodite (Ditty) absolutely believes that any romantic encounter should be planned down to the most minute detail.  She doesn’t believe in the fairy tale of true love; that myth intended for children was shattered from her thoughts long ago. 

Now she’s set her matchmaking cap at yet another successful engagement… or she would if the intended client’s brother would stop interfering!  The dashing duke takes exception to Ditty’s belief that love is nothing more than a tale to tempt a person into giving control of their own lives away.  Henry firmly believes that love is a natural state, and should be encouraged to flourish at its own pace, not engineered in the slightest.  Two stubborn people are about to engage in battle, only… neither expected to find their own one true love in the fight to prove themselves right.

I enjoyed The Duke’s Meddlesome Matchmaker.  While Ditty is not actually a matchmaker, but a proposal planner, the romantic outcomes on the line are similar.  Her ongoing witty and frustrating discussions with Henry over the reality of this thing that fairytales call love were amusing.  Each was trying to convince the other that their viewpoint needed to change, when in fact it was hearts that needed to open up to the possibilities right in front of them.  While there were some details about the time period I could nitpick, overall I enjoyed my reading experience with this couple.

If you enjoy a stubborn, grumpy-sunshine Historical Romance, then you’d have fun with this story.

*I received an e-ARC of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley, and I sincerely thank the author or publishing house for their trust. It is my choice to leave a review giving my personal opinion about this book.*

This title is available at Amazon