Lady Whistledown Strikes Back [Anthology 4-in-1]

While fun - I just wasn't as invested in this short story collection centering around Lady Whistledown and the mystery behind who stole Lady Neeley's ruby bracelet. Four different romance novellas all take place around the same two week span and some of the characters even interact with each other. Four different romance writers write in the style of Julia Quinn and give us four more romances in the Bridgerton world. The four romance novellas were ok, but nothing to write home about and I'm not sure if I will ever read it again. Not horrible - just not as good as the Bridgerton saga - I respect what these ladies were trying to do though.

It's wonderful revisiting the world of Lady Whistledown and what makes this collection really shine is the inter-connectedness of the stories. All the stories are delightful and a lovely afternoon read.

3.5
A pesar de la melancolía que persigue a los personajes, la historia es entretenida y dulce.
Todo ocurre un poco demasiado rápido y no tiene tanto humor como otras narraciones de Julia Quinn, sin embargo se disfruta.

Y qué pasó con el brasalete? yo creo que se lo comió el pajarraco

The second anthology under the auspices of Quinn's fabulous Lady Whistledown is as solid as the first. (And, like the first, if you pay attention you'll see Lady Whistledown's alter ego make cameos within some of the stories.)

In this anthology, the characters in each story are occassionally secondary characters in the other stories, rather than just having incindental mentions. This leads to several scenes being retold from multiple points of view. A nice touch most of the time, but there is one very long scene where I ended up skimming several pages of repeated text.

The stories themselves are wonderful. Suzanne Enoch's story "The Best of Both Worlds" is by far my favorite. The ending scene was perfect. Mia Ryan's comes in second, and show more Julia Quinn's third. Karen Hawkins's story "The Only One for Me" was enjoyable, but I didn't get a sense of chemistry between the two characters.

Individual ratings:
Quinn:****
Enoch:*****
Hawkins:***1/2
Ryan:****1/2 show less

I enjoyed these stories especially when they would all meet up at spots as the stories all take place at the same time. It was neat to see how each author incorporated their characters to match what's already been said from another author. I will have to check out Mia Ryan's other books as she's a new to me author!

Four stories prefaced with Lady Whistledown excerpts - good and romantic, centered around a disappearing necklace. I rather liked all (but the last) of the stories in this one – especially those concerning servants or poor people finding love.

Lady Whistledown comments in her gossip column of particular people involved in a dinner party, around which the book revolves. Four different relationships develop in each of the four novellas, the stories of each intersecting at some point with the others. The themes of rich debutantes being pursued and seduced by poor titled gentleman, rich but scandalous titled gentleman pursuing and seducing upright not so rich debutantes, rich titled gentleman pursuing and seducing spinsters in trade and estranged rich titled husband pursuing and seducing wife are expolored.
The closest thing you will get to an early Amanda Quick novel without it being an Amanda Quick.