Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

Oh this was ever so good!

Annabelle was a fantastic character, she was so complex and wasn’t at all the usual heroine we get in historical romance. I found the information around the first women of Oxford to be incredibly interesting, and gave such depth to this romance. Once Sebastian stopped being a blockhead, I was super invested in their romance, but I was also really invested in these women who were beginning a journey that would give the women of the future basic rights. I was so proud of these fictional women, and I’m half in love with them all!

Annabelle’s backstory wasn’t that of the usual virginal and chaste historical romance heroine, she also isn’t a lady. She is a common woman who has been through some shit. She and Sebastian’s HEA honestly felt impossible for most of the book. It actually would have been impossible had Sebastian not been willing to give up everything he thought was important. This was my favourite thing in this book, typically we see women sacrifice their dreams for men so that they can get their romantic HEA, especially in historical romances. Not the case here. Here we have a man willing to throw everything he fought for after his father left his family in ruins away! And not only that, this man who had an idea of how women should function in society CHANGED HIS MIND because he listened to women! Mad stuff!!!

I intensely disliked Sebastian at the start of this book, actually I think I disliked him for about 60% of the book. The way he treated people, his brother and Annabella in particular, enraged me. It also made that redemption arc all the sweeter for me! I do love a man who can do good grovel. And he deserved to grovel as much as he did, but Annabella was stronger than I because I wanted her to forgive him much sooner! 😀

A great read and can’t wait to read the next three books! They really are ‘A League of Extraordinary Women’!

Synopsis:

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….