I am a fan of Balogh, but this is below her usual high standards! The hero of the novel, Nigel "Nige" Wetherby is "slender," with perfectly curled and powdered hair tied in a satin bow. Following this description is the prompt assurance that he is not effete! Despite assurances, however, Nigel fails to excite one's imagination. He is a wimpy character, totally lacking in the usual masculine epithets such as strong, muscular, tall, etc. I found myself hoping that he would not claim the attentions of the fair Casandra. But alas, that is the whole point of this book! Further, though Balogh attempts to remain true to the time-period by using Regency-type vernacular, she over-uses certain expressions. Each page has either a Cor-Blimey, Zounds, La or I'faith. The lack of variation and uninspiring hero make for a cumbersome and monotonous read.

I bought this book, started reading it, and then put it down. I was rather turned off by the first couple of chapters. However, recently, desparate for something to read, I picked this up to finish it. It was worth it.

Balogh develops the relationship between her hero & heroine in a compelling manner. Contrary to another opinion expressed here, I don't think Nigel is at all "wimpy."

Keep an open mind as you read the initial chapters. It's worth the effort.

It's Cassandra's twenty-first birthday, and she's blissfully happy. Having inherited the Earldom of Worthing in her own right (she's the countess), she's looking forward to the freedom of managing her own property without interference from her relatives - all of whom she loves, but who persist in treating her as a child.

But an unexpected guest arrives: Nigel, Viscount Wroxley, who claims to have been a friend of Cassandra's late father. Nigel charms Cassandra, much to the disgust of her relatives, and she finds herself very much drawn to this handsome, charming and very attentive man. So when he asks her to marry him, she has little hesitation in saying yes.

Balogh lets her readers know early on that Nigel has at least one ulterior motive for coming to Kedleston and for wanting to marry Cassadra. I guessed relatively early what these motives might have been, but I was very unsure, certainly with regard to the second, of whether I was correct. Balogh plays her cards very close to her chest in this book, leaving the readers, as well as Cassandra, guessing as to whether Nigel is really a villain in need of reforming, or a very badly-misunderstood good guy.

Balogh very cleverly doesn't allow her characters to sink into uncommunicative misunderstanding in this book; although Cassandra is furious when she finds out part of the truth about Nigel, she doesn't lock herself into her room and stay there. Instead, she decides that she will not be afraid of him, and as a result we get some wonderful scenes in which her love for him - and his for her - battles with her dislike of what he did.

There are also a couple of delightful secondary romances in this book, something I always like.

Oh, and as for the reader from San Diego who didn't like Nigel as a romantic hero, isn't it a bit shallow to expect all heroes to be tall, dashing, well-built and devastatingly handsome? As it happens, Balogh, does write about heroes and heroines who do not fit the usual mould - but on the other hand, read the book carefully. Nigel *is* tall. He has dark hair. He is handsome. And, although he is slender, his valet comments at one point that he needs to fill out still, after his experiences.

As for the 'Zounds' and 'Egad', this book is set in Georgian (just pre-Regency) times, and such vocabulary, along with long, bagged hair and powder, was common.

Silent Melody was a sweet heartfelt read...I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys Mary Balogh, however it wasnt for me. I did enjoy it, but I have found that in having read a few of her other books in the past, that while they are good, they just arent for me...I would definitely not dissuade anyone from reading this book..I just personally prefer other authors.

Remember Jane Wyman in her Oscar-winning performance in JOHNNY BELINDA? Mary Balogh's vulnerable heroine, a deaf-mute, finds herself in a similar predicament---she's been terrorized by a black-hearted villain but doesn't have the words to say who he is and what he has done. The one man who can help her---the first and only love of her life---is locked up in a bitter world of his own making, to which he doesn't have the key. Superb Georgian romance with all of the signature Balogh touches---emotional, passionate, tender---and a rousing story with more than a bit of mystery. Highly recommended. Jo Manning (drmwk@juno.com

This book was great. I was really curious when I read the back. A Deaf heroine? I thought that the author did a wonderful job conveying the thoughts of Emmy and I thought the love between her and Ashley was beautiful! They were so in love and yet they both had such strong convictions about not being together for the sake of the other! It was such a touching story! I also love the way the other characters, such as Luke and Anna, were brought in. I plan on reading many more books by Mary Balogh!

If you want to know all about the historical events of the summer of 1810 when the French advanced into Portugal and the British, Spanish, and Portuguese response to it; this is the book for you. It is full of details of battle scenes and the boring life of the officers in between. If I had liked the characters it would have been easier to get involved in the history, but they were not likable or even believable. It's all about a woman who dedicates her life to getting revenge after witnessing the rape of her sister. She, because of her beauty, ensnares and manipulates every man she ever comes in contact with, including the hero who is a bitter man due to uncontrollable life circumstances. I think it is an insult to men to believe that they could all be manipulated into doing almost anything just because a woman is beautiful. A well written book, but definitely not my cup of tea.

Beyond the sunrise is one of my favourite books. I have had it now for several years and I just love reading it over and over. The characters are so well written that they seem like they could be real life people.

The character of Jeanne Morisette was the best heroine I have ever read. She is witty and charming and has a lot of spunk. She has sharp remarks for everything. She is the kind of person who thinks on her feet and it's a quality that is really endearing.

The character of Robert Blake is perfectly matched for our heroine. Although he thinks he can not trust her, he ends up trusting his heart in the end. Of course he doesn't realize it that he was following his heart the whole time. He may think that his love for her has faded, but in fact it only increased.

I thought the story was wonderful, the characters came to life and were a joy to read. The scenery Miss Balough sets is breathtaking. I almost imagined I was there.

This was a great book and I recommend it to anyone who likes Miss Baloughs stuff. I sure do.

All of Mary Balogh's books are wonderfully written, elaborate love stories that make the heart weep and cheer. And none more so than "Beyond the Sunrise."

This novel captures the spirit of a bygone era. The protagonists, Jeanne and Robert, meet in Regency England, fall madly in love and are forced apart by the cruel hands of their respective fathers. Jeanne returns to her native France while Robert enlists in the army.

They meet 10 years later at a ball in Portugal. He recognizes her immediately, she doesn't him. This time fate is not the only thing keeping them apart. War does as well, a particularly brutal war on the Iberian peninsula. It pits them as spies on opposing factions. Passion flares but so does betrayal and heartbreak, and only through sheer perseverance and determination, does love triumph.

Balogh is a magically gifted storyteller. She writes dialogue that is purely brilliant and that Hollywood should take note of. You can actually visualize the characters acting out the scene.

Her settings are brutally realistic, with as much detail on flora and landscapes as to the cut of a man's uniform. The men are real men with real feelings, the women, true but never weak. Her characters are thoroughly fleshed out and multi-faceted. They seem human, which is rare in a Romance novel.

You will love this book, even if you don't like Romance novels. It is a classic, and one that every writer could take a lesson from.

I have read and reread this novel at least 20 times and it never ceases to make me weep of despair or cry for joy. It is truly moving.

This marriage has a horrid beginning. The first love scene is a bit rough. The characters do indeed hate each other. In fact with as much as they hate each other in the beginning, they have no right to be as in love with each other as they are by the end. Actually, I'm amazed that Balogh pulled it off. I liked both characters by the end despite how terrible they were at the beginning, and that has to take talent. Not Balogh's best, but still very readable.

This story by Mary Balogh is the only one in which I have cried at the end, and I don't usually cry over books. The book starts out unpromisingly with an aristocrat being blackmailed into marriage by a dying merchant. He finds the merchant's daughter to be cold, title-obsessed, and unfeeling - and also surprisingly passionate. She sees him as a gambler and a wastrel, and remembers only that he has shown her no love nor sympathy. The marriage therefore starts off unpromisingly, especially when the father-in-law dies shortly afterward and the heroine refuses to wear mourning for longer than a month.

However, both have severe misconceptions about each other. The hero, Randolph, is not a wastrel. The heroine, Eleanor, is not cold nor unfeeling. How they come to these realizations without the usual Big Misunderstanding dominating the story-line is what I will leave you to discover. Suffice it to say that there is a wonderful sled race, some rather amusing relatives of the bride, and no less than three minor romances that nevertheless do not take our attention away from Randolph and Eleanor as they struggle to a better understanding of each other.

And as to why I cried? Well, it has something to do with why Eleanor did not cry at her father's death and what finally happens in the conservatory.

There are no villains, just some remarkable misconceptions based on initial behavior at a very trying time. As such, this book is both refreshing and yet oddly touching. If I could find a copy of this book, it would be definitely a keeper.

Mary Balogh writes some truly wonderful books, and this is definitely one of them. Randolph, Earl of Falloden, is struggling under the vast mound of debt left to him by his spendthrift cousin, the previous earl. He is astonished when a cit, a *coal merchant* of all people, comes to visit him to inform him that he's bought all Randolph's debts. And he will write them all off, and give Randolph half of his fortune, if the Earl will marry his daughter. (...)

This is a lovely, poignant love story, in which a couple who seem completely unsuited to each other in the beginning gradually come to understand, and to love, one another; and it's set in the magical season of Christmas, a time which Mary Balogh does so well. If you can find a copy of this somewhere, snap it up!

This book seems rather weaker than most of Balogh's - compared to wonderful books such as Longing or Tempting Harriet, this just isn't up to her usual standard. Leaving that aside, however, the story is certainly entertaining.

Katherine, widowed and recovering from a brutal forced marriage, is determined not to be fooled by a man again. However, the circumstances of her marriage are not widely known, which causes Nicholas Seton to approach her very carefully. When he first meets Katherine he's in disguise as a smuggler, but she sees him without his mask. They instantly fall in love, but he is still cautious...

Then Harry Tate arrives on the scene, and despite his unpleasant treatment of her, Katherine finds herself drawn to him also. She therefore believes herself torn between two men, both of whom she loves.

There were aspects of the book which I found difficult to accept: that a virtuous widow would sleep with a man she believed to be a smuggler, and so early in their acquaintance, as well. She is equally free with Harry Tate, making herself appear quite promiscuous. I was also surprised that Katherine did not appear to feel more guilt about being attracted to two men - we may know, after all (from the cover notes and from being privy to Nicholas's thoughts) that Nicholas and Harry are one and the same, but Katherine does not.

Still, an entertaining read, even if it does not possess the haunting qualities of Balogh's better works.

I'm a great fan of Mary Balogh, and I have to say that had this book been written by just about anyone else I probably would have given it five stars. It was really entertaining, gripping in parts, and the heroine and hero(es) were very well drawn and likeable. The plot, too, was plausible and enjoyable.

I didn't even find Kate being taken in by Sir Harry Tate difficult to believe, though maybe once she'd made love to him it strained the credibility a little more. I'm a Superman fan, and if I can accept that Lois Lane could believe that Clark Kent and Superman are two different people, then I suppose Kate could have the same problem.

A book to be recommended.

I usually hate reading cheesy romance novels, but this one is really a treat for the reader. It really wasn't a trash novel because it had a more definite plot that actually could have happened. I truly enjoyed it just for the fact that I was not reading just about sex and falling in love...it had sort of a air of mystery to it!!!

Anyone who's seen reviews I've written of other anthologies might be expecting a poor review here. But actually, not in this case. For once, I seem to have stumbled across an anthology in which the individual novellas are all very readable, enjoyable, and which suit the format of a shorter length. This is particularly surprising in the case of this anthology, in which all stories are about 70 pages long.

Three of my favourite writers are in this five-author anthology, which might have contributed to my enjoyment - but then Putney and Layton's novellas are not set in eighteenth- or nineteenth-century England, which is the setting I'm used to from them.

There is something of a theme to the collection, in that four out of five stories concern men who are or who appear to be rogues, and who reform right under the heroine's nose. MJP's contribution, set in Texas a hundred or so years ago, sees a condemned man being taken to hang for murder. Along the way, a young woman - who, it turns out, might have good reason to hate him - takes pity on him and they spend one unforgettable night together. But he's condemned to die, so how can they have a future?

Joan Wolf, an author I've never encountered before, sets her story, The Antagonists, in Regency England; the hero and heroine are cousins who grew up together. I would normally have wanted much more to this story, but Wolf uses an interesting technique. The story is told in first person, from the heroine's POV. And since Dinah starts off by telling us how spoilt and nasty her cousin Thorn (the Earl of Thornton) is, we're led off on quite a misleading track. (Although Dinah does reveal that she has a tendency to exaggerate!)

Layton's contribution, Buried Treasure, was the disappointment in this collection for me. A pirate narrowly survives a murder attempt and recovers in the house of a beautiful young woman whose seduction he plots. Unfortunately, for reasons related to both his behaviour towards her and to his fellow pirates, I couldn't come to like Dancer at all, and wouldn't want to re-read this novella.

Next was Patricia Rice, also new to me; her tale, Fathers and Daughters, covers the well-worn subject-matter of an impoverished suitor who was turned away by the heroine's father. Carolyn also believes that Jack accepted money from her father to walk away from her. Now that he's back, can he possibly convince her that he wasn't only interested in her money, and that he wasn't paid to reject her?

Finally, Mary Balogh's Precious Rogue. This is a lovely story, told with Balogh's great skill; Patricia, the poor relation who is effectively her aunt's slave, has no great opinion of her cousin's suitor, Mr Bancroft. After all, the man is an unprincipled rake, and - although no-one else seems to notice - during Patricia's aunt's house party Bancroft conducts clandestine affairs with at least three women. But what Patricia can't ignore is the fact that he is *nice* to her. And she enjoys their verbal fencing... too much for her own good. After all, he's going to marry her cousin...

This one is certainly worth a look.

The stories are good, but have all been published before. According to the Copyright page "The Antagonist" by Joan Wolf and "Fathers and Daughters" by Patricia Rice first appeared in A Regency Valentine; "Buried Treasure" by Edith Layton and "Precious Rogue" by Mary Balogh in Dashing & Dangerous; and "Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know" by Mary Jo Putney in Rakes and Rogues. I had already read Putney's story (very good, but then everything she writes is) but was glad to get Wolf's (although I think a longer format suits her better) and I really liked Balogh's (very satisfying - nice ending)

Elizabeth Rossiter lives a peaceful life as a Lady companion in Granby, far from the stifled scandal that drove her away from London six years earlier. Taking care of the young Cecily Rowe is all she needs for an uneventful and pretence of a somewhat happy life...

... until shadows of her past come back to haunt her unexpectedly.

They come in the shape of the local manor owner, William Mainwaring, who arrives at Ferndale to get acquainted with the neighbourhood and possibly make Ferndale his main residence. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, Mr Mainwaring brought a party with him, and most especially his best friend Robert Denning, the Marquess of Hetherington, who is obviously involved in whatever drove Elizabeth to leave the high society six years earlier and seek employment.

The first half of the book is purely fascinating. Balogh keeps dropping hints at what happened between Elizabeth and Robert to make them both so cold and cruel to each other. Each of their encounters makes a chill course down the reader's spine, and the hatred between them is extremely well portrayed. Besides, William Mainwaring's behaviour towards the heroine opposes a nice contrast to Robert's iciness.

However, after the high peak of the story, which appears about halfway through (a stunning and very clever revelation that was actually very unexpected, but made a lot of sense), I felt that the plot was dragging on. Until the big revelation, I had been thoroughly enthralled, and the thirty pages immediately following it were probably the best part of the novel. However, what came afterwards seemed to me like unnecessary means to keep the main characters apart. I became increasingly frustrated with Elizabeth' stubbornness not to *talk* with Hetherington, when it was so obvious that talking would solve a lot of things.

The writing style, focused entirely on Elizabeth' point of view, should have been a great strength of the book; alas, it enhances even more obviously the main weakness behind the premise: since as a reader, I didn't have any more knowledge about what had happened than Elizabeth let out, I couldn't blame my frustration with her blindness on extra knowledge I might have of Hetherington's character.

There was still some interesting character development afterwards, but the main premise behind the whole novel seemed entirely too predictable to me. I read on with the hope that Mary Balogh would surprise me in the very last chapter, but unfortunately she didn't, and so the denouement was a bit of a disappointment.

After reading a series of outstanding Balogh romances over the past few weeks, I was expecting a lot from this one - maybe too much. The characters are attaching, which makes up for my frustration, yet I couldn't help but feel that the novel could have been solved in a much more satisfying (albeit still predictable) manner if it had ended seventy pages sooner.

Elizabeth Rossiter is a governess working in a small town in the south, well away from London and polite society. And that's the way she likes it. Nothing unexpected ever happens; she takes care of her charges, who will soon be launched into Society, and her employers treat her as a member of the family. She's safe.

Even when the new owner of the local big house, Ferndale, arrives to view his property, Elizabeth has no notion that her life is about to be completely disrupted. And why should it? William Mainwaring, the new owner, is perfectly polite and amiable, if a little shy in company. Interestingly, he seems to show a partiality for Elizabeth, despite her position as governess.

But Mainwaring has company on his visit to Ferndale, and one of his guests happens to be Robert Denning, Marquess of Hetherington - a man whom Elizabeth had hoped never to see again. And she'd been successful for more than six years. Until now; until he'd appeared without warning in the place where she'd found sanctuary. And then he seems to be around everywhere Elizabeth goes, giving her disapproving looks, making pointed remarks about mercenary behaviour and even, at one point, warning her off Mainwaring in such terms as make it clear that Hetherington believes that she's only after Mainwaring's money. And, even more insulting, Hetherington even tells Elizabeth that if she needs money she only need apply to him and he will supply it - the implication being that he would be relieved to be able to pay her off.

What was Hetherington and Elizabeth's past relationship? Why does he hate her so much? Why are her feelings for him so clearly torn between hatred and a deep, deep longing? What about Mainwaring's interest in Elizabeth?

Balogh's talent as a storyteller, always obvious, is even more clear in A Chance Encounter. She keeps readers guessing about Elizabeth's past and what Hetherington has to do with it, and when the truth was revealed some way into the book I was stunned. Nothing I had read so far had led me even to suspect the revelation, and yet when I re-read the earlier portion of the book nothing argued against it either. It was a masterful piece of writing.

Balogh is also an expert at writing stories which pull on the readers' emotions, and this book is a classic example. It's angsty, it has moments of humour, it's suspenseful and it's heartwrenching. I couldn't put it down from the moment I started it.

Unfortunately, like most of Balogh's early Regencies, it's out of print; until her publisher sees sense and starts to re-release her earlier work, the only way you can get hold of it is to pay an inflated price to get it second-hand. And yet it's worth it! Oh, and if you do get a used copy, it won't be mine - that's staying right where it is!

The heroine's view of the world seems cynical so one is forced to spend too much time with a negative woman prone to an attitude of victimization. One moment she seems to be slipping into self pity and the next she is 'proudly' declaring her independence. These sporatic reversals make her character hard to believe or sympathize with. Ultimately, her character is rather weak and unappealing. I had to stop reading the book when I encountered a truly absurd plot twist that I felt was merely a cheap device the author used to avoid having to think of a sincere way that these two people could fall in love.

Miss Moira Hayes, the heroine in this novel is a bit too childish for my tastes. She is tempermental and is prone to deliberately taking everything the hero says in the worst possible manner. There are even points of the story where is seems that Balogh is aware of the snippity, self-invovled nature of this heroine and seems to be apologizing for it, as if the heroine's actions were beyond her control. I also did not like how Moira did not ever take charge of her life. She ignored her pregnancy for months and outright lying to the hero about it because she just could not bring herself to *do* anything. The result of her not caring about herself or her child was a miscarriage -- I found it difficult to be sympathetic to Moira at this point; her lack of gumption and childish behavior had led to it. However, I did like Kenneth's character and found him to be a charming and strong hero. Why he ever wished to stay with a brat like Moira, I have no idea. There seemed to be a lot of reliance on their childhood romance, and too little explanation of what he had in common with her and why they loved each other now. It was a decent read, because it was a Balogh, but I will not be re-reading it again.

This is the sequel to Balogh's Indiscreet, and worth reading for that reason alone, since Indiscreet introduced the 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse', as Rex, Kenneth, Nat and Eden were known during the Peninsular war. For those who wanted to know more about all four characters, this book gives you what you were looking for.

At the end of Indiscreet, we're left with quite a cliffhanger concerning Kenneth: he has to return home to marry a woman who is having his baby and whom he says he dislikes more than he has ever disliked anyone in his life (and this can't be a spoiler, since it's part of the plot summary on the cover of Unforgiven and on this site!). I, for one, was desperate to find out exactly how this had come about.

Kenneth and Moira, we learn right at the start of the book, have known each other for years, but their families have been estranged for generations. We learn that Moira, Kenneth and their respective siblings were friends in secret as children, but it's apparent that something happened which not only tore apart those friendships and the burgeoning love Kenneth and Moira felt for each other, but also renewed the family quarrel with a vengeance.

Moira has just agreed to marry her distant cousin, a prosy, pompous, self-important bore who also happens to be the heir to her family home, at the point when she meets Kenneth again. It's very clear to the reader that their mutual dislike hides a very mutual attraction. However, both suppress it very heavily indeed, and more might never have come of it had Moira not attended the Christmas ball at Dunbarton and overheard some comments about herself spoken by Kenneth's mother and sister. She foolishly goes out to walk home alone in heavy snow...

I have to admit that the circumstances in which the child was conceived made me raise an eyebrow; I still find it a little difficult to accept that Kenneth would propose, and Moira would accept, that particular course of action in those particular circumstances. Nevertheless, that's the premise Balogh went with, and I was able to ignore my reservations and concentrate on the story.

The way in which two stubborn people who did not want to be married to each other, and who can't seem to be able to speak to each other without causing yet more misunderstandings, come to realise that they do actually love each other - and that they can actually *tell* each other that fact - is very well told by Balogh. She does do misunderstood lovers very well indeed.

Unlike some reviewers, I didn't find Moira's behaviour childish, although Kenneth accuses her of that more than once. She's certainly stubborn. And she believes, as we find out later, that she has very good reason to hate him, and therefore she resents the need to ask him for anything at all - and his own imperious, occasionally domineering Earl of Haverford manner doesn't help. As for her refusal to accept at first that she was pregnant, how many of us can exist in a state of denial over something we would rather wasn't happening? And she did face up to the truth eventually.

I did like this book a lot, and will be reading it again. Now for Nat's story in Irresistable!

I have mixed feelings about this book. For one, Helena's behavior is neither admirable in the past or for that matter, for the first half of the book. Yet Balogh shows her as a living breathing human being with her own needs and desires. I could not understand however why she married a much-older man unable to fulfill her needs (perhaps I missed something here or in A PRECIOUS JEWEL?). Helena's past behavior has been despicable, even though understandable, because she took advantage or tried to take advantage of a vulnerable young boy. [If you consider that a stepmother attempting to seduce her teenaged stepson is *not so bad* then I wonder how you would feel about a stepfather]. attempting to seduce his teenaged stepdaughter]. At the same time, it is clear that she has been punishing herself over the years with the memory of her indiscretion, and her fears that she has so destroyed her stepson that he was willing to marry a prostitute, believing himself unworthy of a decent wife [ref: A PRECIOUS JEWEL].

This book is not for the queasy. Helena succumbs to temptation and has a torrid but short-lived affair with a gentleman-merchant (the son of a merchant who has been educated with gentleman: ref - THE FAMOUS HEROINE). Unfortunately for her, the affair results in a pregnancy, when she had long believed that she could not become pregnant. Since an illegitimate child is out of the question, she decides to give the baby away after having it in secrecy. Unfortunately or fortunately for her, her secret is discovered by her erstwhile lover, Mr Downes (brother-in-law of the younger son and brother of dukes), and she is obliged to marry him at Christmas. Hence the title.

The nice thing about this book is that we get to see a semi-happy ending for Gerald and Priscilla (of A PRECIOUS JEWEL) and we see many other couples brought together in prequels to this book. I had mixed feelings about Helena however. She was too given to her own wishes and needs, and she was not entirely likeable. Perhaps it is the fact that she is a passionate heroine (a stereotypical merry widow) that is the problem. But I don't think so. I did not have similar problems with heroines who have premarital or extramarital affairs in other books.

For me the real problem with this book is that Helena is *selfish* and *self-centered* although not completely so. She believes that Gerald married a woman of dubious reputation because of her actions, that Edgar became her lover because of her murky reputation, and so forth. She also decides not to inform Edgar about her pregnancy, and this I found hard to take. It was understandable that she did not wish to be pushed into marrying again, and marriage without love. I felt that to the very end, she did not trust Edgar, and that Edgar would not have married her if she had not become pregnant. There was little sense of love developing between them.

The epilogue written by Ms Balogh on her website shows Helena post-birth, but does not really resolve this issue for me. Compared to the rest of the series (DARK ANGEL, LORD CAREW'S BRIDE, A FAMOUS HEROINE, THE PLUMED BONNET) this book is a disappointment. In those books, I "felt" the heroines grow, mature, and change, and learn to trust their partners. I felt the same about the heroes, even though the marriages had often been forced upon both of them. I really did not get the same feeling in the Christmas party atmosphere of the latter half of this book. If you want to be re-assured of a happy ending for Gerald and Priscilla (of A PRECIOUS JEWEL), in that they and their children will be accepted into certain social circles, read this book. Otherwise, unless you are totally committed to reading all of Balogh's books, you might want to skip this book.

Review = 3 stars (taking off points for the unsatisfactory pseudo-romance between the couple); this is not really a romantic book, more about the heroine needing to forgive herself and win forgiveness from her stepson.

This book has a dark side, but I enjoyed it very much. Helena is different then most of the women found in Regency novels. She believes she does not deserve love and respect. But somehow Edgar worms his way into her heart, even as she holds him an arms length away. He is determined to break through all her defenses.

But her dark secret is finally revealed and amends are begun. I found some of the revelations almost as painful to deal with as Helena did. But life is not always light hearted and occasionally it is good to read a more intense book.

Worth reading but do not expect a light hearted Christmas tale.

I really,really loved this book.This is a sequel to "A Precious Jewel".I really liked the way Ms.Balogh made Lady Helena Stapleton very un- lovable so that her reconciliation with her step son and his wife was all the more believable.Hel- ena Stapleton reminded me of Lord Edmond Waite of "The Notorious Rake" in his hard shell of cynicism that hid a very wounded heart and soul.

I have to admit, I never really got beyond the husband's adultery. I like Mary Balogh's novels, but for myself this isn't one of her best. The heroine is rather wishy-washy, and it's always difficult for the hero to overcome being unfaithful to the heroine. I preferred Balogh's "Lord Carew's Bride," "Dark Angel," "The Famous Heroine," "Dancing With Clara," etc. to this one.

I enjoyed this book, and would probably have loved it, if it hadn't been so underdeveloped. The outline or the bones of this book are great, but the story really needs to be fleshed out. I also think this would have been a bit more interesting if the heroine were older than 18. In short, this would have been absolutely wonderful if it had been a full-length book. Maybe this is one of those instances when an author ought to consider an update or rewrite, because this has the potential of being a best seller. (But, please, please don't do it, Miss Ballogh, unless you love the story and characters enough to do a better job than Catherine Coulter in her attempts at rewrites). With these provisos, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. If not entirely satisfying, it was nonetheless a quick and enjoyable read.

Arabella marries Geoffrey to save her older sister from a marraige of convenience. She does it out of a sense of duty. Geoffrey marries Arabella out of a sense of duty as well. Several weeks into the marriage she finds out he has been keeping a mistress, Ginny Cox. Arabella is extremely hurt by this. Geoffrey does not want to, but he feels some guilt and is very sorry Arabella has been hurt. He doesn't not know why he should feel guilt since theirs is not a love match and it is common practice for husbands of the ton to keep mistresses.

I don't usually like any kind of adultery in my romance books. However, I'll make an exception for THE OBEDIENT BRIDE. Mary Balogh writes about it in a very satisfying way. By the end of the book, I was rooting for Geoffrey and Arabella. I was extremely happy by Geoffrey's actions after Arabella found out about his mistress. Did he become angry and arrogant? No. Did he become immediately contrite and admit he was wrong. No.

Read this book! It is wondurful.