Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore
England, 1879. Brilliant but destitute Annabelle Archer is one of the first female students at Oxford University. Her scholarship demands that she recruit men of influence to champion the rising women’s suffrage movement. Her target: the cold and calculating Duke of Montgomery, commander of Britain’s politics.
Montgomery himself has a target in mind to better his families prospects so finding a young blue-stocking in his path has thrown a wrench into his plans. Both keep running into each other and must find a way to coexist while denying their attraction for one another.
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This book was like a newer twist on Pride and Prejudice and I loved it! A headstrong farm girl meets an intimidating, cold, immovable gentleman, what could go wrong? Evie Dunmore does a fantastic job of transporting us to the 1800s and manages a romantic story without romanticizing the inequality of that time period. How do you write a happy romance in a historical setting while still a shining light on the fact that women had zero rights and had a tough time trying to make it through the world on their own? You write that woman as a suffragist that’s how! Every time I open one of these books I feel the same fight and unfairness these characters feel and I am totally immersed in their world. These books are quickly becoming my favourite type of historical romance and I’m already on my first re-read of the series.
Bringing Down the Duke is the first book in a series called A League of Extraordinary Women. I accidentally read the second book before this one but they’re able to stand alone. Each book is about a different woman in this group of friends at Oxford who are all part of the women's suffrage movement. In this book, Annabelle Archer is accepted to Oxford as one of the first female students. Students who aren’t allowed to study with the men or be seen wandering campus. Students who cannot be unchaperoned and whose personal lives and reputations could affect their standing at their school (could you imagine?!). Annabelle struggles with balancing her studies and finding ways to send financial support back home as well as making time to fight for The Cause and find a way to amend the Married Women’s Property Act. Being with her through this was so reminiscent of my own University career, sure I didn’t have the same struggles as her but I remember how hard it was to try and balance it all, school, family, a job, extracurriculars, it’s not an easy thing to do and must have been so much harder back then when that was the only thing standing in the way of you becoming destitute. And of course it’s while Annabelle is struggling under the weight of the world that she meets the most impossible man. And that’s where our story get’s so much more intriguing.
I really liked the alternating points of view in this novel. Being able to see into Annabelle’s and Sebastians reasonings helped to keep this novel a steady pace and kept me reading as I was always excited to get back to the alternate persons POV. It was also nice to see how each character felt about the other even if they were denying those feelings to themselves. Sometimes when you read a romance you always wonder if the romantic interest is actually as involved in this relationship as the main character and lots of times the “cold and reserved gentleman” character can come off as a really toxic person when only seen through one viewpoint. I liked that we got to see another side throughout the whole book and not just a resolution telling us he’d “changed”.
I also really enjoyed the slow build of trust in the relationship between our two main characters. They didn’t just immediately fall in love and live happily ever after, the novel actually paced really well through the days and weeks it took for them to really get to know one another well enough to make a life-changing leap for each other. I also really enjoyed how neither character was perfect, Annabelle was more experienced than young ladies at the time would be and Sebastian was a divorcee. Neither of them were blind to reality or the trials of love before meeting and exploring a relationship and both were very clear of their expectations of each other for most of the book. I like that the author made it such a relatable couple even if the time period itself wasn’t as relatable.
Honestly my only fault with this one was that I wasn’t as into the romance as I was with A Rogue of One’s Own. I’m trying not to compare the two as I might be a little biased towards the other one, but I just didn’t feel like the relationship in this one was as passionate or as deep as it could have been. I feel like there could have been a little bit more emotion there. I also felt like, being the first book in a series about women suffragists falling in love, there could have been a little more focus on the suffragist part. Annabelle seems more involved in the movement in the second book where she is no longer a main character than she is in the book where she is the lead. However, these minor faults didn't stop me from enjoying this book immensely.
Despite my small peeves, it was an amazing book and I have high hopes for the rest of the series. I’m already rereading this book because it really is written very well and is captivating from start to finish and it's a great escape between long work days. The slight Beauty and the Beast crossed with Pride and Prejudice vibes made it very dear to my heart. I highly recommend this series if you’re looking for a good romance that actually has substance and a fantastic plot.