Bridgerton: It's in His Kiss - Jane Austen Inspired

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It’s in His Kiss, a book review

On to number seven in the Bridgerton book series by Julia Quinn. In It’s in His Kiss, it is Hyacinth’s turn for love. A sharp-tongued lady with an attitude meets a rake of a lad dowsed in “daddy issues.” A treasure hunt for ole’ grannies diamonds, plus secrets revealed. An idle life for a young English Regency Era lady has taken its leave and for Hyacinth, there is no turning back now…

Many ways to get your hands on this book via Amazon: paperback, hardcover, Kindle, and Audible audiobook

Thoughts

I have some mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, it is a more fresh and creative take on the love story. On the other hand, some elements are still consistent with the other books that I found stale.

I like that there was a “treasure hunt” going on. It gave more activity for both leads to figure out and challenge them.

One of the things I found stale is that there was a pretend courting ploy like every other book before this. Just like all the other ploys, it failed extremely quickly.

Another thing in the book that I just got tired of is the male leads with their daddy issues. I get it is generational trauma and it was and still is quite a common issue men deal with. But damn so many men, and then the female leads feel like they need to intervene and fix it. No, please stop taking on problems that are not yours. They cannot fix other people, so why are the men in these situations dumping their emotional labor on these women? And the woman just nonchalantly taking responsibility for it? I thought romance was supposed to be a lovely fantasy for women to escape to, but it feels like I am diving into trauma and taking on issues that are not mine.

Hyacinth

I like Hyacinth, she is bold and a bit shameless. She is “not like other girls” which I strongly dislike that phrase to describe someone, but it is used to describe her. I am just glad that she does not use it to describe herself. At the same time, now that I am thinking about it, she only interacts with her mother and Lady Danbury, and not with other young women her age. So I really do not fully know how she feels when facing other women in her respective social age circle.

Gareth

Gareth is an okay character overall. I do not have many thoughts about him except for this one moment which I absolutely hated and thought was icky and gross.

Spoiler, Gareth deflowers the lovely Hyacinth. After the deed, Hyacinth popped back up and continued eagerly with their mission of the hunt for the missing diamonds. Gareth was surprised that she had all this energy. That was not the issue. The issue came when he compared her to how other women are after the dirty deed and also deflowering and how she was “not like other girls.” It made me think how gross Gareth is taking the virginities of other impressionable young women and that he even had that thought. His remark after of how she will put him to work wasn’t bad but it did not help.

I don’t know maybe it is just me, but I really do not like the not like other girls comparison. She can be her own individual person without comparing to other women. This book series does have a good amount of that, but I was just too grossed out at this point.