Title: The Duke and I: The Second Epilogue
Author: Julia Quinn
Series: Bridgertons #1.5
In: The Bridgertons (Julia Quinn)
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Historical romance, Regency romance
Dates read: 15th January 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Short story
Publisher: Avon
Year: 2000
5th sentence, 74th page: Her heart thumped, then flipped, and any facility she might have possessed for synonym retrieval flew right out of her.

Fifteen years have passed, but the Bridgertons are still just as happy and devoted to one another. Join Daphne and Simon as they discover yet another surprise is heading their way.

I read The Duke and I because I needed a Q author for a reading challenge. And I very quickly became absolutely obsessed and just demolished the whole story. So it was really, really nice to revisit Simon and Daphne in this second epilogue. They’re just such a wonderful, cute couple and I loved every short moment of revisiting their happily ever after moment.

I like that whilst the epilogue in the actual novel is a little more immediate, this story takes place twenty years after the events of the main novel. Mostly romances provide a story, and then you get to imagine most of the happily ever after. This short story just ensured that you got confirmation that all the hopeful, happily ever after thoughts you may or may not have were actually spot on.

Children is something that has begun to be discussed a fair bit in my household (I’m approaching thirty), so it was fun to read a story in which that conversation is still being had twenty years after the first children, and moments of happiness have been achieved. It was a little intense… but, considering Daphne is only forty (although old for the time period), it may even be a discussion that takes place in my own household…

<- The Duke and I

The Viscount Who Loved Me ->

Image source: Julia Quinn