[A] skillful and highly entertaining biography ... While it’s intriguing to speculate on modern interpretations of Chudleigh’s behavior, the real strength of the book is the author’s painstaking effort to corral all the facts in recounting a life that even her contemporaries found wildly improbable ... The last years of Chudleigh’s life...are colorful but less interesting than the account of the trial, which Ostler carries off masterfully. Bridgerton fans take note: For sheer incident and drama, Chudleigh’s story rivals any episode of the popular Regency-era Netflix series. And it’s all true.

[An] empathetic perspective, combined with rigorous scholarship, to reveal Chudleigh in her full glory, with the last dozen years of her life in Russia, Estonia and France being perhaps the most fascinating ... Catherine Ostler diagnoses much of Chudleigh’s behaviour as 'borderline personality disorder', which is a plausible but unnecessary attribution, likely to date more quickly than the rest of this excellent book ... Ostler never lets her trial scenes become one-sided. We are rooting for Chudleigh, yet she is no innocent ... Ostler has undertaken impressive international archival research and always follows the money meticulously. The desperate, ordinary people hurt by aristocrats living on credit never get the space they deserve in such biographies, but at least the omission accurately conveys the myopia of those pre-revolutionary elites ... The book’s spritely, wry tone is a pleasure to read throughout. In the early chapters, it felt cinematic almost to a fault ... By the end, however, I was fantasy-casting the surely inevitable adaptation and in awe of Catherine Ostler’s thoughtful portraiture, both of Elizabeth Chudleigh and her century.

Ostler’s book is such a rollicking read that it would be a shame to give away the outcome of the trial or the end of the story. She tells Elizabeth’s story with admirable style and gusto, and clearly finds her heroine irresistible.

This explosive trial lies at the heart of Catherine Ostler’s new biography of Chudleigh, but we do not arrive at this pivotal moment until two thirds of the way through the book. The build-up is over 250 pages, but if you thrill to the minutiae of 18th-century aristocratic life then you’re in for a treat. Ostler’s CV includes stints as editor of both ES magazine and Tatler, so there’s not a peerage or princely title for which she is not prepared to go the full Debrett’s. Her footnotes are a joy in themselves ... And to Ostler’s obvious delight, Chudleigh’s life is like the longest and most jaw-dropping society story you’ve ever read ... Ostler paints a glittering picture of London in the reign of George II ... She also provides a close-up of what she calls 'the psychodrama of the Hanoverian succession', with the bitter rivalry between the 'foul-mouthed and sexually rapacious' old king and his cultivated son ... It’s all terrifically entertaining: if you liked Bridgerton, you’ll love this ... As Duchess of Kingston, Elizabeth’s spending only increased. Ostler is brilliant on the details of her decadence ... The story romps along with great style and gusto, and her research is impeccable - although some scholars might balk at her decision to seek a modern diagnosis for Elizabeth’s often extreme behaviour.

This is a scintillating story superbly told by Catherine Ostler ... She has a remarkable ability to demonstrate her deep knowledge of the period without being boring or a show-off. She packs every paragraph with eye-opening detail, making you feel as though you’re living in the 18th century, but never veers from the central story of a woman trying to hold herself together in that vicious society while the men did as they pleased ... Many extraordinary and touching details.

Catherine Ostler draws a vivid portrait of this remarkable woman ... Ms. Ostler,...obviously feels affection for her heroine ... The marriage evoked grief and anger in the childless Duke’s relations, who had expected to be his heirs. They resented and hated Elizabeth. Ms. Ostler, a historian and veteran journalist, regards them with severe disapproval. One can’t help thinking that, though they may have been selfish and greedy, their disappointed hopes were surely reasonable ... Ms. Ostler has written a rich and compelling book, the fruit of deep and assiduous research. She is often indignant on her heroine’s behalf and decidedly indulgent when it comes to Elizabeth’s greed, duplicity (a member of Parliament said she was guilty of forgery) and delight in her status as a scandalous figure ... Biographers should feel an affinity with their subjects and may quite properly make the best case possible for them.

[A] brisk retelling ... For her latest biographer there is something quite admirable about the Duchess Countess, a girl who battled the law of the land, not to mention a good chunk of Britain’s aristocracy, in order to become her own woman.

Well written and researched ... There are many, many characters — a cast list of almost 100 — and occasionally the thrust of the story is lost in detail. Having said that, it is a gripping tale.

This scrupulously documented biography packs in period details, historical context, and lots of juicy gossip ... At times the name-dropping...and never-ending scandals (elopements! mistresses! inheritances!) become overwhelming, and occasional psychological musings interrupt the flow ... However, readers who yearn for the extravagant lifestyles of the 1700s should love this.

While Chudleigh’s story has the makings of a very good period-piece dramedy, it is less successful as a deeply researched historical biography. In addition to recounting Chudleigh’s many escapades, Ostler attempts to find the origin of the duchess’s behavior and motivations; she superficially links them to an unhappy childhood, an ill-defined personality disorder, celebrity, and early feminism in a patriarchal misogynist society. Readers will need a great deal of tolerance to wade through the book’s anecdotes of the rich behaving badly ... Pass.

Entertaining ... Ostler, a writer with considerable flair, evidently admires Elizabeth’s chutzpah, and she portrays the convicted bigamist as perhaps suffering from a borderline personality disorder but always refreshingly surprising and fearless ... Ably capturing her singular character, Ostler displays her deep knowledge of the era, smoothly melding history and biography ... An indomitable subject finds a biographer worthy of her.

Intriguing ... Ostler includes enlightening discourses on Hanoverian court dramas and the financial and social constraints placed on women of the era, but her suggestion that Elizabeth may have suffered from borderline personality disorder somewhat muddies the picture. Still, this is a rich and nuanced portrait of a fascinating woman.