Review: The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

Hi all!

My name is Chiara and I am a Bookworm.

Have you watched Bridgerton yet? I think I’d finished it before midnight on Boxing Day. I devoured the Netflix series and I instantly knew that I had to have more. More of the series and, when I realised they were based off of books, more of the books.

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The Duke and I by Julia Quinn (Bridgerton #1)

The Blurb

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… 

My Thoughts

I dove into this book not sure exactly what to expect. Yes, I’d watched the series but I had no idea whether it was accurate how true to the book they’d been. Obviously Netflix took some liberties with the book but not as many I would have thought.

But this is not a comparison between the Netflix series and the book. This is a book review.

One of my favourite things in the book was the relationship between the characters, and not just our dear Simon and Daphne, but all the characters. Simon is friends with Anthony and an excellent older brother with the youngest Bridgerton children and Daphne has such an interesting relationship with her brothers, Colin and Anthony in particular. They are very close to how I grew up with my brother, the love, the ribbing, the jokes. Getting on each other’s nerves and forgiving when all is said and done.

In terms of how it was to read, I loved the flow of the book, it carried you along so you barely wanted to put it down. Beginning to end I was hooked on the chemistry explosion that was Daphne and Simon. My only problem, and I’m not even sure I was call it a problem, was that there definitely seemed to be two parts to the book. The fake-dating and then the marriage. It was almost like a interval in the middle of the book, and if you were to read it in one sitting it was the perfect break to go to the bathroom, hydrate, stretch and get something to munch on. I, personally, didn’t dislike that too much, but for some it distract them.

I also found the book a little one tracked. The tv series (I know I shouldn’t be comparing but let me finish) was very multifaceted. Each character had something going on, there was more to the story than just Daphne and Simon. However the book was all them. There was very little mentioned of the other character’s lives and what they were doing their romantic lives or anything else. I presume the series is setting up for more series and what will happen in series two and beyond, but the book had very little of that, and maybe that is a good thing. Maybe each book will focus solely on each Bridgerton child. But I’ll have to read them to find out.

The only thing I wish I hadn’t read in the book was the second epilogue. Quinn added the second epilogue onto most of the books to add more information and background to all the character’s stories for the die hard fans who always wanted to know more. However for me, not yet a die hard fan, it revealed things about the characters and events that will take place in later books that I would rather not have known. I suggest that if you haven’t read this yet then leave them and go back once you have finished the series.

Overall I can’t recommend this book more. I will be reading book two soon and I hope that I will enjoy that one just as much.

Until next time…

HAPPY READING