Review: Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore is a historical romance following a 25-year-old vicar's daughter, Annabelle, attending Oxford on a scholarship from a woman involved in the women's suffrage movement. The book focuses on her relationship with a Duke tasked by the Queen to help her interests win the next election in exchange for the ability to buy his family's Castle back from the man his father lost it to. This book covers the political oppression of women, both married and unmarried, the ways sexual politics left women completely to the whims of others, and the destabilizing nature of this. It is also a really well-written romance with excellent and hilarious side characters threaded through with history and commentary.

I really had the most excellent time reading this book. I have started the first chapter three or four times in the past but never progressed past until this round. Once I was on chapter two, I knew I had made a mistake in the past, and by chapter three, I knew I was going to read this book in every free moment I had until I finished it. I read it because I have been doing a historical romance experiment, and the results hadn't been great for me so far. I thought this book was a sure-fire way to turn that around and am delighted to say it was.

This book covers a lot of serious topics throughout, but it is also quite funny. I particularly liked Annabelle's suffragette friends for comic relief, but they were not the soul source of humor in these books. Hattie, an artistic daughter of a wealthy man and fellow Oxford blue-stocking, is a particular favorite of mine. I am a fan of romcoms, and if you also have that background and are thinking of reading a historical romance, I really think this is a good place to start.

The side plots in this book are really well done and very important to the character's emotional narratives. At times in some romance, it feels like the goings-on in the outside world aren't that important to the characters; they are there to flush them out, but they aren't always there to show or inspire character growth (which I don't think is always terrible, sometimes you can be swept away in just the one relationship and it not really matter), but this book very much does not do that. The central tenant of this book is that women's happiness and freedom should not be tied to the men in their lives. And the plot having both Annabelle and Sebastian have other things going on in their lives really assists this wonderfully.

I particularly loved the way Sebastian's relationship with his brother was handled. I will note that I thought the character might have been queer, but that reading was never explicitly validated by the text, and I would probably guess was not necessarily intended. But outside my own speculation, I still found this character very compelling, and I thought he was an excellent character to have in contrast to Sebastian while also being able to see the ways Sebastian has trouble with the appearance of impropriety and with expressing his emotions with everyone and not just with our heroine.

I really loved the way this book was able to discuss the practical and emotional impact of sexual politics at this time, and of course, some of this extends to the current day. The feminist core of this book very much discusses the way women are impacted publically and privately by being involved with any man how the whims of men can absolutely completely change the lives of women whom they will never see again. I also really liked the way Dunmore showed women in power opposed other women gaining basic human rights, the mental gymnastics that is required was so frustrating to read.

I really loved the romance in this book. I liked that it was very apparent that Sebastian thought Annabelle was a full person and particularly was interested in her intelligence. Sebastian was shown actively listening to Annabelle; he apologized to her, let her handle some of her own problems, and publically and privately found ways to support her. He does obviously have flaws, he has times where she objectively does the wrong things or a selfish thing, but his character growth in the story is great to read.

I also will just never get tired of reading a character who is emotionally guarded, making connections to other people's stories. Annabelle obviously has a relationship with the Duke, this is a romance novel, but she also gains a network of mostly women who she learns to rely on over the course of the book. It was really so much fun to read.

I am so ready to read the next book in this series quite shortly. I will read some other historical romance first, gotta keep on my experiment, but at least I know that Evie Dunmore is right up my alley.

I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads and The StoryGraph.