{"id":6327,"date":"2026-10-14T09:39:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T09:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/?p=6327"},"modified":"2026-10-14T09:39:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T09:39:35","slug":"review-simply-magic-by-mary-balogh-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/10\/14\/review-simply-magic-by-mary-balogh-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Simply Magic by Mary Balogh (2007)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"A very different hero in this book, Peter being far more of a beta than anything else. He\u2019s kind to everyone, especially ladies, flirting with the young ones and being chatty and attentive to the older females, but is there anything more to him than frivolity? I liked him very much. Susanna is more difficult to like, frankly. And I\u2019m getting heartily sick of slow, angsty romances, single women hopping into bed with a bloke without a care in the world, complicated backstories and couples who just won\u2019t admit they\u2019re in love. Plus coincidences everywhere, and the whole \u2018last time we\u2019ll ever meet\u2019 thing repeated fourteen times. But it\u2019s Mary Balogh, so there\u2019s that.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the premise: Susanna Osbourne is another of the teachers at Miss Martin\u2019s school for girls in Bath. She was taken in as a charity girl at the age of twelve, and then stayed on as a teacher, which she\u2019s brilliant at, natch. Oh yes, and she\u2019s stunningly beautiful, as all Balogh\u2019s characters seem to be. On a summer holiday visiting a friend, she meets Peter, Viscount Whitleaf, and recognises him from her pre-school childhood, but in a negative way. He lived on a neighbouring estate, the precious only son, too good to mingle with the daughter of Lord Markham\u2019s secretary.<\/p>\n

She instantly despises him, but he sets himself to win her over, as he does with all females, but recognising her very different character, he doesn\u2019t flirt with her, treating her as an equal and friend. Needless to say, she responds to his charm, realising that he\u2019s not quite the shallow rattle she\u2019d thought him. By the end of their two weeks, they end up having sex. Why? Because this is a Balogh book. In the previous two books, the sex made some sense but in this one, it just doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

And then, they separate, never to meet again. Until they do. Repeat ad nauseam. Well, perhaps that\u2019s not quite fair, because every time they do meet, their interactions are fascinating. Because Balogh. And gradually, the whole of Susanna\u2019s tragic history is revealed, inch by inch. I\u2019m going to be honest here and say that some elements of the plot made no sense to me, leaving all sorts of unanswered questions dangling. For instance: we never find out why Lady Markham thought Susanna would be such a burden (and it was what drove her to run away, after all); we don\u2019t know how her uncle died; I\u2019m not at all clear why Susanna had such an aversion to Peter\u2019s mother, since she doesn\u2019t know until almost the end of the book what she actually did; and why didn\u2019t Susanna know about her grandparents?<\/p>\n

But (and it\u2019s a big but) it doesn\u2019t really matter, because the romance is the heart of the book and that works fine. I\u2019d have liked it if they\u2019d accepted that they were more than friends a bit earlier. That whole business of \u2018I love him\/her but I can\u2019t marry him\/her because he\/she doesn\u2019t love me\u2019 thing went on way, way too long. But finally Peter gets it, and decides that he\u2019s going to be decisive, deal with his mother, take control of his estate and pursue Susanna seriously. A bit late, but better late than never. And then there\u2019s the whole big wedding thing that Balogh absolutely loves, even though it really wasn\u2019t a thing in the Regency. But never mind.<\/p>\n

This all sounds very critical, and maybe I was just in the wrong mood for this or maybe it suffered from being the third in the series and perhaps the weakest and maybe I just misunderstood bits of it. But despite all my grumbles, I did enjoy it and tore through it in no time and Peter was thoroughly endearing, so I\u2019m only going to knock it down to four stars. And now on to the final book of the series and the headmistress, Claudia Martin. I\u2019m very curious to see how Balogh gets her into bed with the hero.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A very different hero in this book, Peter being far more of a beta than anything else. He\u2019s kind to everyone, especially ladies, flirting with the young ones and being chatty and attentive to the older females, but is there anything more to him than frivolity? I liked him very much. Susanna is more difficult […]<\/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-6327","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\/6327","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=6327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6329,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6327\/revisions\/6329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marykingswood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}