Look you guys, it’s only June and I’ve already read Q book for my Alphabet Soup Author challenge. Usually, I’m scrambling, mid-December trying to find books by authors that start with Q, X, Y, and Z. Not this year! *Is smug.*

I won a copy of Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I through Goodreads.

Description:

In the ballrooms and drawing rooms of Regency London, rules abound. From their earliest days, children of aristocrats learn how to address an earl and curtsey before a prince—while other dictates of the ton are unspoken yet universally understood. A proper duke should be imperious and aloof. A young, marriageable lady should be amiable…but not too amiable.

Daphne Bridgerton has always failed at the latter. The fourth of eight siblings in her close-knit family, she has formed friendships with the most eligible young men in London. Everyone likes Daphne for her kindness and wit. But no one truly desires her. She is simply too deuced honest for that, too unwilling to play the romantic games that captivate gentlemen.

Amiability is not a characteristic shared by Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings. Recently returned to England from abroad, he intends to shun both marriage and society—just as his callous father shunned Simon throughout his painful childhood. Yet an encounter with his best friend’s sister offers another option. If Daphne agrees to a fake courtship, Simon can deter the mamas who parade their daughters before him. Daphne, meanwhile, will see her prospects and her reputation soar.

The plan works like a charm—at first. But amid the glittering, gossipy, cut-throat world of London’s elite, there is only one certainty:

Love ignores every rule…

Review:

This was ok. I enjoyed the banter between Daphne and Simon. But I thought the transition from friends to lovers to partners was abrupt in parts and jagged in others. I honestly felt Simon was trapped into it, in a sense. I don’t feel like that was the only time he was taken advantage of. And, while the overprotective brothers were amusing at times, they got annoying.

I did very much appreciate that Quinn didn’t give the father a redemptive arc. I thought she would and I hate that. Parents have been evil don’t always deserve to be redeemed in the reader’s eyes. All in all, I’d read another one. But I’m not in any hurry about it.