To Sir Phillip with Love by Julia Quinn

A Flashback Friday to a series enjoying current popularity: The Bridgertons! Bridgerton Season 3 began filming last month, so be looking for the US Netflix debut near the end of 2023! Six years ago, Caz gave Rosalyn Landor A+ for her brilliant narration of Julia Quinn’s 5th book in the series. PS: If you aren’t already up on the entire Bridgerton series, you may encounter spoilers!

Narrated by Rosalyn Landor

This fifth instalment in Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series is one of the books I have somehow not got around to reading, and which, for some reason I can’t remember, I had thought to be one of the weaker books in the series. This new audio version has laid that misconception firmly to rest however, and is, I think, now one of my favourites of the set. To Sir Phillip With Love is perhaps not as light-hearted as many of the author’s other titles, but it clearly shows that she has the ability to tackle difficult themes and write deeply flawed characters that listeners can root for even as we’re wanting to smack some sense into them or questioning the wisdom – of lack thereof – of their actions.

One such character is Sir Phillip Crane, a widower whose eight-year-old twins are a complete handful. He inherited his baronetcy upon the death of his older brother, and seems to have also inherited his brother’s fiancée, Marina, a very distant cousin of the Bridgerton family. When he receives a note of condolence upon Marina’s death from Eloise Bridgerton, his response engenders a cordial correspondence which lasts a year, and ends in his suggesting that perhaps Miss Bridgerton might be open to the idea of marrying him. It’s an odd notion, to be thinking of marriage to a woman he has never met, but from the tone of her letters, Phillip judges Eloise to be an amenable, sensible kind of woman – and quite honestly, he is so desperate for someone to run his house and, more urgently, manage his children, that marriage to almost anyone would be preferable to things continuing as they are.

Eloise has felt rather adrift since her brother Colin married her dearest friend, Penelope Featherington. Back in the day when Penelope showed every sign of ending up a spinster, and Eloise, although she had received numerous marriage proposals, had not found a man she believed would make her happy, the pair of them resolved that they would sit on the shelf together. So while Eloise is happy for her friend, she is also just a little bit jealous and upset that she has been left behind. It’s this feeling of uselessness and being abandoned that prompts her to run away in the middle of the Bridgerton ball (at the end of Romancing Mr. Bridgerton) and make her way to Sir Phillip Crane’s home in Gloucestershire to see if the two of them will suit.

Having made the decision on an impulse, there is no time to advise Sir Phillip that Eloise is on the way and no time for him to arrange for her to be suitably chaperoned. He is not a little annoyed when she turns up unannounced, and is also completely astonished to discover that, far from the homely, rather desperate spinster he had imagined, Eloise is a beautiful, poised and supremely confident young woman – one who surely must have more options than to bury herself in remotest Gloucestershire and spend her time taming his two unruly children.

Eloise’s ill-conceived plan to ascertain Sir Phillip’s suitability as a husband is quickly truncated when, a couple of days after her arrival, her brothers arrive – all of them furious – and Anthony makes it clear that she now has no choice but to get married. Quickly. This scene between Eloise and Anthony is beautifully done; it’s clear that Anthony only wants the best for his sister, and when she explains her motivations, he is understanding and sympathetic, but gently reminds her that she has made this bed and now has to lie in it as the result of her own, rash actions.

That’s the set up for the enforced marriage of Phillip and Eloise, and one of the reasons I love this trope is that I enjoy watching the newly-weds – who usually don’t know each other very well – getting to know each other and making those accommodations and compromises that are necessary to every relationship. Julia Quinn writes this part of their story superbly, and by the time we get to the final confessions and dénouement, Phillip – who has seemed like a selfish twit for much of the book – turns out to be the sort of man you want to give the world’s biggest hug and then ply with cocoa and chocolate biscuits. His marriage, to a woman who today would have been diagnosed with severe depression, was miserable and drained him utterly; it’s clear he adores his children, but he avoids spending time with them because he’s scared he’ll lose his temper and will end up beating them as his father did to him … in short, for eight years, he’s been wound tighter than any drum and has spent all that time trying to do the right thing and then feeling as though he’s failed everyone around him. He’s a complex, flawed hero, and Ms. Quinn’s exploration of his character and motivations is extremely well done. She manages to get us to sympathise with and understand him while at the same time wanting to shake him for his inability to see that all his children want is his attention, and later, his deliberate refusal to see that his idea of what makes a good marriage and Eloise’s are different and that they need to work at it.

Much as I love listening to Rosalyn Landor’s narrations, it’s become incredibly difficult to find new things to say about her performances, which are always excellent, both technically and creatively. Her work on the five books in this series she has recorded (this is, sadly the last, as books 6-8 are already available** – although not on my side of the pond) has been outstanding all the way, and there are very few narrators who can come close to matching her in terms of technical skill and her ability to get into the heads and beneath the skins of the characters she narrates. I didn’t believe she could possibly get any better, but I was wrong; the scene towards the end in which Phillip finally reveals the truth of his first marriage to Eloise is so full of pain and raw emotion that it damn near made me cry. I have no doubt it’s a powerful scene in the book, but listening to it, hearing Phillip so desperately trying to keep himself in check while he explains everything he’s been through and berates himself as a failure is utterly heart-breaking and I defy anyone to listen to it without at least getting a lump in the throat. There are some things that stick in the memory long after they’ve finished, and those moments are most definitely stuck in mine.

To Sir Phillip with Love is a bit of a departure from the generally light-hearted romantic fare for which Julia Quinn is so well-known, but she handles the darker themes with aplomb and sensitivity to create a truly compelling and captivating love story. It’s very rare that I am able to listen to an audiobook in one sitting, but this is one I simply couldn’t put down, and I had my earphones in at every available opportunity during the course of the day. Needless to say, it’s very highly recommended.

** Note: in 2020, the last 3 titles were released with Landor as narrator, and Simon Prebble’s previous recordings appear to be no longer available.

Caz

---

Buy To Sir Phillip With Love by Julia Quinn on Amazon