Anthony, the eldest son of the late viscount Bridgerton, and current holder of the title, knows he will die young. His father died only thirty-eight years old, so why should Anthony be any different. Which mean he only has eight, nine tops, years to live, and it's about time he did his duty to the title. Marry and produce an heir. Oh, and don't fall in love with wife.

He already has a perfect candidate for his viscountess. Beautiful, delicate, fair-colored, reasonably intelligent Edwina Sheffield. She will do nicely. She'll look good on his arm, bear him children, but most importantly...He won't fall in love with her, because the spark just isn't there. Perfect indeed. Pity, she has a big flaw. In the form of older sister, Katharina "Kate" Sheffield. She's tall, dark-haired, opinionated, and she hates his guts.

At least the feeling's mutual...Or is it?


Ooh, the sparkage. You could see it coming off the pages whenever Kate and Anthony shared a scene. They argued, they bantered, they traded barbs, they wanted to kill each other...And yet...Sparkage. Where there was none with Kate's younger step-sister, Edwina, there was plenty with Kate. And I relished the sparkage as much as these two would-be adversaries did.
And once more what started as animosity, slowly grew into an unlikely friendship that slowly transformed into something more (something that was there from the beginning, but they were too stubborn to see it. I just love romance novels where the main relationship has a foot to stand on in friendship and camaraderie.

I loved the whole phobia subplot that resulted in the two finding themselves in a position that neither was prepared to admit they secretly wanted. When I first read this book, I was convinced the compromising would stem from Kate's fear of thunderstorms (what with them huddling under a desk in the middle of the night with her only in her nightgown), so it was a double pleasure to read it was once again the man's fault. Namely, Anthony exaggerating over an unsuspecting (and in the end, unfortunate) little bee.

From then on it was just a matter of time when Anthony would forgo his stubborn refusal to fall in love with his wife, the problem was him getting to admit it, which ended up being the catalyst for the last hiccup in this relationship, which also (when you'll read the last chapter, you'll understand why) ended up being quite useful in Anthony yet once more playing the hero.


I missed the Bridgerton banter and meddling that was so present in the previous book, but since the hero was the head of the Bridgerton family (and a male) that was to be expected. Still, we got a nice little showing of the eldest siblings rivalry in a lawn game.

Another quick and (very) fun and witty read with a great main couple and supporting cast. It offered plenty of laughs, a tear or two, and just the right amount of drama to keep it interesting.

Daphne Bridgerton is a woman on a mission. Find a suitable match that actually sees her more than just a friend, while also pleasing her matchmaking mama.

Needless to say she's not really succeeding.

All the suitable men find her pleasant and "normal", while pursuing the belles of the ton blessed with "the right" coloring (blond and blue-eyed), relegating her into the wallflower territory.

Until her oldest brother's best friend, newly minted Duke of Hastings, recently returned to England, concocts a fool-proof plan to make Daphne insanely desirable and himself safe from other matchmaking mamas.

They'll pretend to develop a tendre, until Daphne finds a suitable match after which she'd jilt him...Unfortunately, the prospect of jilting the handsome duke becomes every day more unpalatable.


I read this book a long, long, long time ago, but decided to do it again, after the Netflix series dropped, to refresh my memory.

It was a very good decision, I've forgotten how much fun the Bridgetown brood can be. And maybe this time I'll actually read all the books in the series.

Daphne, the fourth child (and oldest girl) of the Bridgerton family and Simon Basset, the new Duke of Hastings, might come off as an odd couple at the beginning, but as the story progresses, and they develop an easy friendship that slowly evolves into something stronger and lasting, end up as a perfect match. Two completely opposites that somehow, also with plenty of help from her family, find a middle ground where they can both be themselves with each other.

It was nice reading about a regency-era relationship that stemmed from friendship and camaraderie instead of just two characters thrown together by happenstance, intrigue or whiff of scandal.
Their relationship was still rocky, especially thanks to Simon's demons and his stupid vow to a dead man (we cannot have a romance book without conflict and the big rift, now can we), and granted, the whole thing was rather quickly resolved (even that highly questionable act on Daphne's part), but the initial friendship and ease between them made it more believable and easier for the reader to accept the swift resolution.

And, because this is a series about a family, that family must not remain unmentioned, since it was a third main character in this story. The Bridgertons were a hoot to read about and they provided plenty of love and friendship, a touch of drama, and a whole lot of support for both Daphne and Simon (albeit in a more roundabout way).


Reading this story was like having a glass of refreshing lemonade and a perfect choice to break my reading fast. A fun, quick and easy read, that made it easy to empathize with and root for the characters; it made me laugh, it made me cry and it made me (once more) eager to read more. On to the next.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Georgiana was kidnapped by a fortune hunter but even though she managed to save herself, her reputation is in tatters.
Nicholas is called down from medical school in Edinburgh by his father who orders him to marry their neighbor and Nicholas' childhood friend, Georgiana.
It's a marriage of convenience but a close quarters carriage ride with a grumpy cat might turn it into a marriage of love.

“There is only one thing to be done,” his father said. “You must marry her.”

First Comes a Scandal is fourth in the Rokebys series but I think you could jump into the series here, it would probably be even better to read the Bridgerton series before this. Rokebys is a prequel to Briderstons and heroes from the first couple books in the Bridgerton series make an almost center stage showing in this. As much as I enjoyed seeing the heroes as little kids, it was too much. Instead of focusing on the leads of this story, the little Bridgertons got too much of the spotlight; it started to feel like a cheap trick to get readers to like this book, trading on the Bridgerton love. If you haven't read the Bridgerton series, you'd probably be bored and think a good chunk of the first half was filler.

“She doesn’t need your time. She needs your name.”

I'm a sucker for little sister/big brother's friend trope but this was a little different with neither having a hidden or long standing crush on the other and we don't get much of Nicholas and Edmund (Georigana's brother) friendship. Not getting much, unfortunately, was a problem I had for the majority of the story. I had a problem with feeling Nicholas and Georgiana were strangers, to me and to each other. It wasn't until after the 50% mark that our two get married and then it is a carriage ride to Edinburgh. However, instead of scenes of these two bonding and dialogue to provide emotional and relationship building blocks, we get pointless cat drama, medical dramas needing Nicholas, and the story just seemed to want to focus on everything but Nicholas and Georgiana.

He’d been married a day and he’d barely even kissed her. He was going to have to do something about that.

The sentence structure had a tendency to veer to shorter and this made a good amount feel choppy but even though I didn't feel engaged with the story or characters, the pace did ping pong through pretty quickly. There was also a couple times where Nicholas or Georgiana expressed themselves a certain way that felt too casual of verbiage, not creating the historical feel I tend to look for when reading this sub-genre. This was also set in the late 1700s and besides some talk of hoop skirts to visit the Queen, it was indistinguishable from Regency set romances.

She liked being near him. She liked his quiet strength, his sense of purpose. And when his hands had been on her hips, even just to help her down from the saddle, she’d liked the way it had made her feel like she was his.

Georgiana and Nicholas felt like strangers to me and therefore, I wasn't invested or felt any emotional attachment to the conclusion of their romance. If you like some slapstick humor, there were a couple scenes when they take their carriage ride that might help drawn you into the story more than I. There were couple moments where I felt a hint of the chemistry between Georgiana and Nicholas but they were so buried in the numerous insignificant scenes the author decided to add, that it couldn't save the story for me. I went into this anticipating more of a focus on exploring their marriage of convenience and instead got a grumpy cat in a hammock.

I buddy read this, for more quotes and comments while I read: First Comes Scandal buddy read 

When Anthony Bridgerton's father was 38, he was stung by a bee and died. Anthony idolized his father, and his death affected him deeply. When Anthony decides, at age 29, that it's time for him to settle down and produce an heir, his father's fate is constantly on his mind. He is convinced he won't live to see 39, and so he's determined to marry someone he is unlikely to fall in love with.

Edwina Sheffield seems like the perfect candidate - stunningly beautiful and reasonably intelligent, but with nothing about her that affects Anthony on a deeper level. Unfortunately, Edwina has publicly stated that she won't marry anyone her older sister, Kate, doesn't approve of, and Kate loathes Anthony for his reputation as a rake. As they get to know each other, Kate realizes that Anthony is a better man than she first thought, and Anthony realizes that Kate is very much a woman he could fall in love with. But there's still the issue of Edwina, and Anthony's bone-deep belief that he will die young.

Looking over my records, this appears to be the third Bridgerton book I've read, although I only recall one of those other two books having a Bridgerton as one of the main characters. At any rate, looking over my reviews, I appear to have a somewhat rocky relationship with Quinn's books - they tend to generally be enjoyable and/or emotional reads for me, but they usually have at least one or two aspects that stick in my craw. Sometimes the emotional punch can override those problems and sometimes it can't. The Viscount Who Loved Me tried really hard but ended up falling more in the latter category.

In the first half of this book, Anthony was pretty awful. He behaved horribly towards Kate, despite needing her good opinion in order to stand a better chance of marrying Edwina. There was a scene with Kate's dog (a Welsh corgi!) that I think was supposed to be funny but instead just made Anthony look worryingly prone to excessive anger. I was reminded of Justin, my least favorite character in L. Rowyn's A Rational Arrangement.

The scene that really stuck with me, however, was the one where Kate accidentally overheard Anthony talking to a former mistress of his, as he attempted to rekindle their relationship in an effort to push Kate out of his mind. Anthony told her that the only reason for a husband to be faithful to his wife was if he loved her, and since he had no intention of loving whichever woman he married, he saw no reason he couldn't have a mistress. The scene ended with a clash between Anthony and Kate in which he humiliated her and behaved more like a villain than a romance hero.

Cheating is one of those things I have absolutely no tolerance for in a romance novel. Although Anthony didn't cheat, this scene did establish that he believed there were circumstances under which it would be perfectly acceptable for him to cheat. (And no, I don't accept "historical accuracy" as an excuse. There are lots of enjoyable historical romances where the heroes never once talk about the possibility of having a mistress.)

The way Anthony humiliated Kate at the end of that scene was a big issue for me as well. As much as I cheered at the way Kate's game of Bridgerton Pall Mall turned out, it was a small moment of victory compared to how terribly Anthony had behaved. But that eventually paled in comparison to the "if I don't love my wife, it's okay for me to cheat on her" bit.

It was like Quinn expected readers to forget Anthony had ever said that, as though reading his thoughts and knowing he wasn't even thinking about taking a mistress was good enough. Unfortunately, all I could think was that Kate couldn't read Anthony's thoughts, and so her behavior later on didn't make any sense. Yes, Anthony was a good brother and son. Yes, he was very kind as he comforted Kate during a thunderstorm (she was afraid of thunder and lightning), and it was a great moment for the two of them. But was it reason enough for Kate to back off and give Anthony permission to court her sister? I didn't think so. He'd made it clear that there was at least a possibility he'd cheat on Edwina, and it was odd that Kate seemed to have forgotten that.

It became even odder later on when

The book had some powerful scenes relating to the way a parent's death can affect a person, sometimes in ways they can't articulate or fully understand. And there were some lovely scenes with Anthony and his family, and Kate and hers. Kate and Mary, her stepmother, had a wonderfully loving relationship, and although Anthony automatically assumed that Kate must secretly be jealous of her lovelier younger sister (half sister? step sister? I don't recall), in reality Kate loved Edwina and genuinely wanted her to be happy. Unfortunately, I could never quite get past that scene with Anthony and his former mistress, and the fact that Kate seemed to have magically forgotten about it.

Rating Note:

This was a difficult book to rate. The parts I had problems with were bad enough that I nodded in agreement with reviewers who DNFed the book. Later scenes grabbed my heart and squeezed it, and there were parts that had me in tears - had it not been for the earlier stuff, 4 stars might have been appropriate. I settled on 2.5 because, as much as I liked some of those later scenes, I deeply disliked Anthony in the first part of the book and would gladly have paired Kate up with Colin instead.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Prepare to get caught up in the whirlwind. that is Julia Quinn. Intrigue, fire and adventure await on the high seas, this time around. They never should have met, but fate had other plans. Poppy is an inquisitive soul with a romantic heart. Andrew is a wanderer with a penchant for danger. Thrust into a world that is unpredictable at best, temptation ignites and hearts are lost. Two strangers find an unquenchable passion, but what happens when their true identities are revealed? The Other Miss Bridgerton is a pleasure that captures the soul from beginning to end.