This was a lot of fun. Even though the bee stuff is super ridiculous and convoluted, I was here for it. Kate was a great heroine, and I loved the dynamic between her and Edwina and her loving stepmother Mary. The banter here was great. And the Pall Mall game!

I came into this with low expectations, but ended up having a fun time. The banter was great and the characters felt like they had chemistry. I liked the little chapter headings with Lady Whistledown and all the society gossip. The fact that Daphne was so clueless about sex and babies was a little ridiculous though. I'm also just going to overlook the consent issues....

Another fun one - this one might be my favorite Bridgerton book so far. For some weird reason, this one is just a straight up retelling of Cinderella. But it was very fun and cute. The masquerade scene was everything I wanted from a Cinderella retelling. I like Sophie, and appreciate the time she and Benedict spent together at the cottage. We also go the fun wicked stepmother plot, and minor appearances of the other Bridgertons. Fun read.

This one was fine. Penelope was interesting enough to read about (if not a little dull sometimes) but Colin was a bit of a disappointment. I liked him in the previous books, but he was sort of annoying with his temper and his jealousy. And after the first act, the chemistry between the two just wasn’t there like I hoped. The stuff with Lady Danbury was fun and I love her even more now, but the larger Whistledown plot was also a bit lacking (maybe because I had already seen the first season of the show).

So I wasn’t a fan of Sir Phillip right from the prologue - he admits he never loved his wife who was obviously suffering from depression (and tried to kill herself) and he clearly didn’t know anything about her or their two children. I tried to keep an open mind but realized it wasn’t going to get better and basically just ended up hate reading this.

After his wife dies, Sir Phillip immediately decides he needs a new wife - “almost any wife would do” - because he doesn’t want to deal with his own children. So he proposes to Eloise by letter without ever having met her, since he assumes she’s a desperate spinster who will take anything and will raise his kids for him. She comes to visit and she thinks he’s super sexy even though he’s a recluse who is super controlling and has anger issues and neglects his children (who he conveniently forget to even mention during their year of correspondence) and doesn’t want to hear her talking. What girl wouldn’t swoon?? He also then basically admits to raping his first wife who he didn't love (though he didn’t tell her that part, I guess). (No wonder the first wife was miserable!)

So because Eloise has no sense and went to his house without a chaperone, Sir Phillip and Eloise are forced to get married and she’s stuck watching his children. Really, my estimation of Eloise completely tanked after this book. (I guess I was right to be annoyed with her for being shocked that someone would propose to Penelope…) Her big flaw is falling for Sir Phillip - despite the hundreds of red flags because he is THE WORST. But she also she bends over backwards to accommodate whatever he wants even when he’s absolutely in the wrong. I couldn’t handle her whole attitude and how she dealt with the kids. She basically dared them to play tricks on her, and then was surprised when they placed a trip wire in the hall! And for all her talk about growing up with 4 brothers and knowing how to handle herself, the kids totally won every encounter! Still I didn’t care for the kids or any of the scenes with the kids, which should have been the redeeming point of this book. But they were just kind of annoying.

Also I’ll note that the little excerpts at the beginning of the chapters just don’t hit the same as the Whistledown openers.

After the last couple duds, I probably wouldn’t have continued with the series except that these came in a 3-pack so I already had this one. But this one was as good as the first few Bridgerton novels. And I appreciated that Francesca was a widow since it broke the normal Bridgerton formula (i.e., the woman is always a naive virgin and he's always a reformed rake) (well, he's still a rake in this one but at least she's not a virgin). We also spend about half the book in Scotland, which is a nice change from the Ton. It was nice to finally get to know Francesca, and Michael is one of the least toxic male leads we've seen so far (though he's still a little toxic...). This one is probably the best title too. It was a fun, quick read! I'll probably read the last couple of siblings at least just to finish out the series.

This one might be my favorite in the series so far. Admittedly it has the same exact formula as every other Bridgerton novel, and Hyacinth and Gareth are pretty similar to every other couple so far (she's witty and opinionated but innocent, he's a rake with daddy issues) but this one has done it the best. I liked the banter between the two leads and Gareth had the added bonus of being Lady Danbury’s grandson, so we got to see more of her and she's fantastic. And they actually had something to do - the plot line with the jewels was fun! (Just why does the main guy have to be named Gareth? That’s such an unsexy name. Also this is the worst title! "It's in his kiss" ? Bleh)

I liked this one. It doesn’t really stand out from the pack of Bridgerton books though. Gregory and Lucy were fine and had good banter, but they were a bit indistinguishable from all the other couples. Nothing was particularly egregious or particularly fun and exciting. It was a bit formulaic - basically what you would except if you took all of the other seven and averaged them out. But I did enjo this one. And I’m excited to be done with the series too, which I liked overall.