Hello to all of you beautiful nerds and welcome back from traveling the vast nerd universe! I finally finished reading it and it is time!

The Playful Brides Series by. Valerie Bowman

Disclaimer

This review is based on the thoughts and opinions of the lead writer of this blog! Please respect her thoughts and opinions on this series. You have been warned!

Synopsis

This series is an eleven book series that takes place in the 1800s England. We meet women who fall for men of high status in order to be courted once they have their debuts. We first meet Lucy who tries to hook up her best friend, Cassandra, with the Duke of Huntington, Derek, but ends up falling for him instead. As the story goes on, Lucy helps her gal pals in her Duchess role hook up with the men they love such as Cassandra with her long lost love, Julian, Jane with her cousin Garret, which they have a share for literature, even Delilah with her long time friend that she denies falling in love despite being a matchmaker herself. 

Thoughts

This series took me three years to read because I ended up with some of the middle titles all thanks to NetGalley but had to go back and read them all in order to know what the series was all about!! I not only bought most of them on Amazon for Kindle but also downloaded one from Bookshare. I do have to say that I enjoyed this series a lot. It was very entertaining due to how each character interacted with each other. I do admit I like Lucy and Jane the most when they interact with Derek and Garret in their respective books. I also do fit with Jane’s personality since I was pretty much the bookworm and enjoyed reading books. Well, when I did read manga I did enjoy either a cookie from Pepperidge Farm or Pocky since Jane did eat tea cake while reading. I did like the change for A Duke Like No Other and Kiss Me At Christmas because it removed the focus a little from our original cast to other characters we get to meet which happened to be Grimaldi and his wife and Dolphin with Regina since Caid and Rafe, the Cavendish brothers, knew Grimaldi after all. These characters in A Duke Like No Other and Kiss Me At Christmas took more on a mystery than a romance story.

Another thing I did like about this series is that we got to see what it was like to live in England and Scotland around this era. We got to see how balls were like, how women were like along with men, carriages, and how spies lived and the police ran, especially the Bow Street Runners. It gave us a glimpse of the 1800s without finding a time machine. Valerie painted a good picture for us as my Kindle took those page turns as I read. We even get to see how people perform plays in No Duke Other Than You where our characters performed a MidSummer Night’s Dream for charity. It was even interesting how Bowman’s event was inspired to take the potion from the Shakespearean play into the story itself as well. All in all, I enjoyed this series. Yes, I know it took me a long time to read this series but to be fair, life did get in the way including college but I’m glad to finish it.

Rating: 5 Star Paw Comets Out of 5~

This book series was a very entertaining series. We got to see what people had gone through in the 1800s and how women get married in these times. I enjoyed the characters and how they interacted with each other. I feel like I was watching a romantic comedy set at this time.I saw other series written by Valerie Bowman and may check those out and see if they still hit the high points that this one had. I can’t say that this series did not disappoint as I read each book on my Kindle. I would say check them out if you get a chance!

Well, that felt good completing a series! Next up is The Girl in the Tower which is the sequel to the Bear and the Nightingale. I will be reading Bear & the Nightingale again so I could get the flow of the series again since I reviewed it years ago during my major NetGalley kick and now getting back into it. Guys, my library is backed up to 2018 and I am not kidding about that! I am glad I am starting to get back into it. So, I will be reading as best as I can since classes are starting back up on the twenty-third this month. I am glad my textbooks are also on my Kindle so I could switch if I need to clear my brain for a little while! Trust me, sometimes studying for your Master’s you need some leisure reading in between. So, until next time!