Okay. Full disclosure before we even start this review:

1) Penelope Featherington is the queen of my heart.
2) Colin Bridgerton is bar none my absolute favorite male character in this entire series.
3) In the very first book, on like page 72 with absolutely no foreknowledge whatsoever, I decided that Colin and Penelope should get married.

So, you can imagine how I felt when it was time for me to read this book. And let me just say, it was everything I could have hoped for and more.

A lot of factors contribute to why Romancing Mister Bridgerton is so good.

Penelope is a painfully perfect heroine: sweet and shy and brilliant and adorable, struggling and striving to be more than everyone (even herself) thinks she is and to show the world the person that she knows is inside of her, but can't quite display when anyone's actually paying her attention. Colin is every bit as charming, sarcastic, clever, and observant as he is in all the other books, but we also get to see his insecurities and his faults, his longing -- similar to Penelope's -- to be more, and how it's curtailed by his resistance to finally growing up.

Their interactions are easily some of the absolute best in the series. They are, in turn, awkward, charming, hilarious, heartbreaking, sweet, and sexy. They actually talk about their feelings. They argue for legitimate reasons, and then actively strive to hash it out and consider the other's point of view and position. They push each other to be better, to be more.

But I think above all, what sends Romancing Mister Bridgerton over the top and makes it the single best book in the entire Bridgerton series is the fact that coming in we already know Colin and Penelope and, just as important, they already know each other. They're friends. They get along. They like each other as people. (I often joke that my biggest relationship kink is people who like each other, but it's true!) Penelope's supporting cast consists primarily of Bridgertons, just as Colin's does, with the wonderful addition of the other great supporting character that appears throughout the books: Lady Danbury. Because of this Romancing Mister Bridgerton feels... close and comfortable. You know everyone, but you're getting a chance to see them in a new light.

In every other book: at best, the reader is familiar with the Bridgerton half of the couple (and, at worst, we barely know them either) and must be introduced to their eventual significant other at the same time that aforementioned Bridgerton is meeting them and falling in love. And there's nothing wrong with that; it works perfectly well and better in various cases throughout the series. But there's a special level of extra emotional investment when no one is a stranger.

Penelope has been there from the very start of the series. Her close bonds with the Bridgerton clan through her friendship with Eloise and the fact that they all like her, the fact that we know how they perceive her and how they've interacted with her, leaves the reader already primed to find out more about her (and, gosh, do we ever find out more) much in the same way that Colin's friendly charm and shrewd intellect in his dealings with his siblings previously left the reader wanting more of him.

And as far as their romance, the foreknowledge and, dare I say, prior set up makes theirs the most organic and believable romantic relationship of the series. The fact that there are two different instances in prior books where we're made aware of Penelope specifically in relation to Colin is completely unique. Nothing else exists in the entire series like the scene with Colin and Penelope outside of Number Five in An Offer from a Gentleman. The only thing that even comes close is the fact that Eloise's correspondence with Phillip is a subplot in this book, but even then that's entirely implicit and left as a complete unknown until it's actually time for Eloise's story in To Sir Phillip, with Love which immediately follows Romancing Mister Bridgerton.

Penelope and Colin/Penelope are actually explored in books prior to the one where they take center stage, and that makes their love story feel like something the reader has been waiting for, not just because they read a blurb ahead of time but because it feels as if the over-arching narrative (as much as one can exist in a series where all the novels are ultimately meant to stand alone) was leading towards it.

In short, you go into Romancing Mister Bridgerton much like Colin does, believing that he knows Penelope, then, slowly and surely, truly discovering her and seeing her for the first time (and to a lesser extent vice versa for Penelope as regards Colin). So, it's not really surprising that said discovery is just as amazing and enthralling for the reader as it is for Colin. And it's not surprising that the reader (IF THEY HAVE A SOUL) also adores Penelope just as much as Colin does.

This book instantly became one of my comfort reads. Best best best, in conclusion.