Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore Series: A League Of Extraordinary Women #1
Published by Penguin on September 3, 2019
Genres: Fiction / Romance / Historical / General, Fiction / Romance / Historical / Victorian, Fiction / Women
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover
Source: Book of the Month
“Dunmore is my new find in historical romance. Her A League of Extraordinary Women series is extraordinary.”—Julia Quinn, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“This series balances friendship, politics, history, and romance in just the right mix.”—U.S. Representative Katie Porter
A stunning debut for author Evie Dunmore and her Oxford suffragists in which a fiercely independent vicar's daughter takes on a powerful duke in a fiery love story that threatens to upend the British social order.
England, 1879. Annabelle Archer, the brilliant but destitute daughter of a country vicar, has earned herself a place among the first cohort of female students at the renowned University of Oxford. In return for her scholarship, she must support the rising women's suffrage movement. Her charge: recruit men of influence to champion their cause. Her target: Sebastian Devereux, the cold and calculating Duke of Montgomery who steers Britain's politics at the Queen's command. Her challenge: not to give in to the powerful attraction she can't deny for the man who opposes everything she stands for.
Sebastian is appalled to find a suffragist squad has infiltrated his ducal home, but the real threat is his impossible feelings for green-eyed beauty Annabelle. He is looking for a wife of equal standing to secure the legacy he has worked so hard to rebuild, not an outspoken commoner who could never be his duchess. But he wouldn't be the greatest strategist of the Kingdom if he couldn't claim this alluring bluestocking without the promise of a ring...or could he?
Locked in a battle with rising passion and a will matching her own, Annabelle will learn just what it takes to topple a duke....
“With her sterling debut, Evie Dunmore dives into a fresh new space in historical romance that hits all the right notes.”—Entertainment Weekly
“There is nothing quite so satisfying as seeing such a man brought to his knees by a beautiful woman with nothing to her name except an inviolable sense of her own self-worth.”—NPR
My Review
I love reading historical fiction and romance so when combined it is a win-win for me. Bringing Down The Duke was a total win for me. This book was recommended to me by Darling Desi who you can find on Youtube. I am so glad I listened and picked it for an add-on in my September Book of The Month box.
The time period is 1879 and the setting is England. The story follows Annabelle Archer a commoner who finds herself at Oxford University as a student on a scholarship. Part of the deal of her scholarship is that she has to recruit men of influence to support the women’s suffrage movement. The man she is assigned to recruit is none other than the Duke of Montgomery.
Annabelle is intelligent, witty, spunky, and beautiful. She believes that women have a right to freedom and she isn’t afraid to say so even when it is said to the Duke. Montgomery however only has one goal in mind when he crosses paths with Annabelle and that is not to fight for women’s rights but to get the family castle back. You see it was lost in a card game by his gambling-drunk father years prior to the moment these two met. The problem comes when he is unable to get this bluestocking out of his head. Her eyes and body he can not seem to stop thinking about. Not to mention her arguments for freedom are intriguing. Annabelle is in a similar predicament when it comes to thinking about the Duke. She however is not searching for a castle or to become rich but simply to become free. I guess the questions are as follows does Annabelle get her freedom or the Duke? Does the Duke get his castle or Annabelle?
This was a wonderful read that I enjoyed very much. I loved getting to know the characters and I do not just mean the two main characters mentioned above but their friends and relatives as well. I appreciated that the author touched on the troubles that women experienced during this time period where they were not necessarily thought of as people but more or less as property. I think that she did a great job in that description along with her description of the women’s prison that was mentioned later on in the story. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who loves romance and historical fiction. It was a great story with some kick-ass females.