A review by ptstewart
The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn

4.0

The Viscount Who Loved Me reads like so many guilty pleasures read: romantic, sexy, a little stupid, and a little dramatic. Like others, it works and is fun for the main reason many average books work: it knows what it is. It is, admittedly, difficult to consider it without considering it in relation to the second season of Bridgerton, and while I stand firmly on the ground that TV shows and movies with literary source material ought to be treated as separate from the books themselves, I have to say that the tension in the show is an improvement from the book. Enemies to lovers is an excellent trope, but I’d personally like to them to yearn a bit more than the 40% point. Make ‘em beg! Make ‘em needy! This is especially true when the latter conflict is based on some relatively separate psychological trauma (the rainstorms) and some faulty logic on behalf of our male lead. The relative mundanity of the couple’s conflict post marriage tames the reader’s fire for the story considerably, which I note primarily because I have seen the source material ratcheted into something more tense, more desirable, and more attractive (sorry, I know that misogyny is time-period accurate, but TV Anthony being less so and then hand-over-heart declaring his love is far more attractive than the domineering book version).