🍷🍷🍷 .7 ARC #Review of Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

Title:  Bringing Down the Duke
Series:  League of Extraordinary Women #1
Author: Evie Dunmore
Format: Paperback/eBook, 368 pages
Expected publication: Sept 3 2019 by Berkley
ASIN: B07MCRLR6V 
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N
Source: First to Read
Reviewer: Kimberly
Rating: 3.7 out of 5 Wine Glasses

England, 1879. Annabelle Archer, the brilliant but destitute daughter of a country vicar, has earned herself a place among the first cohort of female students at the renowned University of Oxford. In return for her scholarship, she must support the rising women's suffrage movement. Her charge: recruit men of influence to champion their cause. Her target: Sebastian Devereux, the cold and calculating Duke of Montgomery who steers Britain's politics at the Queen's command. Her challenge: not to give in to the powerful attraction she can't deny for the man who opposes everything she stands for.

Sebastian is appalled to find a suffragist squad has infiltrated his ducal home, but the real threat is his impossible feelings for green-eyed beauty Annabelle. He is looking for a wife of equal standing to secure the legacy he has worked so hard to rebuild, not an outspoken commoner who could never be his duchess. But he wouldn't be the greatest strategist of the Kingdom if he couldn't claim this alluring bluestocking without the promise of a ring...or could he?

Locked in a battle with rising passion and a will matching her own, Annabelle will learn just what it takes to topple a duke....

Kimberly's Thought:
In 1870s Victorian England, Annabelle didn't have a lot options when her father dies and is forced to live with her cousin who treats her like help he doesn't have to pay. When a former friend of her father and professor from Oxford who she has been corresponding with offers a scholarship to their women's college, she works out a plan to attend. There she joins up with the National Society for Women's Suffrage, makes friends, see's a pathway to gaining any smidgen of freedom, and meets a Duke.
Having to take over the Dukedom at the age of nineteen, that his father did his best to gamble away, Sebastian has always felt the heavy weight of responsibility. The Queen has personally asked him to be strategic advisory for the Tory party and he never shirks his duties. When a suffragette boldly approaches him, she definitely catches his attention.
In a time where societal strictures are felt everywhere, Annabelle and Sebastian are going to have to decide what consequences they're willing to face to follow their hearts.

“Fortunately, an old spinster from the country should be quite safe from any scandals,” she said brightly, “even at Oxford.”

The first in the League of Extraordinary Women series and Evie Dunmore's debut, Bringing Down the Duke was a romantic but grounded historical romance. Annabelle's set-up could be any number of women's story from this time period and the consequences of her wanting to pursue her dreams and snatch any kind of freedom for herself are never far from her mind. Becoming friends with and joining the Suffragettes is dangerous for her but fighting to amend the Married Women's Act and wanting the right to vote is essential to the freedom she craves. I loved how the author kept Annabelle grounded in reality and while this kept the tone from being light and airy, it also gave the character and setting the gravitas it deserved; acknowledging the danger and societal norms they were pushing against only gives more feeling to what these women did. Annabelle was courageous with what seems like a simple act of handing out pamphlets (the author does a fantastic job of differentiating how the consequences were different for commoner Annabelle and her nobility friends) and wisely wary of what a relationship with a Duke would mean for her.

This was intimacy, knowing he could look this way. Very few people would ever see him like this, Montgomery the man, not the duke. How she wished he were only a man.

Due to Sebastian's background of given such a heavy burden at such a young age, he is more closed off. I would have liked a little more depth to his background to be seen on page, especially regards to his first wife (we get a little more much later on in the story) and more with his younger brother. He's a cool customer and we get glimpses at how strong his heart beats but I think he could have been fleshed out more.
Annabelle and Sebastian's relationship is more of a slow burn and given their positions and situations, this fits perfectly. The spark of attraction is there when their eyes meet but they're forced to do more of a reach for and retreat, which creates some great burning for. The very real obstacles of a Duke and a commoner having a relationship provided the angst and I loved how the author handled this with an authenticity that, I personally, feel has been missing from historical romances lately. It is the very reality that make this fairy tale romantic.

“Don’t,” he said hoarsely, “don’t throw away what we have just because you cannot have everything.”

Secondary characters like Annabelle's friends, Hattie, Lucie, and Catriona, Sebastian's brother Lord Devereux, a wicked Lord Ballentine, and a Queen Victoria, who reminds us not all women are part of the sisterhood, round out the story well. We will obviously see some of these secondary characters again (Lucie the leader of the suffragettes and the rakish Ballentine look to be next up) but the author did a good job giving us just enough to entice and not have them clog or steal from Annabelle and Sebastian's story.

She knew then that she would never be able to unsee him again.

I thought the first half had some shorter and choppier sentences that broke up some of the flow of the story, background depth was at times missing from the characters, and I thought it took too long to see and feel the heart of Sebastian. However, this felt truly grounded in a historical romance sense and Annabelle's struggles with following her heart, rather due to laws, consequences, or fear, will have you fighting the emotion back. This debut will definitely have me waiting in anticipation of the next in the series.