My theory that there are more soldiers in Regency romances with PTSD than served in the Napoleonic Wars continues to hold water.
Mary Balogh has been publishing romances since the year I was eligible to vote. Not surprisingly, she is a consistent writer of good quality. I have only read about six of her books, but I believe that the final book of her Slightly Series, Slightly Dangerous, is a classic. She likely has at least one more and as I wait for new books from my favourite authors, I should probably try to find out what they are.
The Survivor’s Club Series
The Proposal
The Suitor
The Arrangement
The Escape
Only Enchanting
The Arrangement
From Amazon: Desperate to escape his mother’s matchmaking, Vincent Hunt, Viscount Darleigh, flees to a remote country village. But even there, another marital trap is sprung. So when Miss Sophia Fry’s intervention on his behalf finds her unceremoniously booted from her guardian’s home, Vincent is compelled to act. He may have been blinded in battle, but he can see a solution to both their problems: marriage.
A book about kind, broken people falling in love, Vincent and especially Sophia are lovely people dealing with the blows that life has seen fit to give them. He, blinded in battle, is trying not so much to rebuild his life, but to rediscover his freedom and she, belittled and unwanted, the liberty to be herself and make a life on her own terms. The gentle, but deep, mutual devotion they come to share made this a sweet story
The Escape
From Amazon: After surviving the Napoleonic Wars, Sir Benedict Harper is struggling to move on, his body and spirit in need of a healing touch. Never does Ben imagine that hope will come in the form of a beautiful woman who has seen her own share of suffering. After the lingering death of her husband, Samantha McKay is at the mercy of her oppressive in-laws—until she plots an escape to distant Wales to claim a house she has inherited. Being a gentleman, Ben insists that he escort her on the fateful journey.
I remember swimming and that the heroine’s mother-in-law is a b*tch of the first water. Those two aquatic-themed tidbits are unrelated. The Escape may not have been my most closely read book of the year, but it’s not the least. Other than the swimming and the bitchiness, I’m a little fuzzy on the whole thing. It’s one of those novels where a couple is thrown together, go on a road trip, and decide on a brief affair that gets a permanent extension. He’s wounded in body and soul, she’s mentally abused shut-in from a kingdom far, far away. Things work out and this process involves canoodling.
The Arrangement and The Escape were both library books and I am likely to seek out more books from The Survivor’s Club, but not to pay for them. Mary Balogh’s publisher is not savvy when it comes to e-book pricing. If copies were $3.99 or less, I would stock up, but they leave their prices high, even for her back catalogue, so it’s the library for me.
Captious Aside: Does anyone else question whether it should be “Survivor’s Club” or Survivors’ Club”? It should be the latter, right?
Also by Mary Balogh:
A Handful of Gold – Meh, but I did have fun reviewing it.
Links to my other reviews can be found on my list of books by author or The (Shameful) Tally 2014 which includes reading suggestions and author commentary.
It should totally be the latter, unless there is only the one survivor. Which, since there appears to be at least five books in the series so far, is not the case.
Well, if two English teachers agree…
I don’t remember the mother-in-law at all. I did read The Escape this year, but I had forgotten. I agree that The Arrangement was a sweet book.
That book is a complete blur.