Mary Balogh is the author of The Survivors Club series, which includes some of my favorite Regency romance books. The series follows a group of soldiers returned from the Napoleonic wars, with each suffering from some sort of physical injury and PTSD. Naturally they are each cured by the love of a good woman. My favorite book in the series is The Arrangement, which has a mix-and-match plot about a blind hero trying to escape his coddling family, who falls in love with a Cinderella-like heroine mistreated by her guardians.
But that series included some duds, too, especially Only Beloved, about a man who shared a short carriage ride with a woman a few years earlier, now knocks on her door, proposes, she says yes, and HEA.
Today's review is about three books in Balogh's Westcott series. The first, Someone to Romance, is not her worst book but it is far from her best. Heroine Jessica's main character trait is that she is just not very interesting. Hero Gabriel has a more compelling back story, but Balogh's attempts to give him complexity fall flat. It's a book that seems like it was written in a rush. The wedding night scene is -- I mean, we are told that both characters enjoy it but I just don't see how. When Gabriel falls asleep immediately after having sex with Jessica, who had been a virgin, she looks at his sleeping form and feels utter contentment. Really? (Here's a joke from my youth: Q: Why don't women fall asleep right after sex? A: Because they're crying in the bathroom.)
In Someone to Cherish, heroine Lydia is the widow of a minister who had all the characteristics of an altruistic narcissist. He was beloved, even worshiped, by his congregation, but behind closed doors he was an absolute asshole. Lydia has sworn never to trust another man, and to never get married again. Hero Henry is a veteran of the Napoleonic wars who has made a pretty much full recovery from his physical wounds and his PTSD, and is starting to feel ready to move in the world again. Plot plot plot, HEA. I enjoyed this book more than Someone to Romance, mostly because the characters were more interesting and more likeable.
In Someone Perfect, heroine Estelle is an aristocrat who lives in a remote village with her twin brother. She has shockingly taken off her shoes and stockings to put her feet in a river when hero Justin happens upon her. While Estelle is set up to be a Jo March type of character from Little Women, in fact she is embarrassed to have been caught barefoot and is more of a Meg.
Justin is more interesting. After a fight with his nobleman father, now deceased, he had run off as a young man and worked as a laborer for years. He misses that life and his friends there now that he has returned to take up his responsibilities as a lord. (No mention is made of how horrible it must have actually have been to work in a quarry, especially in a time before worker's comp and toxic tort class action lawsuits).
Justin has to come to terms with the fight he had with his father and make peace with his younger sister, a major character in this book. This part of the plot is well-done and interesting. But his romance with Estelle makes me wonder if Balogh secretly yearns to be a wedding planner, with her endless descriptions of the colors and cut of Estelle's wedding dress and the flowers at the reception.
There are six other books in the series, which is about a huge extended family. The books could be reduced in length by about a quarter if Balogh cut all the side conversations among characters who I guess featured prominently in other books? This is fan service, but I'm not enough of a fan to enjoy it.
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