Customer Reviews

The Temporary Wife

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Anthony Earhart, Marquess of Staunton, desperately wants to spite the father he hates. Summoned home after eight years' absence, he knows that he is expected to marry a chit straight from the schoolroom because she is his father's choice of bride for him; a suitable match for a future duke. Well, he has no intention of conforming. He decides to marry the most unsuitable woman he can find: a mousy nobody. So - as he is determined not to stoop lower than a gentlewoman fallen on hard times - he advertises for a governess, intending to marry the most submissive and plain of the applicants.

Charity Duncan seems to meet Anthony's requirements. Little does he know that her submissive manner is assumed, due to her having lost previous employment because she stood up for the rights of a chambermaid. Dressed in dull brown, she stares at the floor and seems so perfect for Anthony's purpose that he proposes to her.

Charity accepts, because her family is very poor and her brother is struggling to pay off debts so that he can marry his sweetheart. After all, the marquess promises that she will only have to play the part of his wife for a matter of weeks. Then he will give her a home and a pension - six thousand pounds a year! - and she can have her freedom, except for the wedding ring. Anthony himself, he declares, never wants to marry for real, never wants to have children of his own.

So they marry, and Charity accompanies Anthony to Enfield, the Duke of Withingsby's home. There, she finds an apparently cold, unloving family, and realises that her husband wasn't joking when he said he wanted to spite the father he loathed. However, Anthony has seriously underestimated Charity...

Gradually, she breaks down the ice which surrounds her husband's heart and, bit by bit, she becomes his confidant. She, on the other hand, learns that passion doesn't have to have anything to do with love.

While she seems to be making progress in helping Anthony to reconcile with his family, isn't she only hastening the time when he'll inform her that he doesn't need her any more, and thus of her own departure? After all, he did marry a temporary wife...

In Balogh's inimitable style, she gives us a poignant story which examines relationships in all their manifestations, and shows us that love and hate are often closer than we think. And typically in a Balogh novel, the apparent villain is not so evil as he might have initially appeared. This is a wonderful romantic tearjerker, well worth the secondhand price you might have to pay!

This novel was, I believe, one of Balogh's last Signet Regencies. It's just a gem. A bit darker in theme than her usual work of this period, the novel contains a familiar Regency plot device (warm country lass marries into cold, repressed aristocratic dynasty) but is rewoven by Balogh to make an intriguing, thoughtful, and impossible-to-put-down read.

What I liked most about this book was how Balogh believably makes her heroine an amateur psychologist. That might sound off putting but Balogh makes it work. The impoverished heroine takes on more than she knows when she agrees, for money, to enter into a sham marriage with a nobleman for the sole purpose of shocking and hurting the nobleman's haughty father. As the heroine comes to understand the history and unhealed wounds of her husband's dysfunctional family, she can't help trying to "open up the windows" in the hearts and minds of those she's living with. How she does so, and how her efforts are received by her husband and his family, is the core of the drama.

In the course of the story some disturbing family issues come to the surface: the devastating effects to children who are made their parents' confidants, the corrosive nature of unrequited love, and the terrible price of misplaced pride. The novel even skirts around children's awareness of their parents' sexuality, a rather unusual topic in a romance novel.

Once again, Balogh, has created a complex and thought provoking story and tells it with style and grace. When Mary Balogh was at the top of her game (during the 1990s,) no one--and I mean no one--wrote better Regencies. This is an example of her best and not to be missed by anyone who is looking for an intelligent, moving and extremely well written Regency romance.

This book has been so well reviewed previously, that it seems almost superfluous to add my own thoughts, but I will say it anyway: Read "The Temporary Wife" (if you can get it) to see why Mary Balogh has become the best in this genre. This book is simply one of the best that she has written, simply one of the best books that there is.

This is a great book on every level; her writing style is beautiful and flows easily, *pulling* you in to the story. From the minute I picked up this book, I simply couldn't put it down until I had finished the entire book. Her characters are very likeable and very complex (unusual for a Regency novel), and she introduces so many *heavy* topics that you can almost get dizzy trying to keep track of them all. Being Mary Balogh, she tackles these topics with exceptional understanding and sensitivity, and I was left with a lot of food for thought. In The Temporary Wife, Mary Balogh explores the complex relationship of father and son (why do parents treat their children badly if they really do love them so?), the complexities of an arranged marriage (is it the parties responsibility to *make* their own happiness, or not?), and the dangers of confiding too much to your children (as we see the pitfalls in this story). She shows us an unhappy family, and as we get to understand the complexities of the relationship of any family, especially this family, she also shows us that their is more than two sides to every issue, more than two sides to a coin. I have never seen any of these issues *ever* explored in any other Regency novel, and particularly not in this way, where each side is presented in its entirety. She shows us why everyone does act the way they do, until at the end, you find yourself without a villian to blame for this very messy tangle of an unhappy family.

Since this a shorter Regency novel, these topics are only very lightly skimmed, however, as she quickly steers us towards the ending for the happily-ever-after. While in many Regency novels, I get the feeling that the author is scrounging around for something to fill up the pages, in this novel, the feeling I get is just the opposite - Mary Balogh has so much to say, and so many topics to explore, that in order to cram them all in there is a somewhat superficial discussion of these issues (not to say that in this book she is superficial, rather, compared to what I have seen Mary Balogh do in some of her other books, I know that she has more to say). Wouldn't I like to see this book reprinted and expanded!!! (Publishers, are you listening????)

Mary Balogh does not need my praise. This book speaks for itself as one of the very best of its kind. An enjoyable and thought-provoking read - if you can get hold of it.

Lord Anthony Earheart marries an impoverished, mousy woman to upset his father. But he gets more than he bargained for. Charity may be mousy, but she is stronger than she seems.

Charity is a catalyst. Her arrival results in lots of emotional turmoil for the people of this household. But in the end, the results are worth all the pain.

In the hands of the wrong writer, Anthony's father could have been yet another eeevil parent stereotype. But this is a Mary Balogh novel, and life is never so simple in her books.

The characters grow in the course of this book. The best moments are often the most subtle ones.

Anne M. Marble Reviewer, All About Romance

Anthony is absent 8 years from his home when he receives the request (order) from his father to return immediately. Anthony is independently wealthy and independent in all other ways, so why would he return to the family he has not set eyes on in 8 years? Well...

Anthony, the heir to a dukedom, marries an impoverished mouse of a gentlewoman below his station. He acquires this "temporary wife" in order to "stick it" to his estranged father (the duke) after he has been summoned home.

His bride, Charity Duncan, seems like the perfect little "mouse" to enrage his father. His plan is to marry her, use her for a few weeks to assert his independence from his father, then separate from her permanently.

Charity agrees to this because her family is in debt and, as the eldest sibling, feels this marriage is the only way to save her family from poverty and hardship. You see, Anthony will make her a wealthy woman for life if she marries him and lets him use her as a pawn for only a few weeks.

Things do not go as planned for either of them. Charity's warm presence in her new husband's stuffy, loveless family causes heartache, enlightenment, healing, love, grief, etc. Anthony learns very quickly that Charity is NOT a mouse. Charity learns quickly that there is more to Anthony than the cold, calculating, rigid man he seems.

The relationship between Anthony and Charity is a unique one and develops with care. This is NOT a case of "First comes love, then comes marriage". The sequence of events in their relationship is unconventional and they all unfold in a very satisfying way.

Great book! Read it!

Balogh is a master of the Regency genre, but in this novel she surpasses even her own high standards. She can write pages about the simplest of gestures and expressions and share with you their full meaning and import. The characters in this book are rich and fascinating, and you won't be able to put this one down. Highly, highly recommended

Mary Balogh's latest is one of her best. The book is exciting with a dashing, but thoughtful protagonist and a delightful heroine. The novel is quite sensual, while remaining comfortably "regency". The characters seem quite plausible, and through them, the author makes some keen observations about people. I highly recommend it

My sister is a Mary Balogh lover of the first order and has almost her entire collection. Lucky me! She has been lending me all of MB's short regencies for *my* reading pleasure! "The Temporary Wife" is one of her favorites, and with good reason. It is a wonderful little book--very well written and with a great heroine and touching story.

Anthony Earheart, the Marquess of Staunton, has been estranged from his family for eight years when he receives a message from his father, the Duke of Withingsby, summoning him home in order to formalize his betrothal to a very young, well-born girl of his father's choice. In order to spite and embarass his father, the marquess decides to marry beneath himself to someone totally unsuitable. As he describes the woman he is looking for to his friend, Lord Rowling:

"She must be a gentlewoman--I'll not go lower than that, you see. She must also be impoverished, plain, demure, very ordinary, perhaps even prim. She must have all the personality of a--a a quiet mouse."

He places an advertisement in the paper for a governess, intending to select from the applicants the drabbest, mousiest one as his bride. When he interviews the shabbily genteel, seemingly meek Miss Charity Duncan, the arrogant marquess thinks that he has found the perfect pawn for his scheme of revenge against his father. He offers Charity a fortune to marry him and be his "temporary wife"--traveling to his family home to meet his family in order to prove that he is beyond his father's power and influence. After a few weeks, Charity would be allowed to go her own way--a wealthy woman although still married to the marquess in name only. Charity, the oldest of six children left deeply in debt following their father's death, finds Anthony's offer too good to refuse.

But Charity is not exactly the "little brown mouse" that she seems to be at the interview. She is a wonderfully charming, warm-hearted woman who is *appalled* when she meets Anthony's unhappy, cold family and cannot help meddling to try to heal old family rifts. She has a marvelous ability to *forgive* others, and her quiet dignity and grace put the top-lofty, grudge-bearing Earhearts to shame.

Anthony starts out as a pretty obnoxious, arrogant hero--but Mary Balogh gives him a wonderful heart and the later scenes with his estranged family members are truly touching. Even the cold, seemingly heartless Duke of Withingsby is a fully-drawn character by the end of the story--imperfect but human.

In summary, this is a wonderful short regency by Mary Balogh--one of my favorites!

Highly recommended!

This book was the best thing by Mary Balogh that I have ever read, hands down. The plot was perfection; the maturing of the hero was believable; the heroine was strong...AND it's sensual. Absolutely, five stars & worth the time & trouble to get a used copy.

I found this romance to be unusual in that the hero is unsympathetic throughout much of the book, yet his growing respect and love for the heroine is somehow more believable because of this. In the end, I cheered when they finally got together! Balogh's characters in general are more multi-dimensional than many found in romance novels. Very good!