While Mary Balogh is one of the more consistent writers of Regency Historical novels, I worried about this novel before I read it. It bears the burden of being both the first book in a new series and the thirteenth set in the milieu occupied by the heroine. Either of these factors can be a drag on a novel, for different reasons, and it's not hard to imagine why having both present at the same time could really drag a book down.
The first novel in a series, especially one like this, where the main group of characters has an annual meeting at which they all show up and spend time together, has to establish the series setting (is it the marriage stories of the six Bedwyn siblings? the unexpected romances of a group of teachers at a select seminary for girls? the stories of a family centered around what happens to ae earl's family when the earl dies young and the title goes to the son of a vicar living in genteel poverty in a remote village?). At the same time, the novel has to stand alone as a good story on its own.
The thirteenth story in a group of connected characters has the problem of serving both new readers and those who have read the previous twelve books. People like the brother of the heroine and her favorite-cousin-who-was-raised-with-her-as-a-sister have to make sense to people who have never read the previous books, while still ringing true for returning readers. In fact, the one part of the book I did not like was almost certainly an attempt to deal with this issue. At one point, the heroine decides to tell her cousin-raised-as-a-sister the full story of her first marriage, which she has until now kept a closely guarded secret. As someone who really likes the cousin-raised-as-a-sister, I wanted to see this conversation, but in thinking about it, that would have been difficult, since any such depiction would almost certainly either unbalance the book, while trying to tread that line of letting new readers know enough about Lauren (the cousin) to make the scene plausible without making it much longer than its importance to the story warrants. I would have loved to have seen that conversation, but it's probably for the best that it took place off-stage.
These introductory comments are meant to indicate the burdens that this book had to bear because it is not only the story of Grwndoline and Hugo's courtship. There were a lot of people hanging around who needed to be present in this story, as their tales will come later in this present series. And there were an amazing number of people on-stage or referred to who have already had their stories told. What's more, some of these characters are important in this book, and they have to act in ways that move this story forward while still maintaining plausible continuity from how they behaved in earlier books. It's a lot of extra stuff to fit into a book that also has to tell a good story in itself.
Luckily, Mary Balogh is up to the challenge, although I have to say only "just barely!" Occasionally, the whole thing threatens to collapse under the weight of all the expectations it has to manage, but for the most part, the book manages to focus on the main characters, as is appropriate for a romance novel.
As usual for this author, both leads are very human, with strengths and flaws, and both as suffering the after-effects of earlier traumatic times in their lives. When they meet, neither much likes the other, and even when they realize that first impressions are wrong, and they do like many things about each other, they each have good and compelling reasons why they cannot ever marry. It's been a long time since Mary Balogh wrote a book where the "reasons" holding people apart were not actually barriers that have to be worked through. In this case, there are class issues as well as the guilt each carries from earlier events in their lives. Hugo has responded to his guilty feelings about being a war hero by burying much of his personality beneath a strong sense of duty and a somewhat dour persona. Gwen has simply chosen to respond by ensuring that she never finds herself in a similar quagmire by not remarrying.
Once it's established that these are the hero ad heroine, of course, we know that they will have a happy ending. The strength of the book lies in the unfolding of Gwen's and Hugo's secrets, to themselves and to one another. As usual, both of them are somewhat at fault for their misunderstandings, and both of them have to take risks to achieve the intimacy they finally find.
There are, as other reviewers have noted, some revisiting of themes from other books. I wasn't bothered by most of them, as they were twisted and tweaked. For instance, in
The Ideal Wife, the hero swears he will marry the next plain and quiet woman he sees, and he does. In this book, the same suggestion is made as a joke to the hero in the first part of the book, and it is partly his determination not to choose a wife in that way that drives the early part of the plot. There are several other plat elements that Balogh has used to good effect in previous books, which are reused here. I suppose that when you have written as many books as this author has, in a genre with fairly narrow conventions, such reworking is inevitable. Fortunately, for the most part, they fit here well and have been altered to suit the present story.
One of the revisited plot features seemed just a little too convenient: in
Lord Carew's Bride (Signet Regency Romance), the villain has harmed both the hero and the heroine, separately, at different times and in different ways. And again in this book, the serious villain has harmed both Gwen and Hugo, and he tries to hurt them both again in this book, even before he realizes that there is any connection between them (beyond casual acquaintance, anyway). This time, it seemed a little too convenient to have the same person be the nemesis of these two characters from such very different backgrounds.
Anyway, I mostly loved this book. I liked both Gwen and Hugo, and was able to relate to their struggles as well as to their joys. However, the occasional weight of the new-series/13th-book-since-Lily-invaded-Lauren's-wedding, plus the issue I had with the villain being so conveniently the same guy for both the leads, cause me to make this a very rare 4-star rating for a Balogh novel. Totally worth reading, and I look forward to the next one in the series. And I was delighted to see Gwen get her happy ending after she played minor character roles in so many previous novels. It's unfair that Wilma got her happy ending before Gwen did when Gwen is so much nicer a person, but it was worth the wait. I will definitely be rereading this from time to time.
