Quinn Debut for Fiona...

**Warning-Fangirl admiration ahead! Nothing I could do to stop it…sorry!*

Romancing Mister Bridgerton by Julia Quinn

Foudroyant/A

Romancing Mister Bridgerton is my debut read by author Julia Quinn. I have spent the last three years getting married, starting a new job and moving to a new city and I’m just getting back into my full-fledged reading ways. I tend to steer clear of new releases. I have a good 30 years worth of romances that I've barely touched, so I prefer to scan the sites and read reviews and find good authors with good books and read their novels exhaustively. Ms. Quinn’s Bridgerton series deserves all of the hype that it has attained in the last few years. Her series is fresh, her characters witty and her plot lines, while sometimes tried-and-true, are still stirring, inspiring reads.

Penelope Featherington has secretly adored her best friend's brother for... well, it feels like forever. After half a lifetime of watching Colin Bridgerton from afar, she thinks she knows everything about him, until she stumbles across his deepest secret... and fears she doesn't know him at all.

Colin Bridgerton is tired of being thought nothing but an empty-headed charmer, tired of the neverending sameness of his life, and, most of all, tired of everyone's preoccupation with the notorious gossip columnist Lady Whistledown, who can't seem to publish an edition without mentioning him in the first paragraph. But when Colin returns to London from a trip abroad, he discovers nothing in his life is quite the same -- especially Penelope Featherington! The girl who was always simply... THERE is suddenly the girl haunting his dreams. But when he discovers that Penelope has secrets of her own, this elusive bachelor must decide... is she his biggest threat -- or his promise of a happy ending?

Penelope: I like that Penelope is a wallflower. I like that Penelope speaks her mind and has moved somewhat past a strict adherence for ‘the rules’ and asks for the things she wants. She is a heroine with just enough spunk to make you go “Yeah!”

Colin: Colin is a beta male hiding in an alpha male's clothes. He has the charm and wit to reel you in, but not too much to turn you off. On the flip side, he is bad-ass and rake enough to keep you from rolling your eyes once he melts for Penelope.

TBS: The driving force for RMB is ‘the big secret.’ Where we have seen this plot device before, Ms. Quinn does a good job of giving her reader enough credit to figure it out fairly early into the book, but withholding enough information that you still “have to hear her say it!” Bravo, Ms. Quinn, bravo.

The flibbertigibbet: Quinn’s use of Lady Whistledown to drive the plot is a nice break from the ordinary. Instead of providing her readers with paragraphs of background information for us to skim, she provides insight to the scene and the characters through Lady Whistledown. Her gossip papers are fun, light-hearted and ever so insightful.

Eloise and others: Quinn uses the Bridgerton siblings in her novels only when they add to the plot and enhance the story. These secondary characters never feel forced or out of place and her over-laying of story lines from other books makes a series junkie like me just wanna squeal!

For more information on Julia Quinn, visit her website at juliaquinn.com

*foudroyant-thundering; dazzling
*flibbertigibbet-gossipy person

...Fiona...