Evidence includes a rather unflattering comment made by a royal physician and a portrait where she has unfashionably full lips. There is a theory that the Queen at the time may have been part black. The Netflix show has been praised for “colour blind” casting. The book characters are all lilywhite English aristocrats typical of the genre. One of the major differences between the Bridgerton books and TV show is the numbers of coloured people. Eloise even launches her own amateur investigation into the matter. However, the TV show characters spend quite a bit of time discussing who Lady Whistledown might be. (Aside from the occasional “ she must have a spy in the family” comment, of course). In fact, The Duke and I spends no time pondering Lady Whistledown’s identity. In the books, we don’t find out the identity of Lady Whistledown (the scandal writer) until the fourth book (Romancing Mister Bridgerton). Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time focused on Simon and Daphne’s story for me to feel invested in their relationship. The show told the other Bridgerton sibling’s backstories around the main story (didn’t leave much for future seasons, really). It felt like the TV show also used this first season as a set-up for the rest of the series. There’s space for TV-Simon and TV-Daphne’s relationship to develop more realistically. Book-Simon and book-Daphne’s relationship doesn’t develop at a realistic pace, but other characters are expertly introduced.

In my review of The Duke and I, I said that I thought the first half of the book felt like a set-up for the rest of the series. Bridgerton filled a lot of screen time with the exploits of the other siblings. Usually, romances spend the majority of the time looking at the hero and/or heroine and their relationship.

I didn’t like how the TV show had so little time focused on Simon and Daphne. Season one is based on the first book you can find my review of The Duke and I here. This causes problems, as Daphne is the fourth of eight children and wants nothing more than to marry and have a family.Īs the show is based on a series of books by Julia Quinn, I thought I would read the books and write out my thoughts on how they compared to the show. However, Simon is determined to get revenge on his father for his difficult childhood by never having children. In it, Daphne Bridgerton and Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, start a false courtship, which quickly leads to real feelings. Bridgerton is Netflix’s new, top watched original series.

The first bridgerton book