Oh, yes. Reading mojo is back. These little Bridgerton books are truly a gift for my mind at this particular time. Hopefully they are priming the well for the deeper and lengthier books in my TBR, but for now they are just what I needed to calm myself down a bit; a little escape from hand-wringing and doom scrolling.
This second installment in the Bridgerton Family series concentrates on the eldest unmarried son and current head of the household, Anthony. Dutiful to a tee, he knows that he must marry, produce an heir and carry on the family name. Witnessing his father’s untimely death, however, has convinced Anthony that he will suffer the same fate. Marriage is an imperative but why bother falling in love if it will only be stripped away too soon?
Determined to find the “perfect” match that will offer everything but the danger of falling in love, he sets his eye on the prettiest eligible girl of the season, Edwina, who checks all the boxes minus the heart shaped one. While Edwina may be captivated by Anthony’s striking looks and charm, her older half-sister, Kate, is not, and Edwina has sworn to only marry someone that Kate approves of. Thus the battle of wills between Anthony and Kate begins and sparks fly. Hence, the tangle.
Like The Duke and I, the plot synopsis seems like a pretty straight forward Regency romance, but there is more going on underneath the surface. Both Anthony and Kate are haunted by the death of a parent while also carrying the expectations of being the strong elder sibling. This one gets pretty dark and while it deals with a lot of the same theming as the first installment in the series, it goes a little deeper. Where The Duke and I set the stage for all of the characters in the Bridgeton world, The Viscount Who Loved Me has more room to concentrate on already established characters and relationships. While I enjoyed Simon and Daphne in the first book, I was more invested in Kate and Anthony here.
Now, on to number 3! (Who am I kidding. Actually I started it immediately after dropping this one on the bedside table at midnight last night. See! Reading mojo is back!)