Dec 23 2012
Janine: We’ve all read Christmas stories which feature cynics whose hardened hearts soften during the holiday season. From Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to the Grinch in Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, such figures are not uncommon in holiday stories in or out of the romance genre. But they are almost(…)
May 3 2012
This month we are fortunate to have the latest release of Mary Balogh “The Proposal” featuring Gwen’s story. Gwendoline, Lady Muir, has been a long time denizen of Balogh novels and there has been a great deal of speculation about who she would end up with and whether she would even get her own story.(…)
Apr 10 2012
I thought it would be fun if reminisced about our first romance read. To prime the pump, so to speak, I asked the Dear Author crew to write up a small post about their first romance reads. Share your own reading experiences in the comments. Janine (link to Janine’s posts) I was thirteen years old(…)
Mar 14 2012
The following review contains SPOILERS. The spoilers from late in the book are hidden, but others are visible. If you have never read A Promise of Spring and prefer to avoid spoilers, read this review at your own risk. Dear Ms. Balogh, A Promise of Spring, now being reprinted in a 2-in-1 volume with The(…)
Feb 29 2012
Dear Ms. Balogh, I first read The Temporary Wife, one of your most beloved trad regencies, several years ago. At the time, I liked it but was distracted by an initial similarity to another of your regencies, The Ideal Wife, which I had read first and liked even better. The opening premises of the two(…)
Dec 7 2011
Dear Ms. Balogh, Recently The Famous Heroine and The Plumed Bonnet were rereleased together in a 2-in-1 edition after many years out of print, and I reviewed and recommended The Famous Heroine. That book left me wanting to know more about Alistair, Duke of Bridgewater, one of the hero’s friends. In The Famous Heroine Alistair,(…)
Nov 9 2011
Dear Ms. Balogh, Who knew you could be this funny? Cora Downes is the titular heroine of this 1996 book, now being rereleased in a 2-in-1 volume with The Plumed Bonnet, as well as (to borrow a phrase from the back cover copy on my old Signet edition) a fish out of water in London(…)
Mar 16 2011
Dear Ms. Balogh, For two whole weeks everything that happened in the Maynard household revolved around one fact: Felicity was coming home. So begins The Trysting Place, one of your early, out-of-print trad regencies (and a prequel to The Notorious Rake). I loved the opening of this story, in which we see eighteen year old(…)
Nov 15 2010
Janine: It's been roughly four years since the first time I read Mary Balogh's A Christmas Promise. At the time, I loved the book, so when I heard it was being reissued, I thought this would be a great time to review it. I felt a little trepidation though, because sometimes books I used to(…)
Nov 11 2010
Dear Ms. Balogh, Lately, after enjoying A Chance Encounter very much and The Wood Nymph to a lesser degree, I've been spending some time reading more of your older traditional regencies. A Masked Deception is your first book. Here is a description of the novel taken from your website: Margaret, the new Countess of Brampton,(…)
Sep 23 2010
Dear Ms. Balogh, Your traditional regencies are books I often find interesting even when though they are not always necessarily romantic or sexy to me. That's because the characters have human flaws and weaknesses not often seen in many of today's books. Such is the case with Alex, Viscount Merrick, the hero of The First(…)
Sep 15 2010
Dear Ms. Balogh, I've been reading your earlier traditional regencies lately, with varying degrees of enjoyment. So far Dark Angel and A Chance Encounter are the two I have enjoyed most of the ones I've read this year. I lucked into a copy of Red Rose, one of your out of print books, through Paperbackswap.com.(…)
Apr 1 2010
WARNING: This review of The Wood Nymph contains major spoilers for that book’s prequel, A Chance Encounter. If you plan to read A Chance Encounter and do not like spoilers, you may prefer not to read this review. Dear Ms. Balogh, Recently I reviewed one of your older traditional regencies, A Chance Encounter. I enjoyed(…)
Mar 18 2010
Dear Ms. Balogh, A friend loaned me A Chance Encounter, one of your earliest books. Given that the book is twenty-five years old and does contain a few elements that I associate with romances from that era, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I know some of your traditional regencies are being(…)
Mar 2 2010
Warning: The following review contains some spoilers. Dear Ms. Balogh, Your books have been an acquired taste for me. My early experiences of them were like my first taste of sushi. They too, seemed like something unusual, intense and raw, to which my palate was unaccustomed. At first I wasn’t sure they would appeal to(…)
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