It’s In His Kiss by Julia Quinn
It’s a thrashy romance. And yes, I LOVE thrashy romances. They are needed at the end of a hard day at work, when your brain is tired out and only a quarter is functioning (so you can eat your dinner without dripping all over the place, so you can hold asinine, but not too asinine conversations with the family and friends, so you can conduct your private business without soiling yourself and the toilet - well you generally get the idea). So for relaxation/winding down purposes, thrashy romances are the best bet (right up there with watching Desperate Housewives - previous it was Sex & The City - or some over the top Korean drama seriels.)
Julin Quinn is among one of my more “favourite” thrashy romance novelists (favourite being used very loosely here, because I have quite a number of those). Her writing style, particularly in a number of books (not really this one) is quite quirky and comedic. Alas this book, which I believe is the 7th of her wildly popular Bridgerton series is way too formuliac for my liking, and after reading 368 pages, I still do not feel any affinity to the heroine, Hyacinth Bridgerton and Gareth St. Clair. As you can tell from their mouthful names, this is a historical romance set in the late 18th and early 19th century.
Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Bridgerton land, the Bridgertons according to Julia Quinn are a prominent family in the Ton headed by a matriarch Violet Bridgerton (widowed) who has 8 children (!!). These children are named in alphabetical order starting with Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory and lastly Hyacinth (whew!!). The ultimate wish of Violet is to have her children happily married off, and therefore this gives Quinn the excuse to write 8 different books (the last one being yet to be published story for Gregory). I myself have read 5 of those books including this one.
But there is really so much one can wring out from a series on a family before everything starts to grow old and weary, and rubbing my nerves the wrong way. There are certainly some “classic” romances, my favourite two being “The Duke & I” (Daphne’s story), and “Romancing Mr Bridgerton” (Colin’s story). “It’s In His Kiss” to me is not very inspired, and I can’t feel much chemistry between the two leads much as the author tries to convince me otherwise.
Go for this book only if you are a fan of Quinn and the Bridgertons (or like me, I just wanted to play it safe and not in the mood to try out a new author).
Rating: 2.5 boos out of 5
