First Comes Marriage: A |
Then Comes Seduction: B |
At Last Comes Love: B- |
Seducing An Angel: C |
There’s something about Mary Balogh that keeps me coming back for more even when I’m not positive if I really liked the last book. She has an elegant touch with her prose that lends more credibility to her regency novels that keeps me going, even when I have suspended belief. Her Bedwyn series is an excellent example in that the series sags just a tag in the middle with the plot and the characters, but Balogh’s writing kept me going until the finale, Slightly Dangerous, that truly was worth it.
Her Huxtable Quartet, just released, is like that, except there was no worthy ending that matched the beginning. It began very strong, but faltered quite a bit with the last book. It’s the story of four siblings, immediately elevated when the youngest, Stephen, unexpectedly becomes the Earl of Merton. The first book, First Comes Marriage, was truly surprising. I was about three chapters in and couldn’t imagine how the hero, Elliot, and the heroine, Vanessa, would find something together and I have to be honest — that opinion stayed with me for some time until just like the leads, I was surprised to find that not only had they found something together — but that it was truly special. It was not a love built from an immediate attraction, but one that was forged from time and patience. The ending was very satisfactory for me, which is why it received the A.
The second book, Then Comes Seduction, was very strong actually and right until the two leads found themselves married, I thought it would be stronger than the first. But alas, Jasper marries Katherine, the prettiest Huxtable and third eldest, somewhat halfway through the book and I found myself hating that. I normally don’t dislike books that begin with a marriage. I’m not of the mind that it gives away the ending. Most romance novels, if not all, are read with the understanding that of course the two leads will end up together. It’s how they get there that is the point. I digress — after their hasty marriage due to rumors, Katherine and Jasper swear off sex (after the first round) to “fall in love” with each other and then there was a lot of deciding in their heads that they were in love and the hero’s obligatory crappy childhood (one of the leads always suffers from this syndrome) and happy ending. Except, I wasn’t sure why I was getting the happy ending. The book receives a B simply on the strength of the beginning of the book, but it felt like at some point Balogh didn’t feel like showing us the characters fall in love, but rather settled for just telling us.
The third sister, the eldest, Margaret, finds her love in At Last Comes Love, and I really find myself torn. I enjoyed both the leads, their feelings for one another were very credible, the reasons for marriage made sense and I enjoyed the book. So why do I still rate it slightly lower? I think it has to do with the hero’s backstory in that he was made out to be a perfect saint. Without giving away too much of the story — the hero has done something very scandalous (beyond the pale, really) but by the end of the book all of his actions are completely whitewashed and there seems to be very little flaw in Duncan, except maybe that he never speaks up for himself. If perhaps part of Duncan’s backstory had been rooted in something other than complete martyrdom, I might have been able to buy. As such, it just fell flat.
At last, we come to the final story — Seducing An Angel, for Stephen, the youngest and it receives only higher than a D because I did like the heroine and that she felt very real to me. She was flawed with a truly believable backstory. Unfortunately, she was paired with Stephen, who reminded me of a hero from a Stephanie Laurens novel– one of those relentlessly bland Cynster morons that are always the same and impossible to tell apart. They know best, everything is on their terms and it’s their way, because clearly they know what they’re doing. He was just awful and he made my teeth hurt. Cassandra deserved better. A better match might have been the elusive Constantine, whose story was not wrapped up so I imagine we’re in for another novel with his story.
Overall, I did like the series. Such a shame that final story was such a dud (and the only one in hardcover, to boot — not worth the price). It rates a B-, the first book the only thing that saves it from being a C.
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