Funny, Historical Romance (The Duke and I - Julia Quinn)

Member Name: Brooke3

Product:	The Duke and I - Julia Quinn
Date:	03/12/08 (151 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good book

Disadvantages: a few issue's I had with the heroines behaviour

-Plot-
This is a historical romance novel set in 1812.
Daphne Bridgerton comes from a huge family. She has three older brothers, a younger brother and three younger sisters. She has been looking for a husband for two years and has a problem, men like her but they see her as being a good friend.
Simon Bassett has recently inherited his fathers title and lands, making him a Duke and the prime target of all the mothers in the ton. But Simon is determined never to marry. He hated his father, who abandoned him when he was a child because he had a stutter, and now he wants to be the worst duke possible in order to spite his father.
Daphne and Simon come up with a plan to stop the mothers from harassing him and to get Daphne some more male attention. They pretend that he is interested in her.
But things don't go quite to plan and obviously they fall in love (wouldn't be much of a romance novel if they didn't!)

-My Opinion-

I really enjoyed this book. I've read one of Julia Quinn's books before and enjoyed that one so I decided to give this book a try. I knew it was the first in a big series of books and I had heard good things about it. Based on the recommendations and my previous experience with her books I had really high expectations and I was not disappointed at all, although there were a few issue's that I had with the book.

I loved the characters in this book, they had depth and they had history and the author was able to explore this throughout the books. You could actually see what made the characters tick and how they had become the people they were.

As well as focusing on Daphne and Simon the rest of the Bridgerton family are featured quite heavily in the book. You get a real feel for the family and I personally really enjoyed the interaction between the family members. Coming from a huge family myself I thought that she gave a really accurate portrayal of what it's like to belong to a big family and although this was obviously set nearly two centuries ago I could really relate to it.

The book was also really funny. Julia Quinn writes humour really well and from the first chapter she had me amused. She also writes angsty really well and at times my heart really ached for the characters in the book.

There wasn't much to the plot, it was pretty much a straight romane and usually that's not my thing. I love romance novels but I like to have a plot to them. However, this book was brilliant. The humour and the emotions make up for the lack of any real plot.

There were a few issue's that I had with the book but it's difficult to write about them without giving away the end of the book or the plot twists. I felt that the author tried to justify some really unacceptable behaviour on the part of the heroine and seemed to have the opinion that having children was the most important thing and any reluctance on the part of man was insignificant and therefore the heroine could do whatever was necessary to get pregnant. I didn't like this much and felt she showed a lack of respect for a persons right to choose and for the hero of the book.

But overall it was a good book. A real feel good story with a good dose of humour.

Summary: A feel good book