Slightly Tempted by Mary Balogh
Morgan Bedwyn is in Brussels with her brother, Alleyne, who is on her first diplomatic mission. Also in Brussels is Gervaise Ashford, who was exiled from England by his father years ago, and who blames Wulfric, Morgan and Alleyne’s oldest brother, responsible for it. Since it’s somehow romantic to target your enemy’s innocent sibling/child/significant other/best friend to get revenge, he decides to use Morgan to get to Wulfric. Thankfully, for the first half of the book, this doesn’t seem to be any more sinister than making people think he’s courting Morgan so Wulfric will hear about it and go nuts. Not that that isn’t glare-worthy, and he does do worse at one point.
As revenge-by-proxy plots go, it isn’t so bad, and Balogh seems to actually forget about that aspect for a while and have Morgan and Gervaise become friends in the aftermath of The Battle of Waterloo. Sadly, it’s still a revenge-by-proxy plot, and Morgan really doesn’t make him grovel nearly enough.
Still, I like it, and actually like Gervaise in spite of everything, including myself, though I think Morgan could have done better. For some reason, I also found it odd to be reading about a 18-year-old heroine. It seems historical romance novels used to always be a 17-20-year-old-heroine and a man in his late 20s-early 30s, but I think heroines are usually older now. I was particularly amused when a character tried to justify her actions from 10 years earlier by saying that she had only been 18, so you couldn’t blame her, and Morgan was all “Yeah, that doesn’t work. Try another one.” I wish, though, that the plot had been more about Morgan and Gervaise in Brussels before and after Waterloo, and less about revenge-by-proxy.
As revenge-by-proxy plots go, it isn’t so bad, and Balogh seems to actually forget about that aspect for a while and have Morgan and Gervaise become friends in the aftermath of The Battle of Waterloo. Sadly, it’s still a revenge-by-proxy plot, and Morgan really doesn’t make him grovel nearly enough.
Still, I like it, and actually like Gervaise in spite of everything, including myself, though I think Morgan could have done better. For some reason, I also found it odd to be reading about a 18-year-old heroine. It seems historical romance novels used to always be a 17-20-year-old-heroine and a man in his late 20s-early 30s, but I think heroines are usually older now. I was particularly amused when a character tried to justify her actions from 10 years earlier by saying that she had only been 18, so you couldn’t blame her, and Morgan was all “Yeah, that doesn’t work. Try another one.” I wish, though, that the plot had been more about Morgan and Gervaise in Brussels before and after Waterloo, and less about revenge-by-proxy.