Can there be any greater challenge to London's Ambitious Mamas than an unmarried duke?—Lady Whistledown's Society Papers, April 1813
By all accounts, Simon Basset is on the verge of proposing to his best friend's sister—the lovely and almost-on-the-shelf—Daphne Bridgerton. But the two of them know the truth—it's all an elaborate ruse to keep Simon free from marriage-minded society mothers. And as for Daphne, surely she will attract some worthy suitors now that it seems a duke has declared her desirable.
But as Daphne waltzes across ballroom after ballroom with Simon, it's hard to remember that their courtship is a sham. Maybe it's his devilish smile, certainly it's the way his eyes seem to burn every time he looks at her . . . but somehow Daphne is falling for the dashing duke . . . for real! And now she must do the impossible and convince the handsome rogue that their clever little scheme deserves a slight alteration, and that nothing makes quite as much sense as falling in love.
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**My thoughts**
I'm not a Regency fan, at least not by contemporary authors. (I do enjoy Jane Austen.) So I hadn't even heard of the Bridgerton series until everyone was raving about the Netflix series. So I watched it and liked it well enough, but never gave a thought to reading it.
Then one day, I saw an amazing deal on one of the book discount/sale sites where the box set of the first three books was even cheaper than one solo book. I used a gift card and then the set sat on my TBR until it was time to prepare for the second season to drop on Netflix. I brushed off the digital dust and dove into The Duke and I.
I finished it in one day.
Netflix took a lot of liberties with the book in its first series. I was already aware of a lot of those changes from reading articles back then. I honestly didn't think anything of it when I was reading the book, though, because I was so engrossed. It honestly made me more eager to go back to the Netflix series to watch the first season again. In a way, it reminded me of what Showtime with the original Dexter. I have come to see the two Bridgertons as parallel universes much as I did with Jeff Lindsay's books versus Showtime's series.
What I liked about this book was first meeting the family and so many wonderful characters. The writing is done in a rather contemporary fashion in spite of this being a Regency. The vocabulary, tempo, and such are appropriate to the time period, yet it reads like a contemporary book. And the snappy dialogue is highly entertaining. I can see why people call Julia Quinn a modern Jane Austen, especially with Lady Whistledown.
So yes, I am a Bridgerton fan and will likely make my way through them all. (I did read books two and three in the same weekend binge.) And this just goes to show you the importance of a good writer, no matter the topic or genre.
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