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Evie Dunmore’s Bringing Down the Duke is the first book in the A League of Extraordinary Women series, and is a very strong début from someone who promises to add a much-needed fresh voice to historical romance. The writing is sharp and clear, and displays a really good sense of time and place; the characters feel true for the time period, and I was particularly impressed by the heroine, who is forward-thinking and progressive without being one of those contrary-for-the-sake-of-it, look-at-how-unconventional-I-am types who annoy the crap out of me.
Annabelle Archer has lived under the roof of her cousin, a country clergyman, since the death of her parents. She’s an unpaid skivvy; she keeps house, looks after his children and endures his continual complaints about the fact that her father over-educated her – why on earth would a woman need an education? So when Annabelle is offered a place at Lady Margaret Hall (in 1878, LMH was the first Oxford college to open its doors to women) he’s far from pleased, but when she says she’ll fund the cost of a replacement housekeeper (somehow), he begrudgingly allows her to go.
Some months later, we find Annabelle in London with a group of her friends, like-minded young women who, under the leadership of Lady Lucie, secretary of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, are planning to approach various men of influence with a view to getting them to support changes to the Married Women’s Property Act. The strategy – identify a man of influence, approach him firmly, but with a smile, and deliver a pamphlet boldly declaring The Married Women’s Property Act makes a slave of every wife! – isn’t difficult to grasp, but at this period, just walking up to a gentleman unannounced and unchaperoned wasn’t the done thing and could lead to worse things than a refusal to listen. Annabelle is understandably nervous, but nonetheless determined to do her bit when she notices a man who appears to be exactly the sort of man of influence she needs to approach.
Sebastian Devereux, thirteenth Duke of Montgomery, is one of the most powerful and respected men in England. He has a reputation for being cold and severe, and devotes most of his time to the running of his numerous estates and is particularly concerned at present with regaining possession of his family seat, Castle Montgomery, which his profligate father lost in a card game. The Queen (who was, sadly, one of the biggest opponents of female emancipation) promises her support for his cause if he will take on the role of chief strategic advisor for the Tory party in the upcoming election – a job he doesn’t have either the time or the inclination to perform. But he can’t refuse what is tantamount to a royal command.
When news of his new appointment reaches Lady Lucie’s ears, she realises a change of strategy is required, and that she needs to know more about the duke. To his end, she hatches a plan whereby she, Annabelle and a couple of other ladies will be invited to the house party being held at Claremont, the duke’s country home, with a view to finding out as much about the duke as they can in the attempt to ‘know thine enemy’.
Of course, the house party offers the chance for Sebastian and Annabelle to meet again, and to get to know each other. The spark both felt at their initial meeting really flares to life, and the author does a fantastic job building their romance in a believable manner that enables them to stay true to themselves. Their conversations and interactions are delightful; their flirtations via philosophical discussions and the way Sebastian shows the degree to which he really sees Annabelle through his selection of books for her are completely swoonworthy, and the longing they feel for one another is palpable.
Their romance is a delicious slow-burn, which fits their characters and situations perfectly. Both of them are well aware of the difficulties which lie in the path of a relationship between a duke and a commoner, and unlike so much historical romance, which just sweeps those things under the carpet, the author handles this aspect of the story in a way that feels completely authentic for the period. That said, however, I really don’t like that whole ‘I can’t marry you because I love you too much to ruin you’ thing, which I always feel is one character accusing the other of not knowing his or her own mind – and it’s one of the reasons I couldn’t quite push this up into the DIK bracket. Annabelle’s insistence on self-sacrifice felt out of character and also left Sebastian to do all the hard work while she did nothing to fight for what she wanted. I also felt Sebastian to be somewhat underdeveloped as a character, especially compared to Annabelle, and there are a few places where the pacing is a little off; the circling around one particular issue goes on a little too long, and there are a few plot points (notably one concerning Annabelle’s romantic past) that are under-explored.
On the surface, Bringing Down the Duke is nothing we haven’t seen before – uptight-duty-bound-hero-meets-unconventional-young-woman-who-gets-him-to-loosen-up-a-bit is a well-used plotline. Here though, the author breathes fresh life into the trope by giving her principals a real depth of character that’s been lacking in so many of the historical romances I’ve read lately. Annabelle is fully aware that her pursuit of an education and personal freedom, together with her espousal of the cause of women’s suffrage could have serious consequences for her, but these things are terribly important to her and she’s prepared to fight for them. She’s not loud or flashy (in the manner of Lady Lucie) but she’s no less committed, and her quiet determination adds weight and seriousness to her character and keeps the tone of the story grounded in reality. She’s a different sort of heroine just as Sebastian is a different sort of hero; he isn’t a cold, ruthless man with daddy issues, he’s a man genuinely dedicated to doing the best he can for those he cares for, and there’s the real sense that his association with Annabelle is gradually changing him because she’s opening his eyes to things he hadn’t previously seen or considered. Sebastian and Annabelle’s pasts inform their characters, but they also act according to their own lights and carve their own individuality separately from their upbringings and circumstances.
I can’t finish this review without mentioning the (horrible) cover. It appears to be yet another attempt by the marketing folks at persuading potential readers that they won’t get infected by those nasty romance cooties if they read this book in much the same way so many contemporaries (Fix Her Up, The Hating Game, The Right Swipe etc.) are doing at the moment. I confess that I’m not a huge fan of the dress-falling-off-half-naked-clinch covers either, but this one looks like something daubed in a kid’s finger painting class!
So don’t judge this book by its cover – or its title, which doesn’t make much sense either. Bringing Down the Duke is an impressive début novel that’s firmly grounded in its historical setting and manages to offer some insightful social comment without bashing the reader over the head with it. The writing is intelligent and accomplished, the central characters are engaging and three-dimensional, and the romance is sensual and tender. I’m looking forward to reading more by Evie Dunmore.
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Grade: B+
Book Type: Historical Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 03/09/19
Publication Date: 09/2019
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Related Reviews
OK, then.
It’s good, no, to be open to the ideas of other people, isn’t it? Still true in this time?
However if you can’t do that, consider exiting the trite outrage. All your righteous shouting makes us plug our ears.
I read romance for fun. This book sounds fun.
Reviews like this are a bonus for us who have better things to do than obsess over microaggressions. Thank you AAR.
I’m reading this now…. gave up on Kerrigan Byrne’s latest…. and I think the somewhat contemporary cover is a nod to the fact that the author uses words like MORPHED and REPURPOSED in a novel that’s supposed to take place in 1878.
I’m not versed enough in 19th century England to recognize anachronisms like wrong-period furniture or clothing–faux pas that drive other readers crazy, quite justifiably–but for criminy sakes, could authors please stop using these modern words in historical fiction? Or do authors really think these words were used 100+ years ago?
I mean, what’s next? “Lord Arthur looked like a mashup of the Duke’s cousin and a Saint Bernard”? “Lady Celeste shuddered at the budding bromance between her brother and the nefarious rake Lord Hellrick”?
I don’t expect writers to know every little nuance of the English language as spoken during the Regency or other past eras. But this kind of sloppiness totally takes me out of the story. As you can see. :-)
OK–that cracked me up.
Okay, so now I’ve finished laughing … HR is in a coma on life-support at the moment, barely hanging on. This is one of the better ones I’ve read lately (although that’s not saying much given the generally poor quality of the HR published over the last 2-3 years), but I agree that modernisms do jar.
I loved this book too and didn’t mind the underdevelopment of the secondary characters. It gives them room to breath when they get their own books. As a mom, I kind of loved how much Annabelle enjoyed being able to sleep in her own bed. :) There were lots of little details that felt real and kept me interested in the characters, like when Sebastian finds out Annabelle is undernourished and exhausted. And when Jenkins realizes, too.
I am kind of put off by the trope (usually in historical romance) of the MCs being EXTRAORDINARY. They can do ALL the things SO WELL. I had that problem with Tempest, by Beverly Jenkins and maybe another book in that series. So when I read that the title of this series is A League of Extraordinary Women, I kept my expectations low. But in the end, I thought that the women’s extraordinariness wasn’t too over the top and is more like Lucie says, they don’t quite fit in, but they’re cool people.
I loved this book, and it is definitely going to feature on my Best Books of the Year list. I thought the protagonists were complex and fascinating people, individually and together. The pacing of the book worked for me as well how it builds and slackens for detailed work, and then builds again. The roles the two play where he has to make the biggest decisions as the person who has much more to lose versus her as a commoner playing a more passive role also worked for me. I don’t need them to be equal in all respects all the time, just that overall, they are equals. In fact, that play of power dynamics makes the book fascinating.
I enjoyed this book more than any HR I’ve read all year. Yeah, it’s not perfect but it’s a delight to read and the leads seem like real people with real hard to solve problems. I’d give it an A-.
Definitely the best m/f HR I’ve read this year so far (and is likely to remain so, looking at the offerings for the rest of 2019).
Sorry I misread a comment when I was tired late yesterday evening.
Hi Caz
I have bought this on the basis of your review although I have not started reading it yet. I did however see in one of the comments on Amazon that Evie Dunmore is a pseudonym for Eva Leigh whose books you have in general revived very favourably.
Like a previous commenter you have pointed me in the direction of several authors with whom I was previously unfamiliar and whose works I generally now follow. Many thanks for this and for your very honest and comprehensive reviews.
Wow? I hadn’t heard that! Anyone know if that’s true?
I can’t find any reference on Amazon, and everything else – author picture, blurb – points to this as a debut from a new author. I’m doubtful re: this rumor.
I’m pretty sure she’s not Eva Leigh (who is Zoe Archer) – there’s a massive quote from Leigh about Dunmore being “the future of historical romance” on the book cover, and I doubt the publisher would be dumb enough to use that if they were the same person! (Although maybe I’m being overly naive there!) Also – I’m not 100% but I’m sure I’ve read that ED is British, and EL/ZA isn’t.
(And – Aw Shucks… thanks for the kind words :) )
Hi everyone,
Just to clear it up, I am NOT Evie Dunmore. I was asked to give her a blurb, and so I provided one after reading a bound galley.
I was sure that rumour wasn’t true (I admit I hadn’t heard it before), but thank you for setting the record straight.
I’m not a fan of the ‘cartoon covers’ either. They look juvenile and as if they are bad comedies. I adore the lush gowns and tumbling hair of most HR covers, whether or not the dresses are falling off. A half naked manly chest also has it’s appeal. But why not have covers of real people in action…riding horses, running, dancing, etc.?
I am looking forward to reading this, based on the review by Caz. It may not be perfect, but really top notch HRs are hard to come by right now. So I’ll give it a chance!
It’s not perfect by any means, but is a lot better than the majority of the HRs I’ve read over the last couple of years, definitely.
I don’t mind the cover either as it is a nice change from the ad nauseam covers featuring unlaced gowns and shirtless men. HR covers have been the same since 1980s. I have become desensitized to any provocation they offer. We at AAR judge books by the reviews and the reviewers.
I’ll be reading this later in the month but great review here.. I don’t mind the cover, though I do like the UK font better. I suppose I’m often bemused by why clothes falling off women is supposed to symbolize romance, and so perhaps the new covers are a different interpretation of romance. I don’t at all mind illustrated versus live models either, though this cover does convey humor to me, as in a romantic comedy.
I wouldn’t mind if this became the new standard for romance. It’s not, to me, “better” or “worse” than a clinch; it’s just different. What I mind is that right now, things are so muddled that they aren’t a standard for anything – they’re generic “for women, but not Literature” covers. A mystery? A romantic comedy? Chick lit? Who knows?
A book that bit me with its cartoon cover was Abby Jimenez’s The Friend Zone. It’s not a bad work of women’s fiction or chick lit – but it wasn’t a romance, and I couldn’t know that without reading it (since I was an early reader of course) or going online and spoiling it.
I also dislike the clothes-falling-off covers, but I always think the cartoon covers look like a children’s book. I wish they’d go back a ways to the image or scenic covers.
I like images and scenic covers too. I don’t mind cartoonish covers if the book is a comedy. The Hating Game cover, for instance, always worked for me, but if the book had not been comedic, it would have been felt strange. I know this was discussed when Tessa Bailey’s Fix Her Up was published, but that illustrated cartoon cover was greatly disconnected from what really read more like erotica. That cover was a total head-scratcher for me.
Man, almost everyone I know agrees this is a B-level read. A shame, but also a promise!
I’ve seen lots of rave reviews – but although it’s very good, the final third is a bit weak. Still, here’s hoping the only way is up!
A lot of folks I know are dunning it for the villain and for the secondary characters being shallow as well. Indeed! And hope is real!
I had problems with it but I’m still optimistic about the series. I’ll be back for the next one!
It verges to an A- for me.
I’m gonna see how I feel about it when I have time to read my copy!
Sorry Katherine, put this in the wrong section. Liked your thoughts too and agree re big thanks to Caz for all the excellent book recommendations
Hi Caz, the costume museum and assembly rooms are both great. Not historical as such but have you been to the thermal spa? The rooftop pool has amazing views over the city and it’s in a very historical part of town. The views from the Bath skyline and Alexandra Park are excellent on a clear day. Bathampton is a village on the edge of Bath by the canal and is very picturesque with a lovely pub called The George. Back in Bath a new bar called the Botanist has opened in a 18th century former chapel called The Octagon. It’s had really good reviews. I guess you have already done the circle and crescent? If you haven’t the museum No1 Royal Crescent is really interesting. Finally you can go on tours of the original Theatre Royal which is now a Masonic hall. It’s a fascinating building as you can see the old stage and furnishings in amongst the Masonic symbolism. Hope you have a great time :)
I’m jetlagged, so I started this book at 4 am this morning and wrapped up a few hours later. I loved the first two-thirds – strong writing, believable conflict between the two principal characters, interesting history wrapped into the plot. The last third was weaker. It felt like too many rounds of will they/won’t they, and I agree with Caz that too much of the work/emotional re-evaluation fell on Sebastian while Annabelle seemed locked in place in her “this can never work” mindset. Still, overall, I really liked this and will probably re-read at some point. The chemistry between the two is fantastic and the slow burn is delicious. As for the cover, I don’t love it but I also very much dislike the bodice-ripper covers, so eh.
On another note, as a very new commenter/longer-term reader, I just want to say thank you to Caz for pointing me to so many books I’ve loved over the past year. At this point I just assume I’ll like anything she did, which makes for some very efficient reading decisions. :)
Hi Caz what have you got planned for your visit to Bath? Is it your first time visiting?
I used to travel to Bath a few times a year for my job (and I almost went to University there many years ago!), so although I wouldn’t say I know it especially well, I’m vaguely familiar with it.. My eldest daughter, who is studying history at Uni, and I were there a few years ago – after she’d finished her GCSEs – and she loves it, especially the costume museum, so I doubt I’ll get her out of there by closing time! We probably won’t got to the Baths as we went that time, and are planning to visit Laycock Abbey and a couple of other places outside Bath as well. Any must-sees you can recommend?
What about Avebury, West Kennet Long Barrow and Silbury Hill? Or Wells Cathedral? Claverton Manor and the American Museum and Gardens? And I expect you have been to No 1 The Royal Crescent? Best long weekend my husband and I ever had was 2 nights at The Royal Crescent Hotel. What an experience.
We’ve only got three days, and Cazlet#1 wants to go to Longleat, so that’s one day taken up. I suggested Wells – I haven’t been there for years, so that’s an option. I’ll look into Claverton Manor though – thanks!
Longleat is a bit of a tourist trap. You might be disappointed.
I went there when I was a kid and can’t remember much about it tbh. We’re only doing the house and gardens and she’s keen to go, so…
I found my footing in Romancelandia via Caz’s insightful, accurate reviews too. She has great taste & I’m fortunate to also count her as a friend. Better than I deserve. Lucky us!
I – MAYBE – wouldn’t mind the cover so much if it wasn’t coming in the middle of this move towards illustrated covers that seem designed to try to disguse the fact that it, and the others I’ve mentioned are romance novels.
I’ll definitely be picking up future books by this author; this is a really strong start and while I couldn’t qutie push it to a DIK, if Evie Dunmore has started as she means to go on, we have some excellent HR to look forward to. THANK GOD. (It’s about time!)
And thank you for the kind words about my reviews – it’s always nice to know that people can make sense of my ramblings and manage to find some good books to read as a result :)
I loved this HR and it’s a DIK from me. Excellent review and totally agree about the horrific cover.
BTW The Bridgertons is currently being filmed in my home town (Bath – a Georgian world heritage city in the UK). It’s very exciting!!
I’ll be in Bath in a couple of days! I saw a notice posted on a website of one of the houses I want to visit saying there has been filming going on over the past couple of weekends – although I think it’ll be finished by the time I get there.
You liked this more than I did – but I think we felt similarly about what worked and didn’t work. But I noticed you don’t mention much about the secondary characters in this one?
…and this is where I felt the author lost her way. To a person, they felt like underdeveloped archetypes of people the author wanted in her book: the quirky artist, the profligate younger brother, the shy, spinsterish ‘quiet,’ friend, the greedy/lame uncle-guardian, the distracted/laser sharp professor…they spoiled my pleasure in the book by how poorly they were used in this story. I was so distracted by their random – convenient – appearance, I’d lose sight of the lovely principal couple.
And I LOVE THE COVER. Ha! Although it doesn’t really work in the context of the story. WHY IS THE HORSE BLUE???
Quite honestly, I just didn’t have the space to talk about the secondary characters, although I do agree with you they were underdeveloped (and I can’t remember much about any of them!).
Thank you for this review. “…firmly grounded in its historical setting and manages to offer some insightful social comment without bashing the reader over the head with it”? Just my cup of tea! And thank you also for the warning about the cover. If I had seen it with no notice about the book inside, I would never have touched it.
The cover for the UK version has been toned down a bit, and although the image is the same (the blue horse!) the typeface says “historical romance” much more than the one used on the US cover does.
