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The Proposal
The Proposal by Mary Balogh is $1.99! This is the first book in her Survivor’s Club series, which is a favorite amongst the Bitchery. Readers loved the hero, Hugo, but I’ve never felt particularly moved to pick one up. Balogh fans, what do you love about her books?
In Mary Balogh’s engaging and seductive new novel of drama and romance, a woman comfortable in her solitude allows temptation to free her heart, when a daring war hero shows her how truly extraordinary she is.
THE PROPOSAL
Gwendoline, Lady Muir, has seen her share of tragedy, especially since a freak accident took her husband much too soon. Content in a quiet life with friends and family, the young widow has no desire to marry again. But when Hugo, Lord Trentham, scoops her up in his arms after a fall, she feels a sensation that both shocks and emboldens her.
Hugo never intends to kiss Lady Muir, and frankly, he judges her to be a spoiled, frivolous–if beautiful–aristocrat. He is a gentleman in name only: a soldier whose bravery earned him a title; a merchant’s son who inherited his wealth. He is happiest when working the land, but duty and title now demand that he finds a wife. He doesn’t wish to court Lady Muir, nor have any role in the society games her kind thrives upon. Yet Hugo has never craved a woman more; Gwen’s guileless manner, infectious laugh, and lovely face have ruined him for any other woman. He wants her, but will she have him?
The hard, dour ex-military officer who so gently carried Gwen to safety is a man who needs a lesson in winning a woman’s heart. Despite her cautious nature, Gwen cannot ignore the attraction. As their two vastly different worlds come together, both will be challenged in unforeseen ways. But through courtship and seduction, Gwen soon finds that with each kiss, and with every caress, she cannot resist Hugo’s devotion, his desire, his love, and the promise of forever.
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My Not So Perfect Life
My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella is $1.99! I bought this book on the recommendation of one of my book group members because she said it was absolutely hilarious. However, I have yet to read it (story of my life). I’ve heard Kinsella’s books are great palate cleanser reads. What do you think?
Part love story, part workplace dramedy, part witty critique of the false judgments we make in a social-media-obsessed world, this is New York Times bestselling author Sophie Kinsella’s most timely and sharply observed novel yet.
Everywhere Katie Brenner looks, someone else is living the life she longs for, particularly her boss, Demeter Farlowe. Demeter is brilliant and creative, lives with her perfect family in a posh townhouse, and wears the coolest clothes. Katie’s life, meanwhile, is a daily struggle—from her dismal rental to her oddball flatmates to the tense office politics she’s trying to negotiate. The final, demeaning straw comes when Demeter makes Katie dye her roots in the office. No wonder Katie takes refuge in not-quite-true Instagram posts, especially as she’s desperate to make her dad proud.
Then, just as she’s finding her feet—not to mention a possible new romance—the worst happens. Demeter fires Katie. Shattered but determined to stay positive, Katie retreats to her family’s farm in Somerset to help them set up a vacation business. London has never seemed so far away—until Demeter unexpectedly turns up as a guest. Secrets are spilled and relationships rejiggered, and as the stakes for Katie’s future get higher, she must question her own assumptions about what makes for a truly meaningful life.
Sophie Kinsella is celebrated for her vibrant, relatable characters and her great storytelling gifts. Now she returns with all of the wit, warmth, and wisdom that are the hallmarks of her bestsellers to spin this fresh, modern story about presenting the perfect life when the reality is far from the image.
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Burning Roses
Burning Roses by S.L. Huang is $2.99! We mentioned this is in a pervious Hide Your Wallet. There are elements for fairy tales, older main characters, and I believe a sapphic romance. Lots of catnip! However, this is more of a novella.
A gorgeous fairy tale of love and family, of demons and lost gods, for fans of Zen Cho and JY Yang.
When Rosa (aka Red Riding Hood) and Hou Yi the Archer join forces to stop the deadly sunbirds from ravaging the countryside, their quest will take the two women, now blessed and burdened with the hindsight of age, into a reckoning of sacrifices made and mistakes mourned, of choices and family and the quest for immortality.
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Island Queen
Island Queen by Vanessa Riley is $1.99! This is Riley’s first work of historical fiction as opposed to historical romance. It’s about Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, a free Black woman who achieved great wealth. Have you read it?
A remarkable, sweeping historical novel based on the incredible true life story of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, a free woman of color who rose from slavery to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners in the colonial West Indies.
Born into slavery on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, Doll bought her freedom—and that of her sister and her mother—from her Irish planter father and built a legacy of wealth and power as an entrepreneur, merchant, hotelier, and planter that extended from the marketplaces and sugar plantations of Dominica and Barbados to a glittering luxury hotel in Demerara on the South American continent.
Vanessa Riley’s novel brings Doll to vivid life as she rises above the harsh realities of slavery and colonialism by working the system and leveraging the competing attentions of the men in her life: a restless shipping merchant, Joseph Thomas; a wealthy planter hiding a secret, John Coseveldt Cells; and a roguish naval captain who will later become King William IV of England.
From the bustling port cities of the West Indies to the forbidding drawing rooms of London’s elite, Island Queen is a sweeping epic of an adventurer and a survivor who answered to no one but herself as she rose to power and autonomy against all odds, defying rigid eighteenth-century morality and the oppression of women as well as people of color. It is an unforgettable portrait of a true larger-than-life woman who made her mark on history.
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Island Queen was excellent, but please pick up the Balogh too if you can and don’t have it, because it’s great.
Mary Balogh was one of the first romance authors I read and I *love* her older major series (Bedwyns/Simply/Huxtables/Survivors, haven’t read the reissued older stuff though).
It seems like *since* the Survivor’s Club series, she’s been a lot more hit and miss for me – I loved a couple of the Westcott series, *didn’t* like 1 or 2, the rest were…fine. And then the first book of the latest series felt like someone trained an AI on Mary Balogh’s works and had it write a pastiche of her tone and favorite tropes but without the heart or appeal, IDK.
She’s always hit the same tropes and motifs hard, but usually with good writing and unique, engaging characters so it was still appealing and satisfying. That one just felt recycled and lazy to me – and then was priced at $14.99. She’s always been an autobuy for me even at full price for new stuff, but not at *that* price, and I’ll probably go the library route first now unless it’s older stuff I’m still missing.
Anyway, sorry for rambling. I do really like the Survivor’s Club series. The Proposal is not my favorite of them (that would be The Arrangement and Only a Promise), but it’s very good. I like both the hero and heroine a lot, there’s some interesting class dynamics (she’s an aristocrat, he’s titled only bc of war heroics, so his family are very much not), and I really like the growth and healing that the whole series focuses on, which is one of the themes she’s always been great at.
Balogh doesn’t go on sale a lot, so I’d definitely recommend this one at that price.
I love Balogh’s books because they always feel grounded in terms of character and emotions combined with thoughtful historical details. Of the Survivor series, the second one is actually my favorite, as I love the two characters and how they fall in love by giving each other independence. I also like that not all of her characters are the most beautiful or handsomest but they’re all loved. If any wants to try her, I recommend the Survivor series, its more contained than her current one.
What I like about Mary Balogh’s books is that she manages to create strong female characters who feel appropriate for their time, not modern characters plonked into a historical setting. (Plus her male characters are strong without being Alpha Male TM.) Usually both characters have to do some emotional work to get to their happy ending; while I wouldn’t call her books slow burn, they do take their time getting to the HEA. I also appreciate that her romances aren’t always between young people but also include middle age people with adult children. And I like her writing style.
In The Proposal, both MCs are slightly older (30s if I remember correctly), have serious trauma in their individual paststo resolve, and consider themselves poor marriage material. They also come from different social backgrounds, and Balogh doesn’t just rely on “love will conquer alll” to resolve this. Plus they each have their own separate friend groups, whic link to the other books in this series and her previous series.
Balogh used to be an auto buy for me but not so much in these last years. Her writing is always quite formal which is true to the period and her characters were unique and interesting. Lately however her books seem to be 30 percent having walk on roles for family members and friends and explaining their relationships. It takes up a LOT of page time without adding anything to the story. It’s nice when you have interconnected characters but her family trees need a bit of pruning at this point. Anybody else? Just me then?
@JudyW, here and there I’ve read the same comments about reappearing Balogh characters. One I recall as being pretty funny, put forth the idea that “the drawing room was overcrowded with friends and relatives”.
@JudyW Same for me, see my previous comment. I generally *like* seeing old characters again and always liked her close and caring families. But it got a bit excessive with the Westcotts, too many of them, too complicated, and they *all* had to show up in every single book! I loved a few of them anyway (Alex, Abby, Camille, Jessica) but some of the others didn’t really work for me, which is unusual for Balogh.
And then the most recent book, Remember Love, *really* just didn’t click for me. The central conflict that caused all the upheaval seemed both too similar to and much *less* serious than the one from the Westcotts, so it was hard to buy that it caused *that* much trauma. The characters didn’t grab me, the ending seemed sudden and too easy, just didn’t seem to have the depth and warmth I expect from her. I normally love and reread her books forever, but I can’t remember much about that one and have little inclination to reread it.
Her previous stuff is still among my favorites and I still reread them a lot, but I get her newer stuff from the library first now before I autobuy. I suppose after that many hits a few misses isn’t surprising (and those weren’t *bad*, just not her usual standard or didn’t work for me).
I second that Balogh’s recent stuff is very hit or miss, but I agree that the Survivors’ series overall is pretty good, and the Proposal is a good entry point.
Island Queen was engrossing, *but* it only worked for me on audiobook, as read by Adjoa Andoh (Lady Danbury from Bridgerton). I find this is true for me as a northern white US-ian with many books by Black authors – I don’t have the intuitive ‘ear’ for the voice and having a narrator allows me to access the text better. All that said, the book really stuck with me, and Riley’s voice and empathy really shine through.
For anyone familiar with Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore, Balogh’s recent books make me think of the bit that goes like this (which is how they get a female chorus on a navy ship.)
And so do his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!
And so do his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!
And so do his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!
His sisters and his cousins,
Whom he reckons up by dozens,
And his aunts!
I really liked “The Proposal,” and that whole series.
My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella was a DNF for me, too much second hand embarrassment.
My favorite thing about Mary Balogh’s books is how respectfully the male characters treat the female characters. They talk to them as though they enjoy their company and their opinions. My least favorite thing is the endless trotting out characters from past stories.
I loved her books when I first started reading romance, but I also don’t enjoy her new books.
Chiming in about The Survivors Club series–Balogh treats the issue of PTSD and survivor’s guilt beautifully and without bashing you over the head. Only A Kiss is my favorite of the series and if you need a romance that is going to gut you with all the feels and probably make you cry this is the one. I also agree there are too many Westcotts and the constant description of how they are related is worth skipping over if you’re on book two or three. I also agree her female characters feel more realistic for the time period and I enjoy this about her novels. There is a very popular romance writer I’ve stopped reading because her heroines serve as anachronisms and pull me completely out of the narrative. Much like a zipper going up the back of a period costume.
Not every Mary Balogh book is a classic, but when I think of my favorite romances, and certainly when I think of the books I’ve reread the most, her books appear high on the list. I would certainly read THE PROPOSAL, which I enjoyed on its own, and also to get a grounding in the characters and background for the Survivors series. My favorite of the series is ONLY A KISS. Percy is a golden boy, handsome, intelligent, and charming, for whom almost everything has come easily. He is now 30 and bored, and finds himself faced with a woman and a mystery he must solve. I found myself charmed as he rises to the occasion. Imogen’s trauma, unlike that of the men in the series, was never spelled out completely, and when we (and Percy) discover it, it is indeed poignant and tragic.
I enjoy Mary Balogh, especially the Survivors Club series. For her other serieses (seriess? seriesez?) I find myself enjoy the first couple of books immensely then skimming through later entires because the focus drifts from the romantic couple to the friends and family members. Some of them are hard to get through without a scorecard or keeping a thumb on the family tree in the front. Some of my favs include: Simply Love, Lord Carew’s Bride, Only Enchanting, The First Snowdrop.
Mary Balogh can’t write a bad story (except The Secret Pearl). But it turns out I don’t like some of her characters and that’s fine when they’re the villains. Unfortunately, it’s not always the villains I don’t like.
I have to agree with Laura about the popular romance writer whose heroines are anachronisms. The writer may as well write contemporaries because that’s basically what she’s already writing, anyway.
What’s the word for them? Wallpaper historicals?
Balogh’s books are favorites of mine, other than a very few. For me, her characters feel real, with genuine emotion, with pain, some of it deeply hidden, and with longing. The dialogue is natural and they are definitely not wallpaper historicals with modern women who are not constrained by the social expectations of the time. That does not mean the heroines are not successful or fully formed. The Proposal is a favorite because Gwyn has been seen in so many other of her books – a cheerful, attractive widow with a marked limp. The hero, Hugo, a huge man with blunt talk, is perfect for her. All the books in this series are good, but, as mentioned above, Only A Kiss is the standout for me. When the heroine’s trauma is revealed, I cried, not just a few tears either. Slightly Married and Slightly Dangerous are in my top ten all time. I’m excessively jealous of someone who has discovered Balogh.