Bringing Down the Duke: swoony, feminist and romantic, perfect for fans of Bridgerton (A League of Extraordinary Women)

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With all the pent-up longing and desire, it is inevitable that they will eventually succumb, and I enjoyed seeing the role reversal of the heroine seducing the hero. I like how Annabelle sees beyond his cold, severe ducal facade to the man beneath - a man with a steadfast heart, who can be charming and makes her feel cherished.

I love how Ms. Dunmore really takes the time to develop the relationship between these two. Annabelle’s recuperation at Claremont affords an opportunity for them to talk and get to know each other. When Sebastian sends her a certain book to read, Annabelle realises that a sense of humour lurks beneath his cool exterior. Sebastian finds her stubborn, witty and unpredictable. Each time they meet, I could feel all the sexual tension simmering beneath the surface...Bringing Down the Duke is a historical romance set in England in 1879. It involves the early days of the women’s suffrage movement, so basically I’m all, “You had me at suffrage movement.” Every time they focused on romance drama instead of suffrage drama I got all sad but then cheered up because the romance was very good. This story excels in terms of entertaining characters, and I’d love to see a spin-off story about almost every single one of them.

Debuting Ms. Dunmore has penned a winner, written with flair and suavity, presenting a smooth and evocative prose. A deliciously romantic story firmly grounded in the late Victorian setting, but posing some timeless questions about love against duty and honour or about reputation and safety against freedom and passion, questions that transcend the historical declinations and contingencies while making the tangible inner struggles of the characters deeply resonate. For the past five years, since her father’s death, Annabelle Archer has accepted her narrow existence as her cousin’s general dogsbody, until she discovers that Oxford University has opened a women's college. The National Society for Women’s Suffrage has granted her a scholarship, and all she has to do is persuade her cousin to let her go. No easy task when, like most men of the time, he believes that ‘too much education derails the female brain’, but Annabelle cleverly manipulates him into agreeing, with certain conditions attached. In return for the scholarship, Annabelle has agreed to support the society’s efforts to further the cause of women’s suffrage by infiltrating the home of the Duke of Montgomery. What she didn’t expect is to feel so attracted to a man who is everything she despises. I never once felt that Annabelle and the Duke were in love. It just seemed like they were really, really horny for one another. It always really annoys me when the attraction between two people is wholly centered on lust and sex, because it seems like a really fraught foundation for a relationship, and because I just get really annoyed when characters think with their genitals all the time. Did Annabelle and the Duke have one single moment together where they did something other than slaver over one another? There are some throwaway lines where the Duke mentions he likes that Annabelle is smart, but it's constantly overridden by his - frankly - disturbing hyperfixation on how beautiful and sexy she is. I get that the romance genre must have Lust and Sex - but does it have to take over the entire plot? And then there's Annabelle, who repeatedly acts like an idiot, but whom we're told is very smart because she's read Thucydides; whose political and moral principles seem to be based on the best interests of whomever she last spoke to; and who never once seemed like the impoverished but genteel daughter of a rural Victorian clergyman whom she purported to be. Her defining personality trait, really, is that she's Not Like the Other Girls—hence why she'll go to a ball in a skintight, fashionable gown with no undergarments on underneath! Even on a practical level this wouldn't have been possible given how gowns were constructed then, but Annabelle just draws all the men's eyes with her astounding beauty, etc. Bringing Down the Duke is the best historical romance I’ve read all year.. . . Evie Dunmore is a marvellous, fresh new voice in romance who is sure to go far. Don’t miss her brilliant debut!’ ANNA CAMPBELL, bestselling author of the Dashing Widows series

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Bringing down the Duke was one of the best books I’ve ever read—absolutely adored it. Dunmore had me in tears, had me holding my breath...the emotion and passion made the book ache and sing.” —Jane Porter, New York Times bestselling author This is a problem, because Annabelle’s scholarship comes from the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, and a requirement of the scholarship is that she volunteer with the society, which, surely in Gilbert’s eyes, would be immoral. In addition to volunteering and studying, Annabelle has to tutor pupils and work as her professor’s assistant to raise the two pounds a week, which means that she doesn’t eat or sleep very much. Evie Dunmore shows us how far women have come, how women fought for what we consider normal and rightfully ours. This alone makes it this book worth reading and will give you a new appreciation of the women's role in society today. Their attraction was so palpable, so passionate and there were times I wanted to smoosh their faces together and tell them to get it over with. There was so much tension between them, the impossibility of their love made this story heartwrenching. It also had a great cast of secondary characters that were once again fully realize with personalities of their own - outside the needs of the MC. It’s clear we’ll get stories from the main female characters and I’m very excited to read how their HEA comes about.

He does have a heart, you see, a restrained, honorable heart, but it bruises just like yours and mine, and I wager it is a hundred times more steadfast. He is a rare man, not because he is wealthy, or powerful, but because he says what he means and does what he says. Now for what were all here for… the romance. Oh. My. God. The romance in this book was steamy, tension filled, slow burn and explosive in parts, but it also featured some truly soft and bittersweet moments that just made me love these characters even more. It does have a forbidden romance feel to it, their social standings, as well as the time they are living doing their best to keep them apart. But you could just tell from their first meeting that this was going to go off with a bang, a boy did it. The smut was just so well written, and I loved getting it from both sides, seeing Sebastian not want to overwhelm Annabelle, nor make her feel beholden to him because of their societal positions, and then Annabelle just wanting to jump him at any given moment. It certainly got me a little hot under the collar in parts, but I loved their emotional development as much as their romantic. In between all of his nonsense, there's also a great amount of ugly gender essentialist language in here about the heroine's Feminine Softness and the hero's Masculine Hardness. This is one of those books that refers to women as "females". Again, this is 2019, I shouldn't have to say that this sort of language completely erases trans and non-binary/genderqueer people from existence, and even cis people who don't have the right kinds of bodies (curvy cis men and lean cis women exist, amazingly). And what does shit like "feminine warmth" mean? Do women somehow radiate a special, mystical body heat that fundamentally differs from men? Do their atoms vibrate at some frequency labeled F E M A L E? I'm so tired, authors, don't do this to me.

She’s been told she must recruit men to support the cause, and in her sights is the Duke of Montgomery, Sebastian Devereux. Alas, the villains tend to be one-dimensional. Griffin is a one-note, stuffy man who is almost a parody of the type. Queen Victoria is not just mean, which to be fair she sometimes historically was, but also she is foolish. On the other hand, Sebastian’s ex-girlfriend, who he treats quite badly, does something bad but her motive is not jealousy, and she makes up for it later. Really, Sebastian’s treatment of this character lowered his estimation in my eyes so far that his book offerings to Annabelle barely made up for it.