#1: The Duke and I
Interesting characters: No. I mean, Francesca is about as boring a heroine as it gets. I cannot give you any characteristics about her except that she has blue eyes and desperately wants to be a mother.. And Michael is just lovelorn. I cannot tell you anything about their interests, careers, or even their likes and dislikes (except Michael apparently likes boiled fish for breakfast *gag*). Flat characters.
Believable conflict: Yes. At the beginning of the book, Francesca is married to John, the Earl of Kilmartin. They are madly in love, Francesca is pregnant, and they're trying to decide where to go for their second wedding anniversary. Michael, John's cousin, is desperately in love with Francesca, but wants his cousin to be happy and knows that Francesca does that. But then John dies suddenly, Michael is the new Earl of Kilmartin, Francesca miscarries, and Michael flees to India for four years to give Francesca some space to grieve.
When he comes back, there's all sorts of tension and he's so in love with her and she's clueless except for when she's not and then...friends to lovers trope, but she's still grieving and it's hard for her. It's not really hard for him since he's been in love with her so long, so he's pushing and she's just not really ready and...there's conflict here for sure. What will the mothers say?!
Emotional tension: No. There's no tension here. We know Michael is in love and we know that Francesca will eventually get together with him because they have amazing sexual chemistry and she wants a baby. There's nothing here except blahness.
Happily ever after: Quinn's happily ever afters MUST include children and I just wish it weren't so, but if you're into that kind of thing, you'll probably like it. I will say that I dislike it when authors wave their hands at fertility problems as if you just wait it out, you will always get pregnant. I know it's a historical romance, but Quinn did a lot of work to showcase how brain aneurisms would work in that time period (you died) and how malaria was treated (you were sick on a regular basis), but then just acted like Francesca would obviously be able to get (and stay) pregnant. I just...*sigh* even in women's literature, women's health isn't taken seriously.
Romancing Mister Bridgerton is a great work of art. But the rest of the books in this series always have one thing that gets my goat and I ended up ranting about that thing. I just think Quinn has such promise and she's so beloved an author and yet she gets so much wrong! Argh. I'm going to see this series out to the bitter end, but I forecast that I think you should only read the fourth book and pretend the rest of the series doesn't exist.
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