Slightly Scandalous by Mary Balogh
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.
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.