I <3 benedict bridgerton

Did I skip all the other Bridgerton books in favor of reading this one to be ready for Season 4 of Bridgerton coming out soonish? Yes. Do I think I'll go back and read all the other ones to catch up? No. Do I particularly care? No! I have this thing where I only reread books I really really love and don't read books I've already seen the TV show or movie for but never originally read. I don't quite know why, but it's just what I do. I know that Benedict Bridgerton is my favorite character in the show and that I had plenty of time to start reading his book before the season aired if I started now. So I did! And I listened to it as an audiobook, which I highly recommend, seeing as the narrator has a fantastic accent and did a really good job of jumping back and forth between character voices and genders. All in all, I think the Cinderella storyline this book follows fits really well into the original fairytale as well as a Regency-era setting. I loved how Sophie's lineage and birth out of wedlock is explained at the very beginning, since the rest of the story really hinges on how she and Benedict cannot be socially accepted together because of it. I really liked how they have a "love at first sight" moment, but what I liked even more was how messy their relationship becomes. If you read or watch Bridgerton-adjacent content, you've got to except spice, and there was plenty of it here. I didn't expect Sophie to end up working in the Bridgerton household and be painfully close and far from Benedict at the same time, but I liked how it allowed the two of them to really fall in love without Benedict knowing that she's not the servant she seems. A lot of the characters (especially Violet Bridgerton) end up being onto her, what with her refined education, accent, and social skills, but the charade of her identity is kept up for long enough to be believed. I also really really liked that Benedict is able to realize Sophie is his mystery woman only once she has a blindfold on, covering half of her face. That's such a great way to resolve that conflict! But the conflict of him continually asking her to be his mistress was sooooo good, too. Sophie's wicked stepmother ended up being a more hateable villain than I imagined, especially when she has Sophie thrown into jail. Oh, my! My audiobook version also included a bonus epilogue that detailed the short but cute romance of Sophie's stepsister, Posey, which I thought was super cute and gave more of a glimpse into Benedict and Sophie's happily ever after. Overall, I was thoroughly entertained and can't wait to see how this particular story is adapted to the screen, seeing as they went out of order and gave Colin a season before Benedict. How Benedict's past relationships with men and women in the show's canon will affect his own personal season and relationship with Sophie is yet to be seen!



Some of my favorite quotes from An Offer from a Gentleman:

"I'm leaving!" she said, with, in her opinion, great drama and resolve.
But he just answered her with a sly half smile, and said, 'I'm following.'
And the bloody man remained two strides behind her the entire way home."

"I can live with you hating me," he said to the closed door.
"I just can't live without you."

"It was strange, to find a woman who could make him happy just with her mere presence. He didn’t even have to see her, or hear her voice, or even smell her scent. He just had to know that she was there."

"A man only got one shot at declaring himself to his true love; he didn't want to muck it up completely." 

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