
hello everyone! happy blogmas day 14! today i am going to be talking about the secrets of sir richard kenworthy by julia quinn. i gave this book 1/5 stars. i honestly wish i liked this book, even a little bit cause i honestly love the smythe smith and the bridgerton books so much, and hating this one kind of sucked.
trigger warnings- sexual content, toxic relationship, pregnancy, gaslighting.
honestly, i think one of my biggest issues with this book is that there was so much abuse between richard and iris. like, they never straight up slapped each other or anything like that. but, they were always saying that they grabbed each other harder or they grabbed someone else and they cried out in pain or something like that. like, i’m not going to condoned abuse or anything, but like if it happened once, i could kind of get over it, but this happened multiple times per chapter, which just got to be a lot after awhile.
like, another thing that i really didn’t like was the hero, richard. i honestly hated him so much, like, i never really read a hero in a historical romance that i honestly hated so much. like, i feel that all of his actions were just so stupid and everything he did was just so bad and terrible and i really hated everything that he did. and like, he was such an asshole and he completely lived up to his richard name, throughout so much of the book.
personally, i don’t really care about what the main woman looks like in a romance books, and like i feel like i read a lot of books were the heroine was this plain jane character, like i even think that they described kate from the viscount who loved me that way. but, it really annoyed the hell out of me that they said again and again that richard only picked iris because she was plain and that she looked desperate to get married, hence why he picked her. and it really just annoyed the hell out of me that they added this in and even more that he said this to her a couple times when they were fighting.
and i also found the whole motive why she was overlooked by men to be so stupid? like the whole reason nobody wanted to court her because she was pale, and like they went over her being pale over and over and over again, like they could be talking about what they were eating for dinner, and then they would somehow work into that conversation about iris being pale, which was just so annoying. and like after a while, it’s just like, i get it, she’s pale.
and also that so much of this book was built up with him manipulating her and that he went into this whole relationship / courtship just so that he can help his sister, and like how he went upon the courtship was just so gross and i really hated that all so incredibly much. and also how he gaslit her throughout the relationship, which i feel like never really was apologized for, among the other things in this book, to be honest. and like when they made up at the end of the book, richard never went to her and said that he was sorry for treating her this way and doing this to her, which just sucked so much and they honestly need to change it.
and like i also feel like they would go time and time again about how richard would say he felt ‘guilty’ for what he did to iris, and how he did fuck her over, and a guarantee that she could find a better man because she does have some sort of status and all of her cousins have married people of higher titles, and surely they could open up some doors for her. anyway, i do feel like he would go on these rants, or inter thoughts, about how he felt bad that he did this to her, but then in the next couples pages, he would do something else that made her pissed and kind of fucked with her mind. like, i think it was just so shitty that he would feel these guilts, but then just do it again anyway.
kind of playing on the whole guilt thing, it also annoyed me with how richard treated her again and again. like, there was consent there, for the most part, so that was honestly a good thing, but again, the bare minimum. but, i feel like there was times that she would be like, no i don’t really want to do anything like that, but then he would kind of push her to do it anyway, really just trying to get her ‘pregnant’, which i think was so stupid. like, i do think that there was some consentful moments, but i also think that there was a ton of them were i didn’t really like it.
but, i do think that everyone in this book was just so horny. like, i do feel like it was just so annoying, since they would go to fighting and richard being an asshole and then they would just jump into bed together, which got on my nerves after awhile. since, i feel like they could practically kill each other, and then they would just be like, oh let’s fuck and they do, and it got to be so annoying.
another thing i really hated was how his sisters acted throughout in this book. like, i feel that so much of these plots in this book were just so much hell they gave to iris, like she married your brother, granted it wasn’t by her choice, but it still was so annoying. like, they would be eating dinner together and then they one of the sisters would just say something rude to iris, when she honestly didn’t deserve it. like, i feel like so much of this book was just everyone being rude to iris, when she honestly didn’t deserve it, or at least for the most part.
anyway, that is all for today! but, i honestly wish i liked this book, since i feel like there was just a couple moments which i did like this book, but i also feel like there wasn’t enough good moments for me to honestly like this book, and not write a whole review on why i hate this book so much.