Showing posts with label Survivors' Club. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Survivors' Club. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Only a Promise by Mary Balogh

The Duke's Disaster (True Gentlemen #.5)Chloe Muirhead is twenty-seven years old. At eighteen, her grandmother died and her debut into society was postponed. When she finally came out at twenty-one, her seventeen-year-old sister caused a scandal by running away with a married man. Her brother compounded the scandal by participating in a mockery of a duel. When the man's wife died and Chloe's sister married him, Chloe ventured out again. Only to be inundated by another shock of rumors when the daughter of the man who had courted Chloe's mother (only to marry another when he found out he was in need of funds) debuts and looks shockingly similar to Chloe. Rumors abound and the man who had publicly spurned her at twenty-one is one of the people rushing to spread rumors of her bastardy. Chloe decides to retire from society and asks her mother's godmother, a duchess, if she can perhaps become her companion. Instead, she is invited to their house as a guest, but she can't help but feel obliged.
Ralph meets Chloe when he visits his grandparents, the duke and duchess. He has felt massive amounts of guilt since he talked his three friends into going to war with him and they all died. Everyone except him, and even he was left with visible scars to remind him of what happened. Now, at twenty-six, he is being pressured to find a wife, since he is the last heir in the direct line. He is somewhat shocked when Chloe suggests they marry. She wants nothing except children and part of his reluctance in marrying is that he feels he has nothing to give.
Another lovely book in the Survivors' Club series and I can NOT wait for the next book and Imogen's story.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Only Enchanting by Mary Balogh

Image linked from Goodreds
Balogh just keeps hitting it out of the park with this series. If you've enjoyed this series so far, I can guarantee that this one will be a good pick.
We've met Flavian, Viscount Ponsonby, in other books. He was broken both physically and mentally during the war. When he got home, his fiancee married his best friend. Now that that friend is dead, his family (and hers) seem to expect that they will marry. But Flavian doesn't want to do that. He's not sure why, but his upcoming meeting with the Survivor's Club should help him relax.
Their meeting also brings him back in touch with Agatha Deering who he met on a previous visit. All of their meetings are just sweet and wonderful in ways that only Balogh can paint.
The character development is wonderful and the way the relationship builds between Agatha and Flavian is wonderful. They don't communicate completely from beginning to end but there aren't any Big Misunderstandings and it's wonderful.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

The Escape by Mary Balogh

Image linked from Goodreads
If you have enjoyed the rest of the Survivor's Club (or, really, any of Balogh's books), you will quite enjoy this book as well. Do you need to have read the first two books in the series? Not at all. 
Major Sir Benedict Harper nearly lost both his legs as well as his life after the Napoleonic wars. After struggling for six years to get healthy enough to live his own life, he is stymied by the fact that his younger brother already runs his estate and the brother's family is quite entrenched there. Benedict really has nothing to do and is at loose ends. Until he visits his sister who is convalescing after an illness. He nearly tramples a haughty widow and her dog when he leaps over a hedge on his horse.
Samantha McKay is escaping her house. Her husband convalesced for a long time after being injured in the war. Since his death, his sister has been keeping Samantha under a tight rein, telling her that she has to behave as befits a lady. See, Samantha has gypsy blood in her veins and her husband's family has always looked down on her as being "not quite." 
But the end comes when Samantha's father-in-law wants to throw her out of the house where she's been living for so long and sends men to take her back to London. She knows that she'll be stifled there for the rest of her life and she just can't do it. So she enlists Benedict to help her get to Wales where she's been left a small cottage. The journey, of course, is a time for them to get to know one another. And when they get to Wales, there's a whole lot of Samantha's history that she is ready to discover.
This is all told in such a gentle voice. It's like floating down a slow-moving stream. You don't really need to think, just look around and enjoy the scenery. Told in alternating points-of-view, each side overlaps the other, picking up just before the last ended. After reading so many hard and fast contemporaries, this is a wonderful read and delightful palate cleanser. Can't wait for the rest of the books in the series (especially the Duke, though I assume he is being saved for last. Le sigh.)
Imagine my delight when I got to the end of the book and there were still dozens of pages left and it turned out to be the story of Julian and Phillipa, the erstwhile fiancee of Vincent from "The Arrangement." Normally, I don't like short stories but this was a sweet one of two young lovers who were star-crossed but who have worked hard for two years to find their HEAs.