A-
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Theme: Older Couple, Second Chance
Archetype: Rockstar/Musician
Sometimes a book just makes me sit back and sigh a happy sigh. Only Beloved is one of those books. It left me in an unexpected and rare place of peacefulness. Every time I think about it I feel calm – not bored, not “meh,” not analytical, but truly, happily, peacefully calm. This book is the culmination of a series in which people learn to come to terms with trauma, and it’s a lovely, gentle conclusion to a series that has been challenging, affirming, and oh, yeah, super sexy too.
Only Beloved is the final book of the Survivor’s Club series. In this series, a group of six men and one woman who were emotionally and/or physically injured in the Napoleonic Wars find romance after years of healing at the private hospital where they met and became friends. The hospital was founded by George (Duke of Stanbrook). George did not fight in the wars, but he was wounded by them just the same. His only child died in battle and his wife committed suicide as a result.
Many years later, George decides to remarry – not for romance, of course, because at the age of forty-eight he considers himself well beyond all that. He wants to marry for companionship, so he proposes to Dora, a music teacher who is thirty-nine years old and thus also past any giddy foolishness. They like each other very much. They have good sex and are good companions. But surely they aren’t in love – are they?
For the most part, there’s not a ton of drama or overt conflict in this book. George and Dora are respectful and kind and affectionate to each other from the beginning. Any major excitement comes from the menace of George’s ex-brother in law, who accuses George (at George and Dora’s wedding, no less) of having murdered his previous wife. Whenever this guy turns up, things get very action packed very fast, but he turns up rarely. He is almost an after-thought to the real conflict.
The real conflict lies in the difference between companionship and true intimacy. George has coped with the loss of his son and his wife by avoiding any mention of them. There are no traces of them at his home. He devoted his life to helping others. This decision provided him with purpose and comfort, but he failed to help himself by confronting his loss. Most of the book is just the very slow process of George realizing that he has to be honest with Dora about his past. It’s also about the slow process of these two people realizing that they are not too old for true love.
The epilogue is a lovely tribute to a lovely series, with the Survivors, their spouses, a couple of dogs, and many, many children meeting for a summer reunion. I was pleased to see that no one has been “cured by love” in a magical sense. Vincent is still blind. Ben walks with very great difficulty on canes. Flavian still has memory loss and a stutter. It’s not that they all put the past behind them; it’s that they have finally incorporated the past into their lives. Their physical and emotional wounds do not prevent them from happy lives and thriving families. One way or another, helping each other and themselves, they get to the beach and play with their kids.
Peaceful books can be hard to write about, but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily dull to read. Anyone who has made it through the considerable angst and hard-won happiness of the other Survivor’s Club books will be pleased that this finale comes full circle, giving George, who started the club, his own story and his own happy ending. And it’s incredibly heartwarming to see everyone together at the end. It’s a beautiful story about healing, acceptance, and the many kinds of love that can enrich a life.
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Lovely review. I read this last week, and you really capture the feel of the book.
Completely agree. It was a perfect closing book. Imogene’s and Percy’s book, Only a Kiss, is the one that really made an impression on me, although I’m a fan of all things Balogh. I’ve read it several times and think about it, too.
Your “spoiler” made me snicker.
Balogh has always been an auto-buy for me, and I use her as an example of historical romance writing at its finest. In her Bedwyn series she used a small girl, Becky, to show another characters’ growth in the most subtle and meaningful fashion. The craft of it took my breath away.
This was an outstanding book, and a tribute to what a great author can do with nice people as characters. It’s a much harder sell than pirates or bikers or vampires, and Balogh’s one of the best at it. Carla Kelly’s another I’d add to that short list.
The epilogue rubbed me the wrong way a bit, but that’s (in all honesty) due to some current struggles with fertility, and so the explosion of children, children everywhere was a slap in my face on that particular day. But it did not diminish my enjoyment of the book, and for George and Dora and their unexpected love. I honestly think it’s one of her best, and may purchase it for rereads.
Lara, I haven’t read this book but your comment touched me. I enjoy romance novels but the baby issue is something I struggle with in so many ways; the pervasive notion that HEA = baby is big one. We ended up forming our family through adoption but it still stings that pregnancy is something I will never experience so the obligitory pregnancy is a pain for me, also. So, I feel for you. Fertility struggles are hard, hard struggles.
I will be picking this one up based on your great review. Thanks
Loved this novel. Loved it. As you said, not a great deal of conflict. But I loved older characters at last getting a shot at true love. Never too late for romance and love.
I’m only about halfway thru the series so I need to catch up! I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus from historical romances (which is lasting longer than anticipated), but this series was a wonderful exception for me. I’m glad to hear that it held up ’til the end.
And I also loved the spoiler. 🙂
Oh, and is the archetype really rockstar/musician? 😀
I loved this book. Actually I loved this whole series, and particularly liked that all the physical impairments didn’t miraculously go away. I wish Mary Balogh wrote faster! She’s one of the few authors that i buy as soon as a book comes out–without even reading the blurb about it.
I agree, great end to a really good series.
While I myself never had fertility problems I have enough close friends that do that I agree, the “babies everywhere” scene struck me as a little too much. (Maybe this is a Balogh thing – the Bedwyns are also remarkably prolific.) BUT that said, this is a series with a HEA for everyone. So nobody dies in childbirth and nobody has a disabled child and nobody has fertility issues and their marriages are all blissful even after the kids come along. I just remind myself it’s not nonfiction and move on. Isn’t this part of why we read this genre? For me it is anyway. Best wishes to those struggling with fertility issues.
I read this over the weekend and enjoyed it as much as I expected to. Personally, I thought the whole brother-in-law subplot could have been dispensed with. That threat was unnecessary to advance the relationship or the plot, and the “revelations” it brought out were … well, mighty predictable to someone who has been reading Balogh as long as I have.
Ultimately it’s a story about two thoroughly nice, mature people who have a nice thing happen for them late in life. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.
Speaking of archetype: is there a way to search for reviews here based on archetype? I know that you can select the archetype from a review posted with that identifier on it, but it would be really helpful to have a full list you can select and browse from. It would also be cool if I could search for reviews by author. That would really help me find more stuff to read. In all my spare time, you know.
“It left me in an unexpected and rare place of peacefulness.”
THIS. I just feel a calm thrill when I think about this book (which is often, because the feels). I find reasons to peek at it through the day, for a little re-up. I also agree with Darlene Marshall; Balogh is a delightful litmus test for other historical romance.
Nice review. Balogh’s skill as a writer and her ability to craft characters makes even a relatively “peaceful” book so satisfying. She is really the gold standard.
Awww. Now I have an entire series to add to my TBR pile. Aa usual.
Amazing review, can’t wait to read them!
So excited to read this. I preordered it but am saving it for when I need it. With those rare great authors and amazing series, I just sometimes have to save their books so I have something to read when life is tough or I need cheering up.
I respectfully disagree. I found this the weakest of the Survivor’s Club books. In all fairness, having started with the Survivors Club series, then binging on Bedwyns and Miss Martin’s school, I may have become a bit jaded by Balogh’s conventions. Even so I found Only a Kiss to be a bit bland, predictable and repetitious. I wanted a little more intensity for George, I guess. Though it sounds like a wonderful comfort read, I don’t necessarily turn to peace and quiet for comfort.
I do have a question, though. Why the minus?
Minus because it didn’t need the whole side plot with the ex-brother in law, I knew it would be a little too quiet for some people, and I thought it odd that every single person ended up with babies. Given the overall strength of the book, and the relatively small appearance of these flaws, it still earned an A, but an A-.
As much as I’ve loved this series and specifically looked forward to this book, I was a little underwhelmed by it.
Correctly guessing everything about the wife from the beginning made the plot with the BIL both extraneous and superfluous and he was such a cartoonish character. To me, it took too much away from the story leaving it more a B grade for me.
As to the superfecundity of the characters, this is something I tend to overlook as I just don’t care. Though given a choice, I prefer books with an HEA without any babies- just one of the reasons why I love Crusie.
Never had children and am recovering from a complete hysterectomy. Only good things I can say about it are that already I’m experiencing fewer migraines and, once healed, I’ll have no more abdominal tenderness. But, damn, the hot flashes.
Although I did find it interesting that all of them had multiple children and no deaths but since this is romance, again consider it something to be overlooked.
Thank you, @CarrieS, for the lovely review for the final book in this poignant series. After leaving several comments here at SBTB for other books that left me disappointed and feeling like the biggest old crankypants that ever lived, it feels great to say that I, too, came away with contented Happy Feels after finishing this book/this series.
I love that George is a true hero. I love that he was *always* decent, caring, and responsible. I love that George and Dora’s lives are enriched not only by their own HEA, but also by their continued “found family” of the other Survivors. I love that in the epilogue everyone still carried their scars, but were able to accept themselves and each other and also move into more complete lives.
I love that Balogh wrote a romance with an older hero and age-appropriate heroine. I love that Balogh wrote a series about serious, difficult topics with compassion and without judgment. These characters are some of my favorites in any HR series I’ve read in 35+ years of reading romance novels.
The only downside? Ugly crying, and being unable to give the characters hugs when they needed them. Well played, Ms. Balogh, well played indeed.
I’m another who thought the epilogue, a bit too much. Balogh seemed to think that HEA requires popping out a baby immediately, and thereafter annually. That’s too narrow a view, it seems to me.
But I love reading about fully grown men and women finding love. There’s far too little of it.
How do I clean up typos?
@Hazel :Editing comments is tricky but I can help – what would you like me to fix?
Just minutiae, Sarah. Thanks, but not to worry. I’ll be more careful in future.
Thanks a lot for the review! I looked up the book because of it, and it was lovely! Now I’m thinking about reading the rest of the series.
Okay, now I’ve finished the whole series, and I loved all the books as I was reading them but Only Beloved is still the best one for me. If Mary Balogh’s novels are comfy blankets then that’s totally my favourite.