Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It saddens me to say it, but this will be my last purchase of a Julia Quinn novel. Romancing Mr. Bridgerton and The Duke and I are two of my all-time favorite romance novels, but JQ stopped being an auto-buy for me long ago, when it became obvious that her effort (or maybe inspiration) had disappeared. I had high hopes for this one, since it's a prequel to the Bridgerton series. Maybe the old JQ magic was back, I thought. No. Sadly, not the case. To be perfectly honest, I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of JQ's editors. They know this plot is paper-thin. They know the internal and external dialogue meanders along for waaaay too long. They know these characters are stock reiterations of previous JQ heroes and heroines. But somewhere along the way, they obviously decided to coast on the author's former glory. Because suckers like me will still pony up $7 in the misguided hope that these books will actually contain something resembling a plot, with conflict, sexual tension and unique, fully-developed characters. Nope. What we get instead is pages and pages (and pages) of asinine non-sequiturs and supposedly witty dialogue that does absolutely nothing to move the plot forward. There are at least three or four instances in this book when a character asks another, "What's wrong?" And the character responds, "Nothing." AND THEY MEAN IT. There is actually nothing wrong with them. It's filler. JQ has reached her word count. I wouldn't even recommend this one to die-hard Bridgerton fans. It's a tepid carbon-copy of that series, so I'd just suggest re-reading the Bridgerton series and preserving your love for the JQ of old.