A review by cepbreed
It's In His Kiss by Julia Quinn

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This may just be my favorite of the main Bridgerton series! I'm never to type to stick to a reading order if I don't have to so I picked this up because someone on TikTok ranked it as one of their favorites of Quinns. Like the sheep I am I loved it so much. Gareth and Hyacinth are so compelling as a couple; two sly troublemakers finding one another, it doesn't get better. I was more empowered to speed through this in one day because I had just finished season 3 of Bridgerton the show and was still craving the high of regency romance. I love to see a romance where both leads have a strong character and stick to it. I am so tired of unambitious female leads to swoon at the slightest touch. Thank you Hyacinth for being difficult and unabashedly so! The structure of this novel is nothing like the other Bridgerton books and I love it more for that. The introductions to each chapter were so fun; it was weirdly meta to think that Hyacinth, a character in a novel reading a novel, begins to think of her own life in terms of one. I also ADORED the added element of mystery! Histrom authors should take notes from this book and play with the genre more. As an avid reader of histroms I am getting so tired of the same old same old. This story combined two of my favorite genres and I hope to see that more often. Is there a histrom horror out there? I know that sounds antithetical but I'd pay so much to read a well-written one. I saw so much of myself in Hyacinth and maybe that's why I really loved Gareth St. Clair. All the male leads of Julia Quinn's books are wonderful, they have to be loveable, but so far they've all had glaring faults (cough cough book Colin I'm staring DIRECTLY at you), but in the wake of this novel I have yet to have any issues with Gareth (#needthat). I mean the way he said "She would make a fine wife. Not for most men, but for him, and that was all that mattered," ugh, it's so sweet I could die. 
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