Bringing Down the Duke

Starred review from June 17, 2019
A bright, penniless suffragette in Victorian-era England melts the heart of a notoriously icy duke in this delightful romance. Annabelle Archer is granted a scholarship by the National Society for Women’s Suffrage to become one of the first women to study at Oxford University. In exchange, she’s required to publicly support their cause. When she brazenly offers a political pamphlet to the Duke of Montgomery, it is just the first of many times that she shocks him with her brains and courage. Montgomery is obsessed with getting back the castle his father gambled away and is willing to sell out his own ideals and work with the Tory Party if it will get the queen to grant his request. He is entirely unprepared for a beautiful, radical woman to derail his mission. But when Annabelle finds herself ill and snowed in at Montgomery’s home, the pair discover they are more compatible—politically, emotionally, and physically—than either would have believed. Despite their mounting passion, their disparate circumstances make a relationship impossible, but they set out to find a way to make it work. Charming, sexy, and thoroughly transportive, this is historical romance done right. Agent: Kevan Lyon, Marsal Lyon Literary.

Narrator Elizabeth Jasicki depicts a romance between a suffragist at Oxford and a powerful duke that shows why the political is always personal. Anabelle Archer is a brilliant scholar who has managed to secure a place in the first class of women at Oxford. Jasicki does a wonderful job portraying Annabelle's constant frustration with the various limitations and restrictions placed on her by society. The Duke of Montgomery has no such constraints placed on him, of course. He merely chafes at familial responsibilities. Jasicki perfectly captures his annoyance at being thwarted by such seeming trivialities. Overall, Jasicki's narration is excellent, but the wide power imbalance between Annabelle and the duke may hinder this story from being enjoyed by all. K.M.P. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine