Of Swords and Parasols

Various Baloghs, mostly older books. Read over several months and comments jotted down as I read them. All decent-to-good except for one book that I'm trying to forget exists.

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These are two older Regencies from the 80s, before Balogh switched to regular historicals. I usually prefer authors who make that switch pre-switch, but Balogh may be an exception. But that may be because I really dislike both plots, though Balogh has had other books where I liked the book despite typically disliking the plot.

The Incurable Matchmaker has a rake, Kenwood, making a bet that he can seduce the super-virtuous widow, Diana, who he’s never met. Distantly related to her late husband’s family, he gets invited to a house party hosted by her matchmaking mother-in-law (the titular character). Without the bet, it would have been pretty decent, if a typical “rake gets redeemed by beauty” plot, but with it, I ended up with a pretty strong hatred for Kenwood that never became more positive than “don’t mind.”

A Chance Encounter, though, is a big misunderstanding plot (They were in love 6 years ago and were separated. She thinks it’s because he didn’t want her once he unexpectedly inherited a title, he thinks it’s because she was a golddigger.) where the entire book hinges on his being insulting and her losing her temper every time they interact, and their never actually talking. Also, since she’s a governess in the main story and he’s rich and titled, the story is constructed so that she essentially can’t give as good as she takes and in ensemble scenes has to stand there and accept all his barbs that the other characters didn’t understand.

I actually had to remind myself after that I liked or didn’t mind the male leads in the other Baloghs I’ve read.

Regency Christmas novellas! The surest way ever to induce cavities and suffer an overdose of big-eyed children uniting pure women and men who hate Christmas! Or at least are grumpy about it.

Formula tolerable in heavy doses only in that brief time of year when you might be a bit more inclined to enjoy such things.

Of the three anthologies I read, the Signet anthology Regency Christmas Courtship was the best. Barbara Metzger’s “Wooing the Wolf” is the most generic thing ever with a Lady’s Companion ending up with her sister’s kids and somehow having them stay with her employer’s neighbor. Naturally, the children became matchmakers. And yet, incredibly entertaining. Edith Layton followed it up with “The Dogstar,” where a governess and a lord were asked by a school friend to look after the friend’s kid for Christmas, but neither friend knew about the other, and so, war, and Andrea Pickens’s “Lost and Found” had the typical “bickering strangers stuck at an inn fall in love” setup. Nancy Butler’s “Christmas With Dora Davenport” was also entertaining, with a woman hoping to get her rich beau to propose to her while falling in love with her brother’s friend, but had the unfortunate undertone of “what she wants is wrong for her and she’ll have to be embarrassed to learn the error of her ways.” All four were pretty typical, but they were well done and entertaining typical. There was also “Christmas Cheer” by Gayle Buck, which I believe was about a newly married couple where the wife was sad for some reason, but it was so tra-la-la and twee that self-preservation forced me to flee.

Zebra’s A Taste of Christmas was ok, but not nearly as good. Alice Holden’s “Lord Nabob’s Conversion” was probably the best, with the “Christmas? What Christmas?” hero wanting to oust a widow, her friend and a bunch of orphan’s from the lodge he rents to them so he can have a hunting party. Typical, but fun. Debbie Raleigh’s “The Elusive Bride” setup had the typical “heroine must marry hero to pay off male relative’s debts,” with the heroine trying to raise the money to pay off the debt to avoid being sold off. It would have been ok, save for the “But I told you I’m buying you and we’re getting married and why don’t you appreciate my love and sacrifice!” bit. Joy Reed’s “Mince Pie and Mistletoe” wasn’t so much a single story as it was a bunch of just-barely-if-that connected events that I suspect were tying up loose ends from books I haven’t read.

Finally, there’s The Heart of Christmas, which was Harlequin reprinting older novellas by Mary Balogh and Nicola Cornick, and a new one by Courtney Milan. The Balogh “A Handful of Gold,” has what I’m beginning to suspect is a fairly typical Balogh setup where the heroine, an opera singer (But a virtuous one! Really!), is propositioned by a lord, who thinks she’s had experience, and accepts his offer to be his mistress while he visits a friend for Christmas to pay off family medical bills. Misunderstandings abound. Not exactly my favorite setup, but Balogh pulls it off. Cornick’s “A Season for Suitors” has a young woman deciding she needs coaching in escaping fortune hunters after she receives a sizable inheritance, so she asks her brother’s friend, a notorious rake (of course), to give her pointers. She had proposed to him before for purely practical reasons, but he rejected her despite being Sekritly In Love With Her (For Years!) due to a serious case of Not Good Enough For You, as well as But Your Brother Will Kill Me. Various eyeroll worthy moments, but very entertaining. I read about a chapter and a half of Milan’s “This Wicked Gift” and stopped when the hero told the heroine he bought her brother’s debts and she could pay him off with her body. Apparentnly, he was worried someone else would get there first and he wouldn’t be able to convince her to cheat if she got married to someone else and he didn’t want to lose a chance at getting her in bed. At least Raleigh’s guy was doing it because he’d thought she’d make an awesome wife and didn’t think he’d get her attention any other way. (Which is still Loserville, but not as firmly entrenched.) Ayway, I had better things to do with my time.

Mary Balogh, I have decided, has never met a fake engagement/marriage (of convenience) plot that she didn’t like. Seriously, it’s been in, I think, 5 of the 7 books of hers that I’ve read.

Thrown from his horse during the Battle of Waterloo, Alleyne Bedwyn wakes up in a brothel. With amnesia. Also in the brothel is Rachel York, a young woman who recently fell victim to, and was left penniless by, a con artist. The madame is Rachel’s former nurse, and the prostitutes were scammed by the same conartist. Alleyne (called Jonathan) initially believes that she’s one of the prostitutes, but soon learns otherwise. Rachel’s mother left her a set of valuable jewelry, but she can’t claim the jewelry from her uncle, from whom she is estranged, until she’s 25. Together, Rachel, Alleyne, and the prostitutes come up with a plan to trick Rachel’s uncle into believing Rachel and Alleyne are married, in hopes that he’ll turn the jewelry over early.

Like Slightly Wicked (which, come to think of it, also featured a heroine who initially pretended to have more sexual experience than she did) this is good more because Balogh is a good writer than because of the book itself. Actually, I suspect Balogh may have been trying to write a lighter book, and “light,” IMO, isn’t really her strength. She’s much better when she’s ramping up the angst. (And keep in mind that I’m very much not one for angst just to have angst.) There isn’t even much done with the amnesia angst (and remember, this is romance novel amnesia, so the personality is exactly the same and there are no headaches or rages or anything that goes with actual amnesia), beyond worrying if there’s a wife and kid out there, and even that is mostly centered around Alleyne remembering promising to return to a woman before the battle. That isn’t as effective as it could be, as (A) we know the woman is his sister, Morgan, who would very much root for him and Rachel, and (B) we know she’s perfectly safe and in England, after being all but dragged back in Slightly Tempted.

Solid, but not the best Balogh I’ve read.

Not wanting to be anywhere in the vicinity when her former fiance’s wife gives birth, Freyja Bedwyn decides to visit a friend in Bath. Along the way, a man fleeing an angry grandfather hides in her room, and doesn’t appear impressed by her arrogant hauteur when she kicks him out. Later, she catches him appearing to molest a maid in Bath, and confronts him that evening at a social gathering, only to learn that the man, Joshua Moore, had actually been saving the maid.

I was very nervous about this book. I love Freyja, who is arrogant, opinionated, frank, shameless and confident, and more than a little wild, but my experience with women in fiction like her, regardless of genre, is that if they aren’t evil, then they must be tamed and taught the error of their ways. And, indeed, for the first 60 or so pages, it appears that Freyja will be tamed and taught the error of her ways, including through public humiliation. It didn’t help that I was actively disliking Joshua, who was coming across as the typical annoying rogue character in romances. Thankfully, Balogh quickly remembered that she was a much better writer than that, the idea of changing Freyja to be more” proper” was cheerfully thrown out the window, and Joshua became more fun and likable as the two became friends (or at least, friendlier) and entered into a false engagement to save him from being manipulated into marriage with his cousin. Which would have irritated, save that the cousin, Constance, also really really really didn’t want to marry him. I do, however, sense a certain theme with Balogh and fake engagements, but maybe it’s just the ones I’ve been reading

This was fun, but I still think the two loose prequels to the Bedwyn books are better than (so far) the actual Bedwyn series. I’m glad that Freyja grew and changed without having to actually be changed or reformed, and I like that, aside from Freyja and Joshua, most of the relationship focus was on Freyja forming various kinds of friendships with other women. Though I am slightly disappointed that Joshua is socially acceptable, and so I was deprived of Wulfric having to come to terms with yet another sibling marrying a Lesser Being. And then actually kinda liking said Lesser Being.

When Lord Colonel Aidan Bedwyn’s close subordinate, Percy Morris, dies on the battlefield, Percy asks Aidan to deliver the news to his sister, Eve, in person, and to protect her. Even beyond her obvious grief, this puts Eve in a difficult position. According to the terms of her father’s will, his property was hers until a year after his death, at which point, it became Percy’s unless Eve married. If Eve is still single and Percy dies before then, the property and money is given to an unpleasant cousin. So, to fulfill his promise, Aidan proposes a marriage of convenience.

Though connected to two other Baloghs (the only ones I’ve read, actually) this is the first book in Balogh’s Bedwyn series. Based on the names (their mother was a history buff) and the personality of the head of the family, Bewcastle, I suspect these are at least partly inspired by Jo Beverley’s Georgian Mallorean books. I enjoyed this quite a bit-especially given the overused “marriage of convenience” setup-but didn’t find it as interesting as A Summer to Remember or One Night for Love. I liked Eve’s extreme stubbornness, and how Aidan managed to be so arrogant, but still managed to be charming. I think because he would realize he suffered from Foot In Mouth Disease almost the moment a symptom became evident.

One thing I’ve noticed is that while Balogh writes angsty romances and angsty heroes, her heroes tend to be nice, and not take their angst out on others, and so I like them more than I do a lot of angsty dramatic romances. I mean, I’m sure I’d like modern kdramas and certain shoujo more if angst weren’t used so often to justify the heroes’ jerky behavior to others, particularly their love interests.

After being abandoned literally at the altar, Lauren Edgeworth decided that marriage was Not For Her. Not that she really thought it was for any reasons but family obligation to start with. When Kit Butler’s brother Jerome died, he not only inherited his place as family heir, but also Jerome’s fiancé, Freyja, who threw Kit over for Jerome several years earlier. To escape the marriage his parents have arranged, Kit decides to go home with a fiancée, and his friends bet him that he could never convince Lauren, the controlled Ice Queen of society, to marry him.

All the fiancée dumping reminds me of several Jo Beverley books where several of the heroes were courting or betrothed to this one perfectly nice woman, only to eventually dump her for their heroines. By the time her book came around, I was almost ready to like it and whoever she ended up with on principle. I’m also really not fond of the “courting on a bet” trope, but that is thankfully done away with quickly, and instead Lauren agrees to pretend to be Kit’s fiancée if he’ll let her have adventures that she can’t have as a controlled and proper lady.

I like Lauren because I like icy and obsessively proper and controlled heroines, and I like how her propriety comes from her being determined to be properly thankful to her stepfather’s family, who raised her after her mother and stepfather abandoned her. Kit took me a while to warm up to, both because of the betting thing and because he’s something of a combination between a typical angsty hero home from war and a typical playboy hero.

They both have a lot of angst (and the root of Kit’s angst is more interesting than it originally seems), but the story itself isn’t overly angsty, which is a good combination. The book is a prequel to Balogh’s long-running series about Freyja’s family, the Bedwyns, but is also apparently a sequel to One Night For Love, which I have but have not read, as I didn’t know it came first.