Series: A League of Extraordinary Women, #1
Traits & Tropes: class difference; bluestocking heroine; titled hero; starched hero; divorced hero
Publication Date: 09.03.19
Genre/Setting: Historical; Victorian; Kent/Oxford/Wiltshire/London, England, 1879
Heat Level: 4
Rating: 3.5/5
Narration Rating: 5/5
Vicar’s daughter Annabelle Archer is limited by her station and lack of funds, but thanks to a scholarship, has earned a place in the first class of women allowed to study at Oxford. In exchange for her stipend, she must support a league of suffragists, helping bring powerful men to their cause. She’s assigned Sebastian Deveraux, the very powerful, very unfeeling, Duke of Montgomery, a man who has the queen’s ear and a leading role in British politics. Keeping her attraction hidden will be harder than winning him to the cause.
When he arrives at his country home unexpectedly, Sebastian is not at all pleased to find three suffragists and several of his brother’s wastrel Oxford classmates are making merry in his home. The bigger threat to his sanity, however, is his reaction to the beautiful Annabelle. He’s worked very hard to restore the dukedom his father left so damaged and that means he must marry a lady of equal standing, not a commoner with opposing political views to his own. But that doesn’t mean Sebastian won’t try to get Annabelle some other way, leaving him in store for more of a battle of wills than he’d bargained for.
I have so many mixed feelings about this book. Given the premise, I thought it possible the heroine might annoy me with an unfair attitude toward all men or something along those lines, but that wasn’t the case. Don’t get me wrong, Annabelle still annoyed me plenty, just not for that reason. Her determination to make herself a martyr is what got me. This did come later on in the book, but it just seemed to go against her previously established character. That said, I think perhaps this change in characterization was purposeful and meant to illustrate how her experiences outside her small village had changed things for Annabelle and not all for the better, so I do think that it worked, even if it was annoying and made me want to shake her. I think it was meant to.
Sebastian annoyed me just as much with his blindness to his own options as a powerful duke. He allowed himself to be manipulated quite a lot and it took him some time to realize that he did in fact have free will to follow his own conscience and desires instead of always working towards the goals of the queen or his political party, no matter how noble they seemed. That said, this obliviousness did make it very satisfying when he opened his eyes and got down to the business of creating the life he wanted. At first, he was much too focused on appearances and duty to his title, and he came off as something of a spoiled brat when Annabelle refused to fall in line with his plans.
These two both annoyed me in some ways, but at the same time, I believed in the inevitability of their connection. They both saw the barriers to their having a respectable future together and they wound up forging their own path anyway because they just couldn't help it. I can get on board with that. I liked seeing Sebastian’s heart thaw as he learned to open himself up to feelings again and Annabelle did a lot of maturing as well as she learned what was truly important to her. Annabelle and Sebastian truly saw each other, probably in ways no one else did or ever had and that made a strong case for their validity as a couple and made me root for them despite myself. I have to say, I really wanted someone to put Annabelle’s dreadful cousin in his place and I did sometimes find her suffragist friends too demanding in terms of what they expected from Annabelle. I may have set this book down a time or two if I were reading it, but the audio narration was excellent and helped keep me invested in the story. All told, I did enjoy this story and premise enough to want to continue this series. I especially want to find out if Peregrine and Fiona wind up together because I was quietly shipping them for a while during this book.
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/1189696925
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2711635569
Comments
Post a Comment