It’s like they can be most fully themselves with each other, and that to me is always the necessary ingredient for a successful happily ever after. It's not just one instance, either - there's a constant underlying thread of how the Duke is so good and so honorable because unlike the other men of his station, he doesn't take advantage of his privilege (except when he does it, it's For Good), and I'm like. The whole suffragist cause takes a backseat to Annabelle's lust for this dude, but it gets worse: the entire cause seems to exist solely to make the Duke look good! 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.

additionally, although much of the story focuses on the social structure of victorian england and the politics that surround social positions, i was never bored. 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. Their backstory has elements of drama but are never overblown, or overwrought, and come out in the open naturally without being held onto until the last minute.Although low-born, her father and her maternal great-grandmother had ensured that she received a well-rounded education and I admire her determination to fulfil her dreams of going to Oxford.

So is the political gap: he is tasked with ensuring a Tory election victory and preserving the patriarchal establishment; she is a suffragist. I appreciate the attempt to craft a complex, compelling, and not entirely likable male character, but this ain't it. It certainly got me a little hot under the collar in parts, but I loved their emotional development as much as their romantic.In fact, Bringing Down the Duke seems to use its thin veneer of wokeness as an excuse to revel in gender essentialism .