It took me awhile to decide to watch the Bridgerton series on Netflix. I was aware of the interest but I didn’t think I would be interested in a romance series, but one night, while looking for a new show to watch, my wife and I decided to check out Bridgerton … and we enjoyed it. And of course, being a reader, I thought I should check out the book(s) that the series is based on.
We are in the Regency era (just prior to the Victorian Era) and there are certain codes of conduct for the upper class, particularly in romance. Here we follow Daphne, the fourth child but first daughter of eight children. Daphne’s father is no longer alive and so the eldest son, Anthony, is taking care of seeing her married off to an appropriate person. But Daphne wants nothing of it, and so she concocts a plan with Anthony’s close friend, Duke Simon Basset, in which the two of them will pretend to be romantically entangled so as to ward off the other men and women who might be considering them as potential partners. But guess where this pretending leads….
Of course we know what’s going to happen, so the fun is in watching (reading) the two dance around their emotions.
I enjoyed the book more than I expected and probably because I was so familiar with the television series which I had just recently watched.
Generally I felt that the series was quite faithful to the book though it might have played up the role Lady Whistledown (and anonymous gossip who publishes her observations of what’s happening between people in town). There was also a significant difference in a key moment between Daphne and Simon after they are married – specifically in her realization that he is not impotent or sterile and how she makes that realization.
All in all, a fun read, made more fun by the beautifully filmed series.
Looking for a good book? The Duke and I by Julia Quinn is the basis for the Netflix television series Bridgerton and even if you’ve seen the series (or maybe especially if you’ve seen the series), this is a book worth reading.
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The Duke and I
author: Julia Quinn
series: Bridgertons #1
publisher: Avon Books
ISBN: 9780380800827
paperback, 384 pages
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