MR. CAVENDISH, I PRESUME is the sequel to THE LOST DUKE OF WYNDHAM however, the latter is the story from Jack's POV and this book is from Thomas' POV.
Lady Amelia Willoughby has been engaged to the Duke of Wyndham, Thomas Cavendish since she was in the cradle. Just when things between are about to come to fruition, and they begin to take an interest in each other, along comes a long lost cousin who can supplant Thomas as the Duke.
The story evolves showing how this change in situation effects the Thomas Amelia and their relationship. The outcome is not different than in The Lost Duke of Wyndham, but there is a resolution that a reader of that book is not aware until after reading this one.
It was interesting to see the effects of the situation from both sides, however, as much as I adore Ms. Quinn's writing, this one fell a bit flat. The Heroine here (Lady Amelia) is very 2 dimensional and Thomas seems lonely and unable to become his own person until the ducal robes are removed. I think that this story would have been much better if all the POV were hatched out in one book instead of the rehashing in this one. Thomas and Amelia's story deserved better . ( )

A fast and entertaining read – my idea of a brilliant historical romance. ( )

Lady Wombat says:

Should have read Lost Duke before this one. But it stood fairly well on its own.

Also charming and sweet, although I liked the first in the series, The Lost Duke of Wyndham, better. Quinn writes charming and funny characters that it's impossible not to root for!

Also: *very* sexy! ( )

I don't know what happened to Julia Quinn after her Bridgerton series ended ... but it wasn't anything good. Her first book following that series, THE SECRET DIARIES OF MISS MIRANDA CHEEVER, was one of the worst historical romance books I've read - the first half was very promising, but the second half wasn't just disappointing or a letdown after what preceded, it was just in-your-face straight-out bad with horrible actions on behalf of the hero and really horrible plot twists by the author (see my review of that book for more details).

MR. CAVENDISH, I PRESUME is the sequel to THE LOST DUKE OF WYNDHAM and before buying or reading either of these books, I combed through many, many Amazon.com reviews. Readers were very disappointed by the fact that the two books take place simultaneously and not only at the same time, but in the same place with the same characters in the same situations. Both books seemed to be a resounding failure, but the second book seemed to be criticized more for the fact that people hadn't realized Quinn was going to do this and so instead of getting the whole new story they expected, they had 300+ pages of deja vu.

I therefore decided that I would only read one of the books and decided to go with MR. CAVENDISH, I PRESUME since the plot appealed to me more than the first book's ... Well let me just say this: I haven't finished the book and don't really plan on doing so anytime soon. It was just so ... not good! The idea for the story is an interesting one - though write one book for it, not two - and being a HR aficionado I can say that I don't think I've ever read one with a similar plot. Discovering that someone who was a commoner is actually a nobleman? Happens all the time. But the other way around ... not so much. However, even Julia Quinn's writing skill cannot make up for the fact that she completely botches this story, taking an interesting and original plot and completely failing to deliver an interesting and original book.

Also, although Amelia, the heroine, seemed like she could have been interesting (she was somewhat immature at times - or at least, from what I read of the first quarter/third of the book), the hero, Thomas, was ... ugh, I don't even know! He's just so NOT appealing in the beginning of the book and I am almost never, ever, ever turned off by the hero - I'm always much more critical of the female lead than the male one. He's detached and pretty uninteresting and although there are some promising aspects of his personality, they don't make up for the blandness that Quinn writes him with. Thomas' complete inattention to Amelia and focus his grandmother's companion, Grace, is a huge turnoff (there's not supposed to be any attraction between them or anything going on, so why have it then?). He seems a very lonely and sad man, but instead of exploring this and really defining his character, Quinn kind of just lets Thomas languish in front of the reader, hinting at his complexity but not enough to draw us in.

I did skim to the end of the book to see how the HEA turned out and I have to say that the last 2-3 chapters and epilogue were enjoyable ... but there is no way I am plodding through the rest of the book to get to that, sorry. So ending my glowing review on that note ... does anyone want to buy my copy of MR. CAVENDISH, I PRESUME? ( )