Bringing Down the Duke Book Review

 Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

2019

Historical Fiction, Romance

Be prepared because I… ABSOLUTELY ADORED Bringing Down the Duke. It’s been so long since I’ve read a book that consumes all of my thoughts in the way this book has.

Bringing Down the Duke follows Annabelle, a feminist and university student in the late nineteenth century as she struggles with her role as a woman in British society and her attraction to a conservative duke.

I’m a history minor, and at the same time I started this book, my class was discussing expectations for Victorian women, bourgeois ideals, class differences, the “new woman”, and women’s suffrage. This background gave me an even larger appreciation for how Dunmore nailed the time period, with some plot points being directly connected to primary documents from the nineteenth century.

The impeccable dedication to the historical setting combined with the plot itself was so much fun to read. The suffrage subplot and other feminist plot points never fell in the background as the characters fall in love. While there’s lots of fun banter and ‘will they/won’t they’ moments, Bringing Down the Duke is well balanced, as feminist struggles from the period are woven into character motivations and actions.

I love books that have feminist themes and feminist characters, which I think is way rarer in mainstream books that it should be. Even when I do find feminist books, they’re rarely historical or in the romance genre, which is why I think I appreciated Bringing Down the Duke so much. Annabelle is truly a headstrong character. She knows what she wants so she does what she can do to achieve it.

On that note, all the characters were amazingly developed and I never felt like they fell flat. Even though the characters still hit the stereotypes of the romance genre like “he gets what he wants” and “she’s utterly stubborn,” the stereotypes created an interesting dynamic between the characters while still feeling like real people. I equally loved Lucie, Catriona and all of the other fun, incredibly supportive side characters, who I recently learned we get to meet in future books!

Rating 5/5: I loved this Bringing Down the Duke so much. It gave me all the *feels* and I truly would have read this in one day if I didn't have school commitments.

I’ll end this review with one of my favourite lines of the book:

“And why do I have to beg a man to please make it his interest that I, too, may vote on the laws that govern my life everyday.” (p. 201)