The blurb:
Sophie Beckett never dreamed she'd be able to sneak into Lady Bridgerton's famed masquerade ball—or that "Prince Charming" would be waiting there for her! Though the daughter of an earl, Sophie has been relegated to the role of servant by her disdainful stepmother. But now, spinning in the strong arms of the debonair and devastatingly handsome Benedict Bridgerton, she feels like royalty. Alas, she knows all enchantments must end when the clock strikes midnight.
Ever since that magical night, a radiant vision in silver has blinded Benedict to the attractions of any other — except, perhaps, this alluring and oddly familiar beauty dressed in housemaid's garb whom he feels compelled to rescue from a most disagreeable situation. He has sworn to find and wed his mystery miss, but this breathtaking maid makes him weak with wanting her. Yet, if he offers her his heart, will Benedict sacrifice his only chance for a fairy tale love?
Cinderella meets Bridgerton! Well, in the first part at least.
I enjoyed this one more than The Viscount Who Loved Me — the humour in that felt just a bit too slapstick, but it gets hauled back a bit in this one.
Benedict and Sophie meet in true Cinderella fashion and, for years, he holds up the vision of the woman he danced with that night as his ideal. When he meets Sophie again several years later, she's different enough to excuse him not recognising her, and there are reasons given for her not telling him who she is, mostly that she had no idea how big an impact she had on him, and had no idea he'd been searching for her.
On the plus side, more Bridgerton family interaction, which is always fun — it feels like a real, lively, large family, loving bickering and all. And, because Sophie moves in with the Bridgertons for a while, we get to see more of it up close.
Less positively: there's a common thing in those romance novels that annoy me, that so many of the complications that arise and must be overcome could be overcome in about one-quarter the time if only people would bloody talk with one another. This book dips a little into that, which did twang my annoyance nerve a little (the previous two have avoided that) — but the nature of the lack of communication twanged my sexual harassment nerve a lot harder. Benedict's 'solution' to the difference between his and Sophie's social standing is to repeatedly pressure her into becoming his mistress. Even when he knows that she's illegitimate, that it made her life much harder (even if he didn't know details), and that she does not want to be put in the same position as her mother, he keeps pressing and pressing her, to the point that she feels it necessary to flee the nicest place she's ever been in her adult life.
There's no excuse for it. It feels out of character for any Bridgerton too; they've been raised with better manners than that. Benedict may be the family Bohemian, but he's not a blockhead, he should be able to see how deeply uncomfortable his pressure is making Sophie and back off.
The pall of that kind of hangs over the novel, honestly. If he'd made the offer once and then let it lie, told her that he'd find her a place in his mother's household and any encounters after that had been consensual (which they were), that would have been a vast improvement.
Overall, I liked the Cinderella motif, and the peril Sophie faces feel real, down to transportation for minor crimes. I liked the interaction between Sophie and the Bridgertons, and the way Violet rides to the rescue — with her on your side, you can do anything.
Started: 9 March 2025
Finished: 10 March 2025
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