The blurb:
Penelope Featherington has secretly adored her best friend’s brother for . . . well, it feels like forever. After half a lifetime of watching Colin Bridgerton from afar, she thinks she knows everything about him, until she stumbles across his deepest secret . . . and fears she doesn’t know him at all.
Colin Bridgerton is tired of being thought of as nothing but an empty-headed charmer, tired of the notorious gossip columnist Lady Whistledown, who can’t seem to publish an edition without mentioning him. But when Colin returns to London from a trip abroad, he discovers nothing in his life is quite the same — especially Penelope Featherington! The girl who was always simply there is suddenly the girl haunting his dreams. When he discovers that Penelope has secrets of her own, this elusive bachelor must decide...is she his biggest threat — or his promise of a happy ending?
If The Viscount Who Loved Me was the 'enemies to lovers' trope, Romancing Mister Bridgerton is the opposite, the 'friends to lovers' trope, with a little Ugly Duckling thrown in. Penelope and Colin have known each other forever, and Penelope has loved Colin for about that long, but he's only ever regarded her as a friend. Now, when all hope of Penelope ever finding love seems lost — she's 28 by this time, and has begun being treated as a spinster — Things Happen and suddenly Colin realises that, actually, Penelope is far more clever, witty, fun and loveable than he ever realised.
It's a fun, fluffy romance — but inevitably it runs into issues with misogyny, because it's set in a period where a woman of Penelope's class was expected to be decorative and able to run a household, but not much more. Penelope is, thanks to her eleven years of writing London's hottest item, independently very wealthy, with thousands of pounds in the bank (this after a little financial sleight of hand giving her mother a pretty substantial 'inheritance'). She could support herself in comfort for the rest of her life. But she can't do that, because everyone would wonder where the money came from and, if she explained, goodbye to any sort of social status. Meanwhile, Colin is able to publish his travel journals (edited by Penelope because she is a skilled writer after all) with no threat to his social standing.
And Penelope, one of the sharpest, smartest characters in the 'ton, doesn't kick against this even a little bit. She retires Lady Whistledown and goes to work editing Colin's journals for publication, enabling his sense of purpose and wanting to leave a mark on the world at the cost of her own career. For god's sake, even Cressida Twombley was willing to risk accusing herself of being Lady Whistledown. Granted, only for the money, but she had more spine than Penelope did. Penelope isn't even in charge of her own outing as Whistledown; it's prompted by Cressida's blackmail attempt and conducted entirely by Colin, with her locked firmly out of any plans. Foo on all that — the Netflix series has her continuing to write, but under her own name, and that's a much more satisfying conclusion.
That said, the overall romance between Penelope and Colin worked pretty well. Colin is insufferable for part of it — but that actually does feel in character. He's been a privileged rich third son, able to do whatever the hell he wants, whenever he wants, including jaunting off to Cyprus for a couple of months when he's bored and so on. So when he finally realises that his life is lacking purpose, he reacts in a pretty man-child kind of way, because that's all he's been all his life. When he starts to realise that, he has no tools for dealing with adversity, and Penelope cops the brunt of it. She also calls him on it — at least he can follow his dreams, while she's trapped by societal expectations.
I'd like to have seen a more positive way for Penelope out of the trap she's in — one in which she has some agency, rather than one in with Colin made all the decisions. But, other than that, it's fun fluff romance.
Started: 20 March 2025
Finished: 22 March 2025
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