Customer Reviews

Dark Angel (Signet Regency Romance)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jennifer Winwood and her cousin Samantha are in London for their first season. Jennifer is thrilled because after five long years of waiting, she is to become officially engaged to the devastatingly handsome and honorable Lionel Kersey. She is deeply in love with him even though she's only met him a few times in the last five years.

In the park one day, Jennifer and Samantha come across two men, one of which is the notorious Earl of Thornhill, Regency England's most notorious rake. He is back in England after more than a year abroad....I won't say anymore for fear of giving away too much information. Suffice it to say that 'Dark Angel' is one of my favorite books. It is well-written with richly drawn main and secondary characters and a great plot. Don't miss it.

P.S. Try 'Lord Carew's Bride' next. It is Samantha's story.

This book cost me a forture because it is out of print, but it was well worth the money! The story is great and the writing is superb.

The heroine, Jennifer Winward, is a young country miss in London for her first season. She has been informally engaged to the very handsome and elegant Viscount Kersey for five years and is madly in love with him, although in truth she barely knows him. With her formal engagement and wedding looming up over the next two months, she is disturbed to find herself the target of the attentions of the intensely attractive and disreputable Earl of Thornhill, Gabriel Fisher, a man who has been in exile on the Continent for the past two years--having fled there with his pregnant step-mother following a scandalous liason. What Jennifer does not realize is that she is a pawn in a ruthless game of revenge that will leave her reputation in shambles.

The characters in this story are great, both the main characters and the villain. Jennifer is a sweet and romantic girl--intelligent but too innocent to recognize the traps being set for her by the men. Gabriel is a wonderful, conflicted and imperfect hero; an honorable man who temporarily puts his honor aside in his quest for revenge. (He does a very necessary world-class grovel at the end.) Lionel (Viscount Kersey) is a wonderfully slimey and attractive villain. The final confrontation scene between Gabriel and Lionel is priceless.
A great story! I loved it!

Mary Balogh is one of my favorite authors and DARK ANGEL is one of my "I love Mary" books. This is NOT a situation of "first comes love; then comes matrimony," no this is a case of revenge. In typical Mary Balogh style, the author has penned another wonderful romance.

Jennifer Winward is engaged to the man of her girlhood dreams, the devastatingly handsome and distinguished Viscount Kersey. However, THEY soon shatter Jennifer's fantasy world, she finds herself ruined and devastated. THEY have destroyed and humiliated her -- all in the name of revenge. THEY are two members of the English realm, two men playing a game of vengeance and retaliation -- a game with Jennifer posed in the center.

Gabriel Fisher, the Earl of Thornhill, has recently returned from the continent. He arrives in London with a mission - to destroy a man. The man? Jennifer Winward's betrothed. The viscount may be the intended target, but he is also a man ready to execute a counterattack.

Again Balogh draws a well-written story filled with richly sketched main and secondary characters. Jennifer Winward is a beautiful innocent with a sharp mind. Gabriel Fisher is your typical romance hero -- rich, handsome, and human -- Mary Balogh writes my kind of romance citizen! Yet she handled Viscount Kersey with a brilliant flare. Kersey is a fascinating villain. He is evil but his character is not over the top -- a villain who is vile and interesting but does not distract from the hero and heroine. Well done!

Another regency classic from the Balogh pen.

Grace Atkinson, Ontario - Canada.

This is not one of my favorite Balough books. I give it four stars because it redeems itself at the end, and because Balough's weaker efforts are still more readable than 90% of everything else. Also, it's the first of a loose septet and all the other books refer back to it, as Jennifer and Gabriel are the first of a circle of friends to get married. More about that in a minute.

My problem with the book is Jennifer herself. Her innocence was a little overplayed, I thought. Her unquestioning love for Lord Kersey was a plausible setup, but, "methinks madam protests too much." Sheltered is not stupid, nor insensitive. I kept expecting her to notice her attraction to Gabriel, and to question why she didn't have the same rapport with Lionel, but she didn't, at least not to my satisfaction. There's a bit of dramatic irony in that the reader is supposed to understand her confusion, but she never remarks on it, to herself or to her cousin and confidante, Samantha. As a result, Jennifer seemed weak and simplistic, as if her personality was being deliberately constrained to allow the plot to work.

It seems also that the writing in the middle third of the book is stilted, as if Balough was having trouble justifying Jennifer's behavior to move the plot forward. Perhaps there was more material, that made everything flow better and make better sense, that was cut for length.

By contrast, Samantha's self-awareness and inner conflict struck me as smoothly written, believable and appropriate, especially given the very short subplot they were allotted. She seemed wiser than her cousin, even though she was younger.

Jennifer redeems herself after the wedding, however. She suddenly comes alive in technicolor, develops a third dimension and a spine. The ending is rewarding and welcome. Although this book was a letdown after the high standards of Lord Carew's Bride, A Christmas Bride, and A Precious Jewel, it's still worth reading.

Here's how the titles are interconnected, and their approximate sequence (I wish I'd had this list when I was trying to find them all!):
_Dark Angel_: Jennifer and Gabriel, Earl of Thornell
_Lord Carew's Bride_: Jennifer's cousin Samantha marries Hartley, Marquess of Carew.
_The Famous Heroine_: Lord Francis Kneller, who was secretly in love with Samantha and broken-hearted after she married Carew, meets Miss Cora Downes and finds her extremely refreshing.
_The Plumed Bonnet_: The Duke of Bridgewater, close friend to both Carew and Kneller, rescues and compromises Miss Stephanie Gray.
_A Precious Jewel_ and _The Ideal Wife_ take place concurrently. Miles Ripley, Earl of Severn, makes a marriage of convenience to Abigail Gardiner, (The Ideal Wife) while his good friend Sir Gerald Stapleton is falling in love with his mistress, Priscilla (A Precious Jewel).
_A Christmas Bride_:A year or so after Gerald marries Priscilla, his stepmother, Lady Helena Stapleton, meets and seduces Mr. Edgar Downes, brother of Cora, who is now Lady Francis Kneller.

Got it? I think I read _A Christmas Bride_ first, and it is fantastic, but it is also the wrap-up for this circle of friends. Dark Angel is the beginning of the saga.

it is a credit to Mary's writing that she can take an unpleasant storyline (a false love affair for revenge) and weave a delightful, romantic and sensual love story.

While you may pay a bit higher than normal because this book is out of print I recommend the purchase because it is as good as any book coming out new at seven bucks.

5 stars!

Without giving anything away, it was the touching and heartfelt ending that secured this as a keeper for me. Suffice it to say that no one does it better than Ms. Balogh: honest emotion, genuine human characters and a well-written, interesting story.