Bridgerton: The Viscount who Loved Me, by Julia Quinn

It’s interesting how trashy tv can be so much more enjoyable than trashy novels. The novelty of the first Bridgerton novel wears off very quickly in book two, despite its appealing heroine. In a preamble to the second book, Quinn says she wants her readers to fall in love with the hero, but Anthony Bridgerton is not very loveable. In the first book Duke Simon has his faults, but he can be forgiven some because of his terrible childhood. The Viscount has no such excuses for his violence and arrogance. The inconsistencies of behaviour are really annoying - the Viscount previously triggered a duel to defend his sister’s honour, but behaves even worse himself. Incidental character Nigel Berbridge has apparently returned to being a harmless idiot, where he was previously portrayed as a predator ready to ruin a woman to force her into marriage. This loathsome and pathetic man gets more page time than many of the Bridgerton siblings, most of whom only get cameos and some don’t appear at all. The writing is sloppy, with misplaced adjectives and jarring timelines. All in all, book two does not encourage hanging in for the long haul of six more. Hopefully series 2 of the TV adaptation will do better.