Our Hero

Name and Rank: Michael Stirling, the Earl of Kilmartin

Age:

Backstory: Michael was the older of the Stirling cousins, but because his father was a few minutes younger than John’s father, John was the one with the title, the estate, and most of the money. Not that Michael cared about any of that. There was only one thing that John had that Michael coveted. His wife, Francesca. For Michael, meeting Francesca was love at first sight. Unfortunately, he met her the day before her wedding to his beloved cousin – the one man on the planet Michael would never fight for her.

Michael buried his feelings, never letting either of the Kilmartins know how it hurt to be around them. He became genuine friends with Francesca. Which, rather than lessening his romantic feelings, intensified them as he fell more and more in love with her as a person. To deal with wanting the one woman he could never have but was constantly forced into close proximity with, he did a lot of sleeping around. Becoming known as the Merry Rake, with a list of conquests a mile long, and a rather interesting moral code about those conquests. But, it was all a front. Because he would close his eyes and pretend they were his cousin’s wife.

Our Heroine

Name: Francesca Sterling nee Bridgerton

Age:

Backstory: Francesca is the sixth of the Bridgerton siblings and the third girl. She was always the quietest of the group, and kept more to herself than most of the others. She quickly fell in love with John Sterling, the young Earl of Kilmartin, during her very first season. And had the quietest courtship and wedding of all of her siblings.

But, her quiet, simple life was to be fairly short-lived. John died of what we would now know to be an aneurysm merely two years into their marriage. The only child she had managed to conceive in that time was miscarried a few weeks later.

The Set-up and Premise

John Sterling has been dead for several years. In that time, Francesca has been the one managing the estate for Michael, while Michael was off in India. Whatever most people thought he was doing by abandoning his duties, a big part of it was actually avoiding Francesca. Because she was still off limits, but he no longer had John there as a buffer and reminder that she was off limits. Michael finally decides that it is time to become the Earl in more than name right as Francesca decides she wants children – and realizes that there is only one way she is going to get them. They both return to London, each unaware that that the other was going to be there. Forced into close proximity with the one woman he has always wanted, but could never have, Michael is also forced to consider the fact that she is no longer off limits. If she is looking for a husband, there is no reason why that husband should not be him.

My Ratings and Review

The Love Story

There is something about this one that just hits you. There is a rawness to it. On the surface, it seems to be a sex-fueled romp. And, indeed, Michael does basically seduce Francesca into marrying him. But, that is merely a surface assessment. Looking deeper, it becomes absolutely beautiful. Francesca, like Anthony before her, doesn’t intend to marry for love. Not out of not having a desire for love, or out of fear, like his was. But, rather out of the fact that she has been in love, before. She doesn’t see how she can ever feel that way for any man who isn’t John. In fact, when she first decides to remarry, she is dreading her marital bed, as well. The idea of letting another man touch her is not in the slightest bit appealing. Which makes her relationship with Michael that much harder for her to properly wrap her head around.

Meanwhile, Michael has already taken his cousin’s title, estate, and most of his money – and now he wants his wife, too. Reconciling his feelings for Francesca with the love he still feels for his cousin is not always easy for him. And yet, the reality is that John is one of the reasons why Francesca could never have been with anybody but Michael. Because he was the one man on the planet who would never begrudge the part of her heart that would always belong to John. After all, he had loved him, too. He could understand that in a way that nobody else could. And the whole thing was just stunning.

And, the moment when Frannie realizes she’s in love with Michael… dear Gods! It hurts her to admit it, and yet, she can’t help it.

The Hero

Michael Stirling is sex on legs. One of the funniest scenes in the book is Michael walking into a ball and every woman in the room basically losing their minds. This includes Francesca’s sisters-in-law Sophie and KATE (which, if you’ve read my review of The Viscount Who Loved Me, you know how in love with and devoted to her husband she is). Even Francesca’s mother gets a little goofy around this man. It’s hilarious.

But, there’s more to him than that. He is the man who pined after the one woman he couldn’t have for years. And yet, even after her husband died, he never said a word. He left her to mourn in peace, and didn’t make a move until she had made it clear that she was ready to try to move on. And even then, it took our favorite matchmaking troll saying that he should just marry Francesca to get him to do anything about his feelings for her. He was always completely respectful of her, her love for John, her grief, even her reluctance to let anyone else into her heart. He let her set the pace for their relationship, even as he tried to seduce her into marrying him. Even after she agreed to marry him, he resigned himself to her never loving him the way he loved her. But, he was willing to take what she could give him and accept it. I just loved him.

The Heroine

Francesca is hurting, in ways few people of her time could understand. Love matches were still somewhat rare, so her grief is perhaps a bit of an oddity. She is raw, and she is real. Her angst as she deals with everything is just beautiful. From the pain of deciding to remarry in order to have children, to the denial of her feelings for Michael. The way she is still coming to terms with her loss, after six years. You just want to wrap her in bubble wrap and protect her from the world, because she has been through so much, and is trying to be so strong.

The Secondary Characters

Helen and Janet Stirling are Michael’s and John’s mothers, respectively. And they are a riot. One of my favorite lines is spoken by Helen. The mothers are making Michael go to Violet Bridgerton’s birthday party (AKA the ball where all the ladies present kind of lose their minds), and he is complaining about not getting a reprieve. Helen pipes up with “You did in fact. Last week. We called it malaria.” The dude almost DIED and his mother is now joking about it. With the exception of the scenes at the beginning when John died, any scene with any of the “meddling mothers” is comic gold. I love them.

No Bridgerton book is complete without Colin. Preferably in matchmaking troll mode. And this one doesn’t disappoint, there. I don’t remember much of what he does, except announce his engagement to Penelope and tell Michael that HE should just marry Francesca. But, as usual, Colin is amazing at seeing who everybody but himself should be with. I swear, him and Lady Danbury (more on her when I get to the review for It’s In His Kiss, which is next) should start a matchmaking service. They’d have the entire ton married off in a week.

Kate, Sophie, Eloise, and Violet Bridgerton. The women in Francesca’s family are only in one scene. But, they spend that entire scene swooning over Michael, and it’s hilarious. Let me reiterate. Violet is a widow who is LITERALLY old enough to be this man’s mother. But, even she gets all giggly when he pays attention to her. Kate and Sophie are both quite happily married, thank you very much. But, apparently this does not mean that they can’t look. And Eloise is just… Eloise. She’s not actually interested in Michael, but that is kind of besides the point, it seems. One scene, but it was a good one.

The Story And Writing

This story was just beautiful. The pacing was good. You definitely understood how and why they fell in love with each other – even as they tried so hard not to. And, it was interesting to mostly get away from the balls and parties. My only nitpick is that the sex scenes seemed a bit more gratuitous than the ones in The Viscount Who Loved Me. I’ve seen it described as raunchy. And, while I wouldn’t go quite that far, I would have preferred those scenes to be more tender and less… purely sexual, for want of a better explanation.

Final analysis

Michael is totally swoonworthy. Francesca is relatable. There is a good amount of angst, which I love. And the way they fight their feelings for each other out of respect for John, but just can’t help themselves is amazing. It’s hard not to root for these two to let themselves be happy with each other. Add in fun side characters and an interesting setting change, and I’m all in. Definitely recommend this one.

4.5 out of 5 stars. Docked half a star because I prefer my sex scenes to be more romantic than these were. But, overall, a damn good book.

Our Hero

Name and rank: Sir Phillip Crane, a Baronet

Age: 30

Backstory: Phillip was a second son who expected to have to make his own way in the world. He went to school and studied Botany and plants are still his first love. When his brother died, Phillip suddenly inherited everything: the title, the estate… and in a way his fiancee. Phillip’s first wife had been engaged to George. When George died, Phillip stepped up and married her for… reasons. We never really get that explained to us. But, Marina had her own issues. Namely, depression that she had had to some extent even as a child. Losing George probably made it worse. And then she and Phillip had children. Twins, in fact. And while it’s never explicitly said, this seemed to have added postpartum depression to the mix. And, since mental health care was not a thing in the 19th century, this condition was left untreated. Which eventually led to her suicide.

While their marriage was not a love match, and rather simply him taking care of the woman his brother had loved, her death still hit Phillip hard. Not at all helped by him being left with two young children to raise by himself. Though, to be fair, he was pretty much raising them by himself, anyway. Marina’s depression resulted in her very rarely leaving her bed. She saw her children only when they went to her.

Further complicating Phillip’s situation is the fact that he was badly abused by his father for his entire childhood. Out of fear of turning into his father and being abusive as well, he mostly stayed away from his own children. Which resulted in them turning into quite the little beasts in an attempt to gain some attention, but he was so emotionally damaged and afraid of hurting them, that he couldn’t see that his way of protecting them was hurting them.

Our Heroine

Name and rank: Eloise Bridgerton. The fifth child and second daughter of a Viscount. Though, by the time our story starts she is now the sister of a Viscount.

Age: 28

Backstory: Eloise’s father died from anaphylactic shock as a result of an allergic reaction to a bee sting when she was just a child. She was actually with him, at the time. Though, that particular trauma doesn’t seem to affect her much, anymore. Certainly not the way their father’s death affected her eldest brother. Though, perhaps that is a testament to Anthony’s willingness to step up and take care of everyone, that none of the others seem to be having issues later on.

Eloise is definitely getting to spinster age, though that is not out of lack of options. She has turned down several proposals in her time on the marriage mart. Though, it is hard to tell exactly what she is looking for. She had eventually accepted spinsterhood, and had nebulous plans for her and her best friend Penelope Featherington to just be spinsters and then old maids together. But, then, Penelope married Eloise’s brother, leaving Eloise once again adrift without a plan for her life.

The Set-up And Premise

Eloise was a distant cousin of Marina’s, and when Marina died, Eloise wrote to Phillip, expressing her sympathies. Somehow, they became pen pals. They spent about a year writing to each other, and Phillip would often send pressed flowers with his letters. Eloise was possibly just looking for a friend. It’s established that she is a devoted correspondent, often writing letters to everyone she knows – even people who live in the same house as her. Phillip, though, was looking for something a bit more. Or at least towards the end he was. He was looking for a wife. Not necessarily for himself, though. He was looking for a stepmother for his children. He wrote to Eloise suggesting that she come visit and they could see if they suit. He would, of course, arrange for a proper chaperone in the form of his aunt.

Eloise never replied to Phillip’s letter. But, Penelope’s marriage left her out of sorts and with a future that no longer looked at all clear. So, one night, she uses a ball that her older sister throws as a way to basically run away from home, and goes to Sir Phillip with little more than the clothes on her back – and no warning that she was coming so he could make arrangements for his aunt to be there.

My Ratings And Review

The Love Story

Okay, here’s the thing. Eloise and Phillip are both interesting characters. I liked them both for their own sakes, as you will see in a minute. But, the truth is, that I never really bought them as a couple. Phillip’s romantic gesture at the end is sweet, and very romantic, but it seems to come out of nowhere. I never really got a sense of them falling in love with each other. They just suddenly were. If anything, Eloise seemed to love the twins more than her husband. And Phillip seemed more interested in a glorified governess than a wife. The romance felt a bit forced, to be honest.

The Hero

I actually liked Phillip. His trauma and his way of dealing with it were believable. I’ve read complaints that he was too whiny and standoffish, but honestly, considering what he had been through, I don’t exactly blame him. He was troubled, and conflicted. He loved his children, but didn’t know what to do with them. He was a man who was trying so hard, but had absolutely no clue what he was doing and just made things worse. I like a good tortured hero in a romance novel. And Phillip was certainly tortured, and reacted to that in ways that honestly made sense for the character.

The Heroine

I also really liked Eloise. She had her own issues, and things going on. She was well-developed. Smart, sassy, and took absolutely no nonsense. The whole premise started with her taking charge of her own life in a way that most women of her station in that time and place would never have dreamed of. And, throughout the entire book, Eloise did not shy away from going after what she wanted. She has spunk. And the way she dealt with Oliver and Amanda was so perfect. There is only one point where she bent to anybody else’s will. And that was when big brother Anthony informed her that unless she feared Phillip being abusive, she was going to have to marry him after basically living with him for a few weeks. Which, that was just how things were back then. And, there was still Hyacinth to consider. A scandal would affect her, too. And, headstrong and independent as she may be, Eloise is still a Bridgerton. Family still comes first.

The Secondary Characters

This is where the book really shines, honestly. There aren’t a lot of secondary characters, since this mostly takes place in Phillip’s estate in the country, far from the social Season of London. But, the secondary characters that are there pretty much steal the show.

Oliver and Amanda Crane are Phillip’s twin children. They are… little beasts, honestly. A good chunk of the book is spent telling of the pranks they play on Eloise, attempting to scare her off. But, I adored those little brats. They were so funny, and honestly, considering everything they had been through, I just wanted to hug them. I loved reading about them, and how they came to love Eloise. Actually, their love for her was more believable than their father’s love for her. By the end of the book you could see how these children just adored her, and it was really sweet.

And then we have the Bridgerton brothers. All four of them descend on Phillip’s home to rescue Eloise, and it’s both heartwarming and hilarious. In their scenes, we get the humor that this series is known for. Everything about them is solid gold. From threatening Phillip – complete with pinning him to the wall – to discussing a certain barmaids… umm… attributes… they are utterly hilarious. And then we get the conversation between Anthony and Eloise, where he has to put away the big brother hat and put on the surrogate father one. Their scene was just so sweet. His love for her, and need to see her taken care of and save her from scandal is so beautiful.

The Story And Writing

I enjoyed the story. Just, maybe not so much as a romance. As mentioned earlier, I just never really felt them fall in love. There didn’t seem to be a proper progression of it, at all. It was well-written, humorous in places, the family dynamics that the Bridgerton books excel at were spot on and interesting. It’s great as historical fiction, I just don’t know how I feel about it as historical romance.

Final Analysis

It’s a good book. The family scenes, whether that be the Bridgertons or the Cranes, are great. The problem is that a romance novel should make you swoon. It should make you fall in love. It should make you root for the main couple. And this one did none of those things. I adored Eloise and Phillip separately. I just didn’t care for them as a couple. Which is, unfortunately, a kiss of death for a romance novel.

3.5 out of 5 stars.