A Certain Magic
by Mary Balogh
Mary Balogh’s re-release of her former Signet Regency titles are a gift. I’ve read several while traveling over the past 2 weeks, and each is like sinking into a warm and soft comforter made of words. Really, really good words.
This one (so far – there are more I haven’t read yet) (which, THANK GOODNESS because I have more plane travel ahead) is my favorite. Piers Westhaven and Alice Penhallow were childhood friends who grew up together along with Alice’s late husband, Webster, who was Piers’ best friend. Now in her almost-thirties, Alice is figuring out life as a widow as Piers finds himself in the odd position of being heir to a title and requiring a wife for the purpose of those all-important heirs. Their friendship has lasted through Alice’s deep and hidden love for Piers, the sudden death of her infant son, her husband’s death a few years later, and Piers’ loss of his wife in childbirth.
But they aren’t maudlin friends who remind each other of misery and grief. I could read four or five more books of them talking to each other. Somewhere there is Piers and Alice (Palice? Aliers? Pierlice?) fanfic of them having tea and cracking each other up. The depth and warmth of their friendship is glorious fun to read, even as their self-imposed boundaries get in the way of their discovering romantic happiness in addition to their already-wonderful and vivid relationship. The tension is sustained a bit too long with increasingly dramatic recriminations and secret joys that undermine how obvious their affection is to everyone, including each other, but just as I reached the part of COME ON ALREADY, Things Happened and I read my Kindle while walking through the airport so I could keep reading as I changed planes. (I can walk and read at the same time – it’s a gift.)
If you like friends-to-lovers stories, and you like Regency romances (this one has some steamy scenes! I was shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, so shocked I bookmarked those pages so I could make sure I wasn’t misreading what was going down), you will very likely love this book. I’m so pleased this novel has been re-released.
– SB Sarah
A Certain Magic is the digital reissue of a previously published and long out-of-print novel by New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh.
Piers Westhaven and Alice Penhallow have always been close friends, even during their marriages to other partners. Now they are both widowed, and Piers, who needs an heir, has asked his friend to help him choose a new bride.
Alice has always been in love with him herself, but hiding her feelings has become second nature to her. As a boy, he dearly loved her too until his best friend announced his intention of courting and marrying her. Soon their mutual passion begins to break through the careful bonds each has imposed upon it just as Piers is being trapped into offering marriage to someone else.
Will honor permit them to speak the heart’s truth before it is too late? Or is it already too late for them–again?
Historical: European, Regency, Romance
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I got the book on Kindle on the basis of this review and I have to say I’m mildly disappointed. It’s been interesting analysing why it didn’t do it for me though, so in case anyone else ends up here, some thoughts.
I’ve always thought friends-to-lovers was delicious. But it turns out the things I’m most into are, specifically, things like:
* a lovely friendship rapport develops a spark of attraction… did I really just have the urge to kiss him, wha?
* cautiously flirting and trying to communicate to someone that you like them That Way without making them uncomfortable if they don’t reciprocate
* getting to the point where a devastatingly honest talk is the only way out, even given the risks of rejection and loss
* maybe someone’s super into it and confident in their desires while the other person takes a bit of time to warm up to the idea
* exploring and developing a sexual connection with a trusted friend – simultaneously really awks and really safe
This book had… none of those things. We know from narrator’s eye view that they’re both deeply romantically in love and wildly attracted to each other, and have been that way since they were teenagers. So that’s just that, sorted from page 1. And in the end, they’re pretty much forced into each other’s arms by Plot – neither of them actually puts themselves out there. And then once they do tell each other their true feelings the book ends immediately so you don’t get to see their friendship develop into a romance. Except really, it feels like very little WOULD change for these two in any case.
There is a sex scene in the middle of the book but it was a bit, well, firstly it felt very datedly euphemistic in style (like ‘she looked into his eyes as he positioned her for the final loving … he drove his love deeply into her’ or similar – understandable, but not my thing), and secondly, led to plenty of angst and Feelings and plot (yess!!) but not much in the way of relationship development (aw cmon).
And, one of my LEAST favourite plot things is to be left feeling like ‘if only they would just talk to each other, it would all get sorted out’. If ‘they’re too angsty to ask’ is the only reason reason the characters aren’t currently at it like bunnies/eloping instantly, it drives me round the bend. ABSOLUTELY they can angst about it and put it off for a bit, we’ve all been there, but it can’t be the ONLY conceit used to keep them apart until the HEA.
THAT SAID, I totally agree with the review above. I loved the writing, I loved their interactions, I loved the setting, I loved the little details and side characters SO much I could read books about them by the bushel. Just that as a romance, the main relationship itself failed to do anything for me. So if the setup I’ve described above IS your thing, you’re in for an absolute treat.