Customer Reviews

Silent Melody

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you finished reading Balogh's Heartless and longed to know more about Luke and Anna, and longed even more to know what would happen to Anna's deaf-mute sister Emily, you have to read Silent Melody. Here, Balogh gives Emily her own romance, and also allows us to see how Luke and Anna have grown as a couple - their relationship, while in the background, is shown to be mature and solid.

Emily has been deaf and mute since a small child, and only Anna, Luke, and particularly Ashley, Luke's younger brother, really understand her when she tries to communicate and make the effort to communicate properly with her. Ashley, however, went away when she was fifteen, and although he subsequently married, she still loves him. Luke, her brother-in-law, understands that, but also wants her to have a home of her own rather than feeling that she has to be dependent on relatives for the rest of her life. Believing that he has her best interests at heart, he tries to find her a husband. But, just as she is about to accept Lord Powell, Ashley comes home...

Ashley has been widowed in tragic circumstances, and is now a bitter, guilt-ridden man of thirty. None of his family can get through to him to find out what's going on inside his head... except Emmy, who always understood him years before. Except that he cannot vocalise his feelings any longer, so instead he takes comfort from her in another way.

She refuses to marry him, because although she loves him she knows that he doesn't love her and only asked out of a sense of honour. The real problem here is that Ashley's image of Emily is still fixed on the fourteen-year-old child she once was; he is unable for a very long time to acknowledge that she is now a woman, and so he can't allow himself to think of her as a desirable partner instead of his little fawn. He remembers her as a child, and hates himself for adding to his own guilt over what he did to her.

There are many themes in this story: inner healing, redemption, the meaning of maturity, and even more important the nature of disability. Emily is the only person who does not consider her deafness a handicap; no matter how well-meaning they are, the rest of her family all consider it an affliction they must help her overcome. Anna by teaching Emily how to behave in society, Luke by teaching her to read and write, Ashley by insisting that she learn to form words and speak. As Emily herself thinks any number of times, perhaps they should learn from her about the qualities of silence. However, Ashley does grow in this respect: he ceases assuming that he knows what's best for her and learns to appreciate her world as well.

(So, to the reviewer who made that crass comment about Emily's deafness, I ask: did you read the book? Emily *never* sought special treatment or considered herself pitiful because of her deafness.)

The one thing which seemed completely superfluous in this book was the villain plot. It seemed unnecessary; there was more than enough material for Balogh to write about in simply resolving Ashley and Emily's relationship. The villain brought a different dynamic into the story, and I actually would have preferred Ash and Emily to turn to each other because they realised themselves that they loved each other, not because someone else's actions gave them a shove in the right direction.

That aside, this is a deeply emotional book which deserves its high rating.

This sequel to the already outstanding Heartless tells us the story of Lord Ashley Kendrick and Lady Emily Marlowe. The premise of their relationship was already hinted at in Heartless, but this book takes off seven years later and explores it in earnest.

As a tortured hero, Ashley truly takes after his brother Luke. The seven years he spent away from home didn't bring him the happiness he was looking for, and it's alone and heartbroken that he arrives at Bowden Abbey. His family has changed drastically: his brother, still happily married to Anna Marlowe, is now the father of four children; his sister has settled and gained a lot of maturity. And Emily, the child he used to call his "little fawn", has grown into a woman. A very beautiful and desirable woman, in fact. And the realisation of his blooming feelings for Emily mingles with his jealousy when he sees her being courted by several gentlemen thinking of her as a potential bride.

Emily has continued to observe the world from her own silent world. Heartless already gave us a few glimpses of her life as a deaf mute and the inner world she had built for herself, but Silent Melody explores it much more thoroughly, and the atmosphere enveloping the entire story is rendered more fascinating by the frequent introspection from Emily's point of view. She opens her world to Ashley - and to the reader - even though she knows that whatever happened to him in India to make him so sombre will always keep them apart. They can be friends but nothing more, since Ashley never saw in her what she sees in him. He thinks of her as a child still, not as a lover, doesn't he?

Silent Melody takes us in a very original and captivating world, where both heroes feel frightened by their feelings. More than in any other romance novel, the misunderstandings never look artificial, thanks to the absence of wordy communication between Ashley and Emily. Mary Balogh does a masterful job of describing each of their private thoughts. The characters' emotions are thrust onto the reader without artifice, and the resulting story is both powerful and heartwrenching. One of the very best!

If emotion is the hallmark of romance, this is without doubt, one of the most romantic novels ever written. Every page, every word is imbued with emotion that will not soon leave you.

The hero, Lord Ashley Kendrick, and the heroine, Lady Emily Marlowe, made their first appearance in HEARTLESS (Berkley, September, 1995), and it is easy to see why they demanded their own book.

Ashley, twenty-two, bored and restless in England, sets off to make his fortune in the East India Company, leaving behind the fifteen-year-old Emmy. The loss is more severe for the young woman; Ashley is the only person who really understands her. He cared enough to help devise a special sign language for easier communication with Emmy, who was rendered deaf and mute by a fever when she was barely more than a toddler.

While in India, Ashley marries and has a son. His arrival back in England, on the night of a ball--to perhaps celebrate the betrothal of Emmy to the eligible Lord Powell--sets in motion a tale of love and intrigue. Ashley, now a widower, finds himself drawn more and more to the young woman who has indeed grown-up during his absence. Only after Emmy has accepted the offer of Lord Powell, does Ashley reveal the deaths of his wife and child. The betrothal is broken, but still the two lovers cannot easily bridge the gap of words--words that one cannot say, and the other cannot hear.

If you can read only one book this year, SILENT MELODY should be that one. No exceptions, no quibbles. But--be sure to have a box of tissues handy. If you don't need them, you have no heart.

"Silent Melody" is the follow-up to the book "Heartless" by Mary Balogh and has the same cast of characters, although this time the hero is Lord Ashley Kendrick and the heroine is Lady Emily Marlowe.

Set in 1763 (i.e. before the Regency period) the story begins with Lady Emily on the verge of becoming engaged to one of her suitors. She is 22 years old and feels it is time to leave the safe and protective arms of her family - her sister Anna the Duchess of Harndon and her husband Luke, the main characters in "Heartless". It was nice to revisit these characters who have been rather prolific in procreating - at the beginning of the story they have just had their fourth child.

Anyway, Emily has given up on Lord Ashley, although she still loves him. Not only has he been away in India for seven years but he's also married with a son. And then as she is on the verge of being proposed to by a suitor, Lord Ashley appears in the ballroom, back from India unexpectedly.

But Lord Ashley has secrets. No longer is his life the relatively uncomplicated life of a younger son in the East India Company - his marriage is not what it seemed and he is riven with feelings of guilt and shame. And then he adds to his problems - and to Emily's - one evening and yet he can't seem to make amends. Emily has her own forcefulness, her own ideas of behaviour and she doesn't necessarily do what is expected of ladies of her station.

Of course Emily is unusual - she is a deaf mute and therefore can't communicate particularly clearly and isn't always sure what is going on around her. Mary Balogh has written this character in an amazing way, showing although she has apparent disabilities she is able to live her life and to see value and wonder that others miss. I very much enjoyed her conversations with Ashley, the only person who really understands what she means a lot of the time and who can truly have a meeting of minds.

As usual in a Mary Balogh novel there's a baddie who initially seems like a goodie and it seems that things that appear to be random events are evidence of a darker hand at work. But the real triumph of this book is the way in which Emily is able to grow up and take responsibility for herself and how she is able to help Ashley to heal from the difficulties in his past. They are a very likeable couple and it makes this book a joy to read.

Maybe had I been in a different mood, maybe if I hadn't loved Heartless so much, maybe if I would've identified with Ashley as a tortured hero, maybe if I would've loved Emily liked I loved Annie in "Annie's Song" by Catherine Anderson....maybe I would've loved this book....but I just didn't.

This is the first Mary Balogh book that I haven't really liked. I just never really felt any kind of love connection between these two. A fondness yes...a commitment yes....a history yes...but nothing else. They were a perfect brother and sister, and I just never quite made the leap that I think Balogh needed the reader to make in order to give this book raves.

I really enjoyed catching up with Luke and Anna from "Heartless". Now there is a couple that defines "match made in heaven". I only wish I could say the same thing about their siblings.

If your looking for a GREAT deaf/mute heroine story line try Annie's Song by Catherine Anderson....I guarantee that one will not disappoint.

I've read some of Mary Balogh's other books and enjoyed them a great deal. Unfortunately, as previous reviewers have mentioned, the "action" parts of this book felt like a formula Balogh had pasted into place. Evil villain? Check. Incomprehensible motivation for said villain? Check. An assortment of characters with seemingly no role but to keep hero and heroine apart for five precious minutes during the book who are given disproportionate "screen time"? Check.

More bothersome, from my point of view, was Emily's deafness. Emily is able to lip-read easily, even in ball situations, where the lighting was not so good and people were probably not looking straight at her every time she spoke. And her lip-reading was pretty much flawless, which is something that doesn't happen, even now, even under ideal situations (good lighting, speaker facing listener and enunciating clearly). As my ASL teacher put it, look into a mirror and say, "Pleased to meet you." Then say, "Elephant juice." Can you tell the difference simply by sight? Emily's lip-reading ability was taken beyond the realm of plausibility, and the same is true for most of her communications with others. It's as though the deafness became a plot hindrance most of the time, so what the hell, we're just going to pretend that it isn't really that much of a problem. I just had difficulty suspending my disbelief there-- or my annoyance, since Balogh did choose to write a deaf heroine. It's a shame, because I'd been hoping to find a really interesting element of what it was like to be deaf in regency England... but I came away with the sense that not much research had been done, either on what it was like to be deaf then OR what it's like to be deaf now. This sort of sloppiness irritates me.

I did read the first book in this "grouping," and enjoyed it, and understand how "Silent Melody" grew from that. Still, Emily was a deaf heroine, and the way Balogh dealt with her deafness struck me as sloppy. She's written better books. The hook for this one was a hindrance rather than a help to the book's quality. Read something else she's written first.

This novel opens intriguingly. I like to find out-of-the-ordinary romance novels whether this quality is in a character or in a setting, and a deaf heroine is certainly intriguing. I don't know many hearing impaired persons, nor am I hearing impaired, so I can't speak to how realistically Mary Balogh incorporated this feature into Emily's character. Although, I think it should be said that society in 1756 would have been more likely to treat Emily as a freak, or as someone who's "cursed" because she had a physical handicap. The family would have been more likely to hide her away, rather than pushing her forward and encouraging her to marry (as Emily's family does). This is the way people generally thought of the handicapped in those times, and this attitude lasted right up through the mid-20th century. Balogh missed a great opportunity to incorporate the old prejudices into Emily's experience as an 18th century deaf woman.

I thought Emily was a well written heroine, but unfortunately only up to a point. Emily has realistic feelings - she wants a home and a family; she didn't want to be sheltered all her life just because she had an "affliction". So she takes determined steps toward her dream, and this was all good reading.

Unfortunately the book began to fall apart for me when Ashley Kendrick, Emily's childhood love, came back on the scene. For all that Emily's fiance, Lord Powell, was somewhat ignorant and pompous, he wasn't a bad man. On the other hand, Ashley Kendrick is a selfish, immature, "wounded" hero; all for no truly compelling reason. Yes, he had made a terrible marriage, but by the time he met Emily again, he was free of it. Plus, he knows Emily is engaged to another man, yet he takes her virginity because HE needs "comfort", one emotional night. This is really the point where the book began to go *pfffft* for me. I didn't mind that Emily broke her engagement to Lord Powell, but what a messy way to do it (seems like just about everybody finds out what happened between her and Ashley). Kind of humiliating for the (not so bad, if pompous) Lord Powell. Then, Emily's delay in consenting to marrying Ashley didn't feel right - it was as if the author was inventing a reason to keep them apart for just a little longer.

But it's what happens after the characters go to live at Ashley's late wife's property which really merits my 2-star rating. All these creepy things start coming out of the woodwork: plot twists that totally destroyed any romantic element in this story - involving incest, plus a criminally insane enemy who is masked as a "friend"? Yuck. Unfortunately, many older Balogh novels bring in sadistic elements and heroine-in-danger moments that don't appeal to me as a romance reader. Combined with Balogh's near-total inability to write convincingly about the sex act(too many comfortingly-passive females, like Emily is at first) have pretty much made me give up on Balogh's novels, although I do continue to try her books now and then, because there are still aspects of her work that I like. Generally speaking, I've found that the shorter Balogh's books are, the better they are.

Taken as a whole, SILENT MELODY was only a fair-to-poor romance effort for my taste.

This book was great. I was really curious when I read the back. A Deaf heroine? I thought that the author did a wonderful job conveying the thoughts of Emmy and I thought the love between her and Ashley was beautiful! They were so in love and yet they both had such strong convictions about not being together for the sake of the other! It was such a touching story! I also love the way the other characters, such as Luke and Anna, were brought in. I plan on reading many more books by Mary Balogh!

Remember Jane Wyman in her Oscar-winning performance in JOHNNY BELINDA? Mary Balogh's vulnerable heroine, a deaf-mute, finds herself in a similar predicament---she's been terrorized by a black-hearted villain but doesn't have the words to say who he is and what he has done. The one man who can help her---the first and only love of her life---is locked up in a bitter world of his own making, to which he doesn't have the key. Superb Georgian romance with all of the signature Balogh touches---emotional, passionate, tender---and a rousing story with more than a bit of mystery. Highly recommended. Jo Manning (drmwk@juno.com

I have been a fan of Mary Balogh for the last year and am diligently going through her old books. I was very pleasantly surprised with this book and highly recommend it.