The premise of the Westcott series (non-spoilers: this is all basically in the cover copy) is that an earl was secretly married and had a daughter, and then he married again and had three more children. Upon the earl’s death the three presumptive heirs find that they are illegitimate and the orphaned child gets a huge inheritance. The first book is about that orphan, and she and her new husband make a bunch of appearances in the following books. I tried to read the first […]
Slightly Slightly
Mary Balogh is a stalwart author in historical romance with whom my experience is very limited. Her Bedwyn Saga appears on NPR’s “Best Romances” list from several summers back, which I am still pretending to tackle in a very time-insensitive fashion. There are a total of six books in the series, and this review is for the first and last of them. If the rest of the books are like the first book, I will probably not read them, but if they’re more like the […]
A Good Novella from the Ever Reliable Mary Balogh
“I don’t think anything inspired me except the necessity of coming up with a story so that I could fulfill my obligation to a contract I had agreed to! I had to dream up a story, and this one popped into my head.” Mary Balogh in the interview following A Matter of Class. Nonetheless, as an experienced, and clearly honest, professional writer, she delivered a sincerely charming historical romance novella. Reggie and Annabelle are lifelong neighbours divided by a waterway as well as the barriers […]
Not an Affair to Remember
Born a commoner, Hannah Reid has been Duchess of Dunbarton since she was nineteen years old. Now her husband is dead and, more beautiful than ever at thirty, Hannah has her freedom at last. To the shock of a conventional friend, she announces her intention to take a lover—and not just any lover, but the most dangerous and delicious man in all of upper-class England: Constantine Huxtable. So this book bored me to tears. I know that Mary Balogh is a beloved author, with a […]