Pretty decent but not outstanding batch of romance novels, with the exception of Venetia, which was excellent.

The Temporary Wife by Mary Balogh: Part of Balogh's "Dark Angel" series, I believe, though I don't remember character names from the others well enough to spot the crossovers. This is best summed up as "Future duke hires governess to ( Read more... )

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.

( cut for length )

This is a duology about two brothers who…eventually make the heroines their mistresses. Before marrying them, of course. Balogh has a mistress kink? Thankfully, neither brother comes across as a creepy user or has particular possession issues.

In More Than a Mistress, Jocelyn, the Duke of Tresham is about to fight a duel when a young woman, ( Read more... )

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 ( Read more... )

This is a collection of five Regency Christmas novellas written over about fifteen years, which tends to show at times ( Read more... )

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, ( Read more... )

This is the last of Balogh’s Bedwyn books, and probably the best one. Though, err, it probably owes a chunk of that to apparently deliberately being modeled after Pride and Prejudice. Wulfric Bedwyn, the control freak head of the Bedwyn family, has been lured down to a house party against his better judgment. Christina Derrick, a local widow, is ( Read more... )

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 ( Read more... )

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/ ( Read more... )

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 ( Read more... )