The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn
Synopsis:
1814 promises to be another eventful season, but not, this author believes, for Anthony Bridgerton, London's most elusive bachelor, who has shown no indication that he plans to marry.
And in truth, why should he? When it comes to playing the consummate rake, nobody does it better...
—Lady Whistledown's Society Papers, April 1814
But this time, the gossip columnists have it wrong. Anthony Bridgerton hasn't just decided to marry—he's even chosen a wife! The only obstacle is his intended's older sister, Kate Sheffield—the most meddlesome woman ever to grace a London ballroom. The spirited schemer is driving Anthony mad with her determination to stop the betrothal, but when he closes his eyes at night, Kate is the woman haunting his increasingly erotic dreams...
Contrary to popular belief, Kate is quite sure that reformed rakes do not make the best husbands—and Anthony Bridgerton is the most wicked rogue of them all. Kate is determined to protect her sister—but she fears her own heart is vulnerable. And when Anthony's lips touch hers, she's suddenly afraid she might not be able to resist the reprehensible rake herself.
My Review:
“Love's about finding the one person who makes your heart complete. Who makes you a better person than you ever dreamed you could be. Its about looking in the eyes of your wife and knowing all the way to your bones that she's simply the best person you've ever known.”
At eighteen, Anthony Bridgerton, the eldest of the expansive family’s brood of eight, assumed the mantle of leadership in his family following his beloved father’s untimely death. As the firstborn, Anthony viewed his father as the man against all others — including himself. To lose such a man to a freak accident like a bee sting was a tragedy even an eighteen-year-old Anthony could barely fathom, and holding his father in such esteem, Anthony instinctively determined that there was no way he could surpass his father even in years, and so he must die at thirty-eight. With that deadline looming over his life, Anthony threw himself into the position of surrogate father and head-of-household with a fervor born of his desire to honor his father and his own deep and abiding love for his close family. But with a very different fervor, he set himself to embrace all the vice and passions offered to a leading member of the ton, and in the process earned a reputation as one of London’s most unrepentant rakes. However, when Anthony realizes he is a mere ten years away from that fateful age of thirty-eight, he decides that this season he must embrace his familial duty and at long last take a bride and have an heir. His one stipulation is that the woman in question must be one he could never love, for love would make his inevitable mortality unbearable. And so he sets his sights on this season’s jewel, Edwina Sheffield. She’s beautiful and kind but leaves him cold, the perfect bride, but he never counted on Edwina’s older sister to be equal parts interfering and alluring.
At twenty-one, Kate Sheffield is finally enjoying her first season in London. Kate is resigned to the fact that she’ll likely end a spinster, and that her younger half-sister will be the one to save the mother and herself from an unenviable future of genteel poverty. She doesn’t resent her sister’s beauty or acclaim, but she resolves to use her position as the older sibling to make sure that Edwina marries well, more than a wealthy man, Kate wants her sister to marry a good one. And thanks to the infamous Lady Whistledown’s gossip column, she’s positive that Anthony Bridgerton is the last man in the world who could make her sister happy. When Kate meets Anthony, sparks fly, she’s determined to protect her sister from a rake of the worst sort.
After falling in love with the quirky, exuberant Bridgerton clan in The Duke and I, I knew I wouldn’t be able to long resist the pull to revisit their world. Everything I loved in Daphne and Simon’s story reappears here in Anthony’s tale, the warmth, wit, and humor that I’m fast learning is a hallmark of Quinn’s effervescent writing. Here Quinn takes the familiar trope of warring, would-be lovers and breathes fresh life into it through her whip-smart characterizations and the situations, that gradually weave a seductive web around Anthony and Kate, forcing them each to realize the one truth they’d rather die than admit that they just might be each other’s a perfect match.
Quinn sketches Kate’s insecurities regarding her own self-worth and desirability with a sensitive brush. In a less accomplished author’s hands, Kate’s qualms, her self-image issues, and fears could have become a farce, but as Kate falls in love with Anthony Quinn’s deft characterization illuminates the fears, doubts, and self-image issues that have cause Kate to buy into the lie that she is less than her beloved sister and makes her transformation all the sweeter. It’s a delicate balance to achieve, but Quinn is a master at tapping into one’s most closely held doubts and fears and seeing them excised on the page with warmth and compassion.
Quinn’s trademark humor and breezy, fast-paced writing style make her second installment of the Bridgerton series shine. While Anthony and Kate’s budding relationship is a tick more physical initially than the intellectual camaraderie that characterized Daphne and Simon’s early encounters, Quinn is fast proving herself to be a master at crafting relationships ultimately founded on a bedrock of emotional and intellectual compatibility. And for all Kate and Anthony relish trading verbal jabs when they first meet, it’s their journey from adversaries to lovers, with a friendship founded on respect and honesty, and off, as Kate resolves, making the conscious decision to fall in love anew every single day that made my heart sing. The delightful dynamic between the close-knit Bridgertons, from the infamous Pall Mall game to the delicious, needling camaraderie between Anthony and his younger brothers all these elements are just the proverbial icing on the cake.
The Viscount Who Loved Me is a thoroughly engaging, swoon-worthy love story a romance crafted of equal parts passion and intellect, a story to cherish.
My Rating
✬✬✬✬✬
The Review of The Duke and I you can find here
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