At Last Comes Love is the third book in Mary Balogh’s Huxtable series, and by far my favorite. Margaret Huxtable has told a bounder to her former love interest (whom she waited for while he was away at war, only to learn he has married another woman) that she is engaged. Rushing out of the ballroom before he can question her further about her fiance, she literally runs into Duncan Pennethorne, Earl of Sheringford, who must marry within the next fifteen days or risk losing his flow of income. When Margaret apologizes, Duncan responds with “Why? … What is your hurry? Why not stay and dance with me? And then marry me and live happily ever after with me?” Margaret’s response is “Does it have to be in that order?” This exchange epitomizes the entire book, with one quirky encounter between the two after another.

Margaret decides that she will genuinely consider Duncan’s suit, but that he must attempt to court her for the next two weeks, and then if she decides they will suit, they will marry on the last possible day. However, Duncan has a scandalous past, and once Margaret’s family hears that he is paying court to her, they, along with many members of the ton, attempt to dissuade her from giving him any attention. Throughout the novel, Margaret learns that things are not always as they seem, and that there are times that a man may be both honorable and scandalous contemporaneously.

Overall, I enjoyed this book more than the previous two. Both Margaret and Duncan were likable, and it was easy to become submerged into their lives. I am looking forward to the next book in Balogh’s series, Seducing an Angel, the story of Stephen Huxtable, which is due out May 19, 2009.

Memoirs of A Scandalous Red Dress by Elizabeth Boyle, on the other hand, was a tedious third novel in Boyle’s Bachelor Chronicles series. This is the story of Philippa, Lady Gossett (Pippin for short) finally being reunited with her true love, Captain Thomas Dashwell (Dash), the American privateer.

However, this story takes place twenty-three years after the end of book number two. Honestly, much of the book was repetition of the incidents from the previous books where Pippin and Dash met, though Boyle did devote more to the stories, adding more dialogue and description. Finally she gives us an actual account of the prison break scene (see my complaints about this on my earlier post), though even that left much to be desired. Unfortunately, I was fairly bored with this novel.

The story is Pippin goes away by ship with Dash’s son (Nate) from his first wife, whom he was married to at the time he was wooing Pippin (though even the drama that ensues from this revelation is not well developed) to help bring Dash back around to his old self because he has become a drunk. He learns she was pregnant with his son at the time she married Gossett, which makes him angry, but then he suddenly becomes understanding and is over it. Her son, however, is chasing them across the Atlantic, because he is horrified his mother has been kidnapped by her ex-lover and will do something scandalous.

The sexual tension that generally helps to make a romance novel good was there, but I had a hard time relating to the characters because the series story has just gotten so convoluted. It is hard to relate to a character in one novel, and then relate to her again twenty-three years later (in literature time). Pippin has gone through twenty-three years of living that I was not invited to experience, and like the prison escape, I guess my imagination cannot keep up. I am not sure where Balogh can go from here, but she does have a book scheduled for December 2009 called How I Met My Countess. I will read it, in hope that Balogh will suddenly write again like she did her first novel, but my hope is not very high.

Tweet  Print This Post

Tags: books & writing, romancing history // Add Comment »