Sunday, July 18, 2010

First Comes Marriage


First Comes Marriage. Mary Balogh. 2009. Random House. 416 pages

Everyone within five miles of the village of Throckbridge in Shropshire had been in a spirit of heightened sensibilities for the week or so preceding February 14.

I love Regency romances. I do. I love Georgette Heyer. I love Julia Quinn. While I don't love Mary Balogh quite as well as either Heyer or Quinn, I am very happy to have discovered her. First Comes Marriage is the first in a quartet starring the Huxtable family. There are three daughters: Margaret, Vanessa, Katherine. And one son: Stephen.

First Comes Marriage focuses on Vanessa. What is this one about? Well, Stephen unexpectedly inherits a title and estate. The guardian, Elliott Wallace (aka Viscount Lyngate), arrives to tell him the news. He wants Stephen to go to Warren Hall. He feels Stephen needs training and guidance to learn how to manage everything. Stephen agrees. But he insists on bringing his three sisters. Elliott isn't thrilled. He thinks these sisters will mean more trouble for him. They'll need training too. But somewhere along the way...Elliott decides that marrying one sister may solve his problems. She'll be able to sponsor her sisters and introduce them to London society.

Elliott didn't plan on asking Vanessa to be his wife. But. When she asks him to marry her. Well, he can't think of a good reason not to say yes. Will this marriage of convenience turn into a love match?

I enjoyed this one. I thought it was well written. I thought the characters were well developed.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

3 comments:

Sadako said...

Great review. I'll check this one out soon!

Danielle said...

heya, i was looking over ur blog, you got some really great stuff here!!! I have a book blog as well, and I just blogged Linger... It was an awesome book :) head over and check it out !! Also come this winter I will be doing a contest or two and giving away signed copies of some books to my followers, so make sure you sign up to follow :) Thanks, Danielle Thomas

http://up-sideofinsanity.blogspot.com/

Marg said...

I do like Mary Balogh. She is a solid, dependable author. This series is quite good, but it wins more favour from me because there are no Bedwyn's in it, which were characters from a couple of series ago that just kept on popping up in later books.