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A much better read than the first book in the series (The First Snowdrop, to which I gave three stars – for a Mary Balogh book!). This one has a vastly improved hero, and two possible brides for him, both trying to do their best in difficult circumstances.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the premise: Jack Frazer has been invited to spend Christmas with his ducal grandparents, along with their vast family, a lot of organised events he\u2019ll be required to participate in, and his future bride. At least, a young lady has been invited, and Jack will be expected to court her and, if they like each other, to propose. He\u2019s not much minded for marriage, having enjoyed his freedom very much, thank you, but he finds himself obeying the summons and meeting the young lady, only to discover that, while she\u2019s very pretty, she\u2019s also very young, a petite, doll-like creature who looks as if she\u2019s straight out of the schoolroom.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the main entertainment of the festivities is to be provided by a renowned actress, Isabella, the Comtesse de Vacheron, who will perform several extracts from Shakespeare, with the aid of a supporting cast provided by the family. She\u2019s a widow with two children, and remarkably respectable for an actress, having been feted in both France and Britain. There\u2019s only one problem – she was Jack\u2019s mistress for a year nine years ago, a relationship that ended in anger and bitterness. Neither is happy to find the other at the party, but they agree quite early on to leave the past where it belongs and avoid each other as much as possible.<\/p>\n
The reader knows, of course, how well that\u2019s going to work out. What makes this whole setup so interesting is that Jack\u2019s potential bride, Juliana Beckford, is also given equal billing with the two principals, so we see her thoughts and feelings as well as Jack\u2019s and Bella\u2019s. I liked Juliana very much. Some reviewers called her spineless, but I think she\u2019s a perfect Regency lady, well brought up, if very innocent and unversed in the ways of the world, and she puts her duty and obedience to her parents above her own wishes. They have arranged a very prestigious marriage for her to the grandson of a duke, a man of independent wealth, and even though she worries about him being so much older and more experienced than her, and she isn\u2019t in love with him, she sets out to do what she feels is the right thing.<\/p>\n
Jack, too, is determined to do the right thing. He accepts at an early stage that he\u2019s going to offer for her, and sets himself to court her conscientiously, taking things slowly because he realises she\u2019s very innocent. And if he has reservations about her youth and his lack of physical desire for her, he tells himself that will grow, and that he can make her happy. He\u2019s being honourable and mature and not trying to recapture his youth with Bella, and that makes him a proper hero in my book.<\/p>\n
Bella I\u2019m less sure of. I\u2019m not much enamoured of heroines who are so driven to succeed in their chosen profession that they essentially sabotage every other part of their lives. But I suppose she was young and naive and caught in a difficult situation when she was Jack\u2019s mistress, and as a mother she can\u2019t be faulted. She puts her children first, always, and I can only applaud that. The children, actually, are a real highlight of the book. They\u2019re not merely ciphers or plot devices or there to be winsomely cute or wilfully awful. Things do get a bit schmaltzy towards the end, but Balogh keeps it just on the right side.<\/p>\n
I do dislike the obvious double standard. One of the reasons Jack and Bella fell out was because he was convinced she was sleeping with other men, despite her denials. When he finally realises the truth, there\u2019s an air of: oh, that\u2019s all right then, she\u2019s not a slut after all. Whereas he consoled himself after their parting by sleeping with every woman he could get his hands on. But somehow nothing is ever said about that.<\/p>\n
What else grated? The vast assortment of relations, and since most of them are happily paired off with young children, it\u2019s difficult not to believe that there\u2019s a whole series somewhere that told the stories of them all. As it was, the only ones I knew were the awful hero from The First Snowdrop and his wife, and I remembered Freddie (‘I\u2019ve got no brains\u2019) from that book, too, because really, could Balogh not have given him some variation? The whole acting thing was pretty tedious, and apart from the plot device of getting a famous actress to the house, there was no point to it. There was no moment of revelation when Jack and Bella acted together, and all the lurches forwards and back in their relationship happened for other reasons. I\u2019m not a big fan of a Christmas setting with snowball fights and decorating the rooms and the inevitable kissing bough. And did they really have an evening church service in the Regency? And please, please, please can we banish the obligatory skating on the lake scene, followed by the mind-numbingly predictable falling through the ice scene. It\u2019s been done. It\u2019s old.<\/p>\n
But despite my grumbles, I really loved this book – mostly! I can\u2019t quite give it five stars, but Balogh did her usual trick of making me cry several times, so let\u2019s call it a very good four stars. Warning: it’s Balogh so there are sex scenes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A much better read than the first book in the series (The First Snowdrop, to which I gave three stars – for a Mary Balogh book!). This one has a vastly improved hero, and two possible brides for him, both trying to do their best in difficult circumstances. Here\u2019s the premise: Jack Frazer has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[63],"class_list":["post-5667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","tag-balogh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5671,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5667\/revisions\/5671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}