There are very good secondary characters here. There's Lady Lucie, leader of the National Society for Women's Suffrage; there are Annabelle's two new best friends in the society, one a rich businessman's daughter and one of the peerage; there's Sebastian's immature younger brother; there's Professor Jenkins, Annabelle's professor; there's Sebastian's former lover, Lady Lingham. All of them are well developed and with distinct personalities. I can see sequels to give Annabelle's friends Harriet and Catriona and Sebastian's brother Peregrin their own romances. They were all appealing characters and deserve their own stories. Annabelle is strong and capable, but destitute. When an opportunity to study at Oxford presents itself, she grabs it with both hands. It comes with a scholarship that stipulates her involvement with the women's suffrage movement. She needs to lobby men of influence to their cause, which is how her path crosses with the Duke of Montgomery's.

Bringing Down the Duke (A League of Extraordinary Women Book 1) Bringing Down the Duke (A League of Extraordinary Women Book 1)

i am really impressed with this debut novel and i am very much looking forward to reading more about other extraordinary women in the upcoming books for this series. This strongly driven and complex man, with a cold and severe poise (and how much of it is just that, poise?), starts to gradually reconsider every aspect of his life and his outlook on his role and duties, with the same thoroughness he dedicates to political battles. Thanks to this compelling and passionate woman questioning him every step of the way, who challenges and infuriates him... and who probably makes him yearn for "more" for the first time in his privileged but somehow confining and inhibited existence.PDF / EPUB File Name: Bringing_Down_the_Duke_-_Evie_Dunmore.pdf, Bringing_Down_the_Duke_-_Evie_Dunmore.epub Perhaps you can explain it to me, then,” she said, “how is it fair that my utterly inept cousin is in command of me, for no reason other than that he’s a man and I’m a woman? How is it fair that I master Latin and Greek as well as any man at Oxford, yet I am taught over a baker’s shop? How is it fair that a man can tell me my brain was wired wrong, when his main achievement in life seems to be his birth into a life of privilege? And why do I have to beg a man to please make it his interest that I, too, may vote on the laws that govern my life every day?” Bringing Down the Duke is the best historical romance I’ve read all year.. . . Evie Dunmore is a marvellous, fresh new voice in romance who is sure to go far. Don’t miss her brilliant debut!’ ANNA CAMPBELL, bestselling author of the Dashing Widows series

Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore | Waterstones

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 Bringing Down the Duke was a unique and refreshing story and I enjoyed it all! It was a witty, entertaining, and engaging read that was incredibly well told. Through the alternating perspectives of Annabelle and Sebastian, we get to see that the greatest angle of this love story is that the characters weren’t delirious on love at first sight, or obsessed with how attractive the other was. In fact, if anything, there was a little hostility between the pair similar to the romance of Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice. As for the hero, he is the powerful Duke of Montgomery who thinks that his lofty position in society gives him the right to ask things of the heroine that he has no right to ask. He comes across as an asshole, which kind of comes with the territory because he is really stuffy and cold. Very few authors can write stuffy and cold heroes without asshole tendencies. But Montgomery is a total hypocrite. He clearly states that he sees Annabelle as a lady, but he doesn’t think she’s good enough to be his lover or his wife. He thinks she’s only good enough to be his mistress because she needs his “protection.” And he implies to other aristocratic men that Annabelle is his mistress, long before he even asks her to be his mistress. There is a difference between being a lover and a mistress – one entails equality, the other entails an imbalance of power. But this was not emphasized at all. Montgomery even confesses to her that if their stations were equal, then he would have made her his wife. The heroine obviously refuses to be his mistress, but she guards his so-called-romantic confession closely to her heart because it makes her feel good about herself, for reasons I fail to understand. Is the heroine’s self-esteem really that low? The hero is also the type who thinks that “If I can’t have her, then no one else can,” displaying ugly bouts of jealousy. He has the nerve to be offended when she tells him that he only thinks she’s good enough to be his whore. She wants too much when she says she wants to marry him. He doesn’t want to give up his reputation by marrying her. But he’s totally okay with her throwing away her reputation and her chance for a university education so she could be his mistress. And as it is with this old and predictable drama, it takes a dramatic life or death situation for the lofty Duke to come to his senses and propose. Please spare me from all the drama. Oh, and I also don’t like the way the hero treats his younger brother, but that’s a whole other conversation.not as bad as i remember. certainly bland and too much focus on a plot i found tired, but the romance wasn’t too bad. Despite their sizzling chemistry, she is too far below his station to be anymore than a kept woman. Why they spent a great amount of time avoiding the other when at the same time they can’t stand to be too far as they need another’s presence to breath freely. The first in a new historical rom-com series, a handsome earl hires a fake fiancée to keep his matchmaking mother at bay, but hilarity ensues when love threatens to complicate everything.

Bringing Down the Duke – Evie Dunmore

I loved these brave, eccentric women who were so dedicated to bettering the lives of women. Oh, and the chemistry between the Duke and the Commoner was sooo romantic - and sizzling hot! With all the pent-up longing and desire, it is inevitable that they will eventually succumb, and I enjoyed seeing the role reversal of the heroine seducing the hero. But she uses her clever mind and wits to her profits, refusing to let others dictate her future. She might be a woman, she won’t let it stop her from reaching her goal. She has to play not always fair but it is how life is.For the past five years, since her father’s death, Annabelle Archer has accepted her narrow existence as her cousin’s general dogsbody, until she discovers that Oxford University has opened a women's college. The National Society for Women’s Suffrage has granted her a scholarship, and all she has to do is persuade her cousin to let her go. No easy task when, like most men of the time, he believes that ‘too much education derails the female brain’, but Annabelle cleverly manipulates him into agreeing, with certain conditions attached. In return for the scholarship, Annabelle has agreed to support the society’s efforts to further the cause of women’s suffrage by infiltrating the home of the Duke of Montgomery. What she didn’t expect is to feel so attracted to a man who is everything she despises. Now he's in reach of that goal. Queen Victoria has promised to intercede on his behalf with the present owner of the castle, if only Sebastian uses his influence to keep the Tory party in power. Well, this means no liberal leanings for Sebastian at the moment, and, of course, that means ignoring the women's struggle for the right to maintain their own properties or their right to vote. That puts Annabelle and Sebastian on a political collision course but there is an undeniable attraction which must not be given in to. Only, of course, if Annabelle would agree to be his mistress. Well, we all know how HR heroines feel about being the hero's mistress. But wife is out of the question. A poor vicar's daughter, without a hint of nobility in her bloodline?

Bringing Down the Duke (A League of - Austenprose Bringing Down the Duke (A League of - Austenprose

So I almost regret listening to this one instead of reading it because I have no notes or highlights. :( I have every intention of doing an immediate re-read though, from the physical copy I'll be buying this weekend! Although I’m not going to lie, I thought the book would be more steamy because that’s literally one of the most common things I read about this book. There was only 3, maybe 4 scenes that were smutty, with only 1 of them being in-depth. So if you were expecting this to be like Fifty Shades level erotic, it’s not quite.

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Annabelle and Sebastian are not the predictable pair, so common in the genre, composed by the smart-mouthed, anachronistically liberated heroine and the uppity nobleman with a hidden wild side, no, there was instead an authenticity to them which stemmed from the layered, nuanced and vibrant characterisations, so consistently immersed in the historical setting that each of their moves and skirting around also became a sort of social tableau on the customs and mores of their times. They act, think and behave like late Victorian people without becoming stale stereotypes and preserving their own unique personalities, and the realistic hurdles on the path of their relationship, when contemplating such vast class difference in those days, are not magically brushed aside but, on the contrary, cleverly turned into pivotal issues and plot-points. I liked Annabelle from the very first scene. Her intelligence shines through when she cleverly manoeuvres her ignorant, pompous cousin, Gilbert, to her way of thinking. Although low-born, her father and her maternal great-grandmother had ensured that she received a well-rounded education and I admire her determination to fulfil her dreams of going to Oxford. Evie Dunmore’s debut is a marvel . . . a witty, richly detailed , historically significant, and achingly romantic celebration of the power of love and the passionate fight for women’s rights’ CHANEL CLEETON, bestselling author of Next Year in Havana STARS!!! His kisses had lifted a loneliness off her she hadn't even known she carried. SOOOOOOOO wonderful!