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Genre: Historical: European, Romance
Someone Perfect is a slow burn, slowly paced romance that offers a highly emotional secondary conflict. Aside from the plethora of secondary characters who I couldn’t always keep track of, I really enjoyed this book, but you definitely need to be in the mood for a romance that takes time to build.
Justin Wiley assumed the role of Earl of Brandon six years ago. In that time his stepsister, Maria, has been living at one of their country estates with her mother. After his stepmother passes away, he decides it’s time for Maria to come to the family seat and plan on being presented to society. The issue is that Maria detests Justin (for reasons we learn later) and he knows she doesn’t want to live with him. To ease the transition Justin invites her friends Lady Estelle Lamarr and her brother, Bertrand, to stay with them, along with various family members Maria hasn’t seen in a long time.
Much of this book is about a family that has been fractured. We know that Justin was banished from the family by his father after he returned from college, although we don’t learn the real reason why until much later in the book. Justin only returned after his father’s death, and he’s trying desperately to mend the relationship with his much younger sister who once adored him but now loathes him.
Justin is also socially awkward (in part because he knows everyone is judging him, wondering about that banishment). As he gets to know Estelle he finds that she’s easy to talk to and generally good with people, so, knowing he needs a wife, he proposes and dorks it all up Mr. Darcy style.
“I wish you would marry me,” he said again. “We are equal in birth. We are not very far apart in age. We are both unattached. At least, I assume you are, though it surprises me. You are past the first blush of youth and must have received any number of offers. Your beauty alone would make that inevitable, but you have far more than beauty to recommend you. Perhaps you have waited for love. If so, it would seem to have eluded you until you are past the age at which you can continue to expect it. I wish you would consider me, then.”
DUDE.
So Estelle says no, but stays on for Maria’s sake. Then we get this concurrent plotline of both Estelle and Maria slowly getting to know Justin better and realizing they were wrong in their assumptions about him.
Estelle realizes that Justin is hurting and feels abandoned by his family and is just trying to put things right. He’s also shy and uncomfortable with the attention that comes with being an Earl.
Maria’s storyline is a little more intense. Her mother (Justin’s stepmother) basically kept Maria isolated from everyone except her, even demanding Maria act as her nurse without any help when she became ill. She told Maria a horrible lie about why Justin was banished, poisoning her against him. She also told her falsehoods about the rest of her extended family, making it seem as if they rejected Maria and her mother, when in fact her mother was the one keeping them away.
As Maria gets to know her extended family, she starts to realize that her mother may not have been honest about everything–may even have been maliciously dishonest–which is an incredibly painful realization. Both she and Estelle have to set aside their judgements about Justin.
Even then, and even as she realizes she’s falling in love with Justin, Estelle isn’t sure she’s willing to take the step forward to be with him. His father cut him out of his life, his stepmother basically blacklisted him from the family, and his sister is only now realizing he’s not a monster. That’s a lot for one dude to work through, and Estelle isn’t sure she wants to be in a relationship with a guy who has to really do a lot of work on himself.
And suddenly she wanted to weep. The light had gone from his life when his mother died, he had once told her, but he had remained close to his father who sounded like a kind, honorable man from what she had heard of him. He had been planning a summer holiday in Cornwall with his son just before he had married his second wife instead. Had joy deserted Justin forever after he had committed some heinous sin at the age of twenty-two and broken his father’s heart? Was he grasping for a return of it now–with her?
It could not be done.
I think it’s absolutely valid to have feelings for someone but acknowledge a relationship isn’t possible until they work some shit out; in fact I think it’s really healthy. So many romance novels focus on the trope of the heroine trying to fix a “broken” man. I loved that Estelle said no until Justin did the work he needs to heal from his family trauma.
Like most Balogh books, this one unfolds slowly and there are passages devoted to going for walks by the lake or complimenting the furniture in certain rooms. All of it does move the plot forward, but for readers used to faster paced historicals, it may feel plodding. I personally enjoy that gentle pace and attention to detail, but I know it won’t be for everyone.
There are also a ton of secondary characters in the family Justin invites to stay and I couldn’t keep track of who was who. It didn’t matter much as they served primarily to give Maria a true picture of her mother, but it was a lot to keep track of.
Ultimately this book worked well for me because the heroine had a very healthy approach to what would be a complex relationship. Additionally, I liked the secondary plotline of Justin healing his relationship with his sister, and I liked that the romance was interwoven with that in a way that both plots were necessary for the romance to progress. If you’re looking for a slower romance with a hero who has a lot of work to do emotionally, then you’ll enjoy this book.
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SOMEONE TO CHERISH (#8 in the Westcott series; this one is #9) also suffers from overload of secondary characters (not everyone on the family tree needs to appear in every book!). I tried to keep track of who seemed like they might have a larger role to play, but eventually gave up. Seems like slightly misguided fan service.
Also, it sounds odd to say this because of her reputation as a slower/gentler author, but I won’t read Balogh again because I found book 8 so upsetting—the villain in book 8 is a *child* and the scene where this is revealed/confronted is both awful and swooned over by the heroine.
When Balogh is good, she is very, very good. I just re-read SLIGHTLY DANGEROUS from the Bedwyn series and really enjoyed it the second time around. Her books don’t always work for me, though.
I really enjoy Balogh but she’s one of those authors that punish me for overindulging. I can’t read her books back to back, but I want to.
I love books with interconnected backstory and multiple plot lines, but I hate a glut of characters from other books. Boundaries, please. If you got your HEA go be perfect and contented somewhere else! Don’t just show up to show off, and offer patient, ponderous advice to every damn person you meet. I get very resentful reading about families where everyone is up in everyone else’s business and there’s this relentless heteronormative happiness pressure that’s supposed to be working out for all of them sequentially.
In relation to this series, it’s one of those cases where you wish the editor had the guts to tell the author that we really really don’t need every member of the family in every book in the series.
I stopped reading Balogh years ago(Iwas a huge fan. ) . It was a case of too many characters from previous books showing up. It became predictable.
Her earlier regencies are still classics.
I had to give up on the Westcott series because it started to seem like 3/4 of every book was just listing off all the various family members and who/how everyone was related and where they were sitting or standing in every scene and who was coming in and who was going out and what they were wearing and who was going walking or shopping with whom and on and on and on.
The most recent Balogh book I read suffered from too many returning characters; that said, I will try to get my hands on a copy of this from the library. Thanks for your review, @Elyse!
I will still read this one, because I’ve read the other 8, but agreeing with the other comments, the web of characters is getting overwhelming.
As much as I think the later Balogh books don’t live up to some of her earlier ones, I still really like her stuff because she hits a specific reading zone that sometimes I need. It is one where the book has a good drama level but is not too conflicty, not too angsty. Comfortable without being sickly sweet.
I like the big, rambling Westcott family. But this book did not need them. All mention of them could have been excised out and no beat would have been missed. As it was they were barely present– only alluded to here and there. Except of course they were replaced by another big, even more complicated family. I didn’t even attempt to keep them straight. I did like the old aunt though. She was kinda fire.
I liked this one ok. It was 100% the hero’s book, imo. His past, his family, his mystery etc propelled all the plot. It was fine because she crafted him well and he was interesting.
Balogh, as always, manages to knock it out of the park more often than not. Looking forward to reading this one!
I LOVED THIS BOOK. I think, in comparison to some of the other recent entries in the series, the giant family tree is kept largely in the background. Most of the focus is on Estelle and her brother, with their father and stepmother in a secondary role, and thank goodness because Justin also has a very complicated family, and two of them would have been a nightmare to keep straight. I found it to be a really rewarding read, the best in the series since Camille’s (aka book 2).
I have been reading Balogh and liking her books for over 20 years… Not claiming every one of her books is perfect, but like others, I find that she mostly hits that spot for me when it comes to Regencies. Hers were some of the first I read, back when I was still reading them in German and she was just “there”, popping up again here and there, until I got really into the Bedwyns and other series when I got a Kindle and realised just how many books by her were out there.
I agree, the one before this one in this series was totally overloaded with Westcotts and that did put me off too. I liked this one a lot better. Yes, I could also not keep track of all the family members here, but I found it less bothering.
The Westcotts are the longest running series Balogh ever did, and the returning characters from previous books did take up a lot of space. I had to keep flipping to the family tree in the front of the book to remember who they were. Balogh talks about the reasons why she continued writing this series during the pandemic vs. starting a new one in the SBTB podcast she did with Sarah a while back. I noticed in Walmart the other day that SLIGHTLY MARRIED has been released with a new cover, so probably the rest of the SLIGHTLY series will follow. I know everybody loves SLIGHTLY DANGEROUS but it’s my least favorite. OTOH, I adore SLIGHTLY MARRIED, probably read it 5 times, and SLIGHTLY WICKED is also on my keeper shelf.
Elyse’s review reminded me that I had purchased this book but hadn’t yet gotten around to reading it. Balogh has been an autobuy author for me for years. There is something so comforting and philosophical about her stories. I will agree that the prior book (Harry’s maybe?) had way too much meddlesome Westcotts going on, although I felt that this story actually did a decent job of sidelining that family of people with extremely porous boundaries.
So, inspired by the review and a half day off work, I read this yesterday and I think I may just let Balogh (joining Julia Quinn and Lisa Kleypas) fall off the auto-buy list and go straight to the library holds. The thing I couldn’t get past was, our hero’s drama was largely self-inflicted. Not the initiating event, but his response.
Rather than go to the numerous family members who would have supported him and said, “I’ve fallen out with my father and we’ve agreed it’s for the best I not be around the family for the time being,” he runs away and ends up homeless for two years before being taken in by a quarryman, to whom he lies about his status, so that none of the extended family who love him can find him for SIX YEARS, and his father cannot make any sort of extended explanation. Like, I get being traumatized, but seriously, dude, did you not think you were being deeply unfair to your non-immediate family and taking terrible advantage of your working class friend by never telling him you were going to be an EARL one day?
Also, there’s a Plot Moppet as Disabled Adult which I found deeply cringy.
At any rate, while I think you could come to this book without having read all the prior ones in the series, I’m not certain this is where I’d start anyone on their Balogh journey.
I totally thought I got the spoiler tags right! So sorry for f**king that up.
@omphale – I added them, but please let me know if I put them in the wrong location! No worries!
@SB Sarah THANK YOU! Clearly I got the wrong html instructions.
The line about the Plot Moppet was intended to be non-spoiler as I think there’s a fair few folks who would want to know, but I’ll just say it here without making you edit my comment again:
Also, there’s a Plot Moppet as Disabled Adult which I found deeply cringy.
I enjoyed this book, but there was one problematic aspect involving the hero’s father. It ruined the overall good storytelling.
If I do the spoiler link incorrectly, please hide it for me.
Justin’s father covering for his wife’s treachery wasn’t admirable. He thought he was protecting Justin from the step-mother, but the entire storyline displayed the father’s poor judgment and the woman’s narcissism. The author then tried to tie the father’s actions to somehow making up for a woman’s overall lack of agency in married life. I thought this was a poor demonstration of protecting his wife from her terrible behavior by sacrificing his son.
I agree with everyone else that there were way too many characters to keep track of. Finally, I know there’s a lot of books in this series, but it’s too bad that Estelle’s brother doesn’t get his own novel. He was quite good in this book.
Sarah,
The spoiler link didn’t work for me, so if you consider the third paragraph a spoiler, could you hide it for me?
Thanks.
I am a Balogh superfan but this one was a bit of a slog for me. Estelle and her twin might be the dullest pretty rich people ever written. Justin was an amazing, great character, but I am looking forward to the next, brand new series. Without 50 secondary characters that I don’t remember chattering in the drawing room! 🙂
I’m a Balogh fan and did like this book and had been looking forward to Estelle’s story. IMO Someone to Wed was the best of the series, in fact, one of her all time best. I also loved Someone to Care (go older heroine!) and Someone to Honor. Looking forward to her new series.