Heartless

Rating:
Summary: Heartless--Balogh's characters are anything but!
Review: Balogh is known for her intelligent, strong characters--especially for the bad boys and rakes whose painful childhood shapes a life with which they are unsatisfied and a reputation which they would gladly give up for a lasting love, home and family. When the Duke decides to marry and return to the home he has been avoiding, he chooses Anne--a mature woman who has her own hidden pain, and a secret reason to have given up all thoughts of marriage. With Anne's insight and kindness, the family tangle of half truths and outright falsehoods unsnarls and reweaves in whole cloth, proving that the combination of intelligence, unselfishness and love is a powerful one. This novel has the requisite misunderstandings and a classically evil villainess who tries to come between the couple, but with Balogh's skill, even stock characters are believable--the moreso when paired up, as they are in this case, with a truly evil villain. Not only does love triumph in this well-crafted Regency, but the stage is satisfyingly set for the sequel, "Silent Melody."

Rating:
Summary: Disturbing twist in this tale
Review: I found it very gross that Balogh would not have the heroine state with certainty that she was raped, and indeed almost blurred over, the horrendous way that Anna loses her virginity...It most certainly was rape. Otherwise this was a fairly routine romance novel. Ms. Balogh's writing skills are above-average but I never get "gripped" by her work...this novel was no exception.

Rating:
Summary: Wickedly delicious
Review: I tend to enjoy all of Mary Baloch books because of the mix of sensuality and emotional intensity that they carry. This, however, is her best. I feel better reading about Regency or Middle Ages periods, but the timeline works for this novel. Luke, who is reluctant to assume his ducal responsibilities due to severe emotional trauma, Anna who is afraid to hope, their sheming enemies and their scheming relatives are all dynamic and brightly colored. Both Anna and Luke carry secrets around with them, and they are not the ones you would expect from the hints either. Buy it. Read it. You will not be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: A tortured hero finds the route to love
Review: Lucas Kendrick reluctantly comes back to England after ten years of exile in France; now Duke of Harndon since his brother's death, he recoils at the idea of becoming reacquainted with a family that rejected him, and marrying is simply out of the question, even though bringing back his Duchess to Bowden Abbey is part of his duty. Bitter and cynical, he has stopped believing in love since his older brother destroyed his happiness, and yet his wedding to Anna Marlowe, barely one week after their first encounter, could easily turn into a love-match.

Anna Marlowe thought she would remain a spinster for the rest of her life. Years of self-sacrifice to take care of her family brought her to the age of twenty-five without the chance to find a husband; besides, it becomes quickly clear that a man of her past made sure in a most dreadful way that she could never marry. But her attraction to the handsome Duke of Harndon leads her to marriage before she could weigh the consequences.

On their wedding night, Luke discovers that his new wife, for whom he was afraid of feeling more than a simple attraction, isn't a virgin. A feeling of intense betrayal pushes him to confront her about it the next morning, and the cold conversation leads them to deny any feeling they might harbour for each other: their marriage is one of duty, and eventually meaningless pleasure. Love never entered the equation. But can their true feelings be hidden forever?

I'm so glad I didn't let myself be put off by the beginning of the book! At first, Luke appeared like such a heartless hero that I wasn't sure I could ever come to like him. I even wondered why he immediately jumped to conclusions when he discovered that Anna wasn't a virgin on their wedding night: given his past history, he could have considered other options than a past lover. But his cynicism explains his reaction, I believe.

But I shouldn't have underestimated Mary Balogh's talent. Her character development is extremely well-done: Luke isn't the heartless man he appears to be, but the face he shows to the world is the only thing that reaches through to the reader at first. This technique allows us to understand why Anna can't and won't confide in him about what terrifies her, but the downside is that it takes some time to see things from Luke's point of view and realise that he's not as cold-hearted as he seems.

As the novel progresses indeed, we discover a man who's hiding under the tough carapace of a rough exterior, who wants to let everyone (and himself) believe that he turned his back on love ten years before, that love is an emotion that only brings deceit and pain. He hardens himself whenever he feels in danger of showing weaknesses or vulnerability. But the influence of his new wife and the demons haunting her too much to confide in him pushes him to open his heart and progressively reveal his true self.

All the characters are masterfully drawn so as to give to the reader the very same feeling as the heroes experiencing the situation. For example, the man terrorising Anna is wrapped in mystery, making his involvement in the story even more frightening. The tension of a relationship that yet appears very easy-going between Anna and Luke is palpable. And last but not least, the secondary characters are very attaching, particularly Anna's deaf-mute sister Emily, whose story I'm looking forward to reading in Silent Melody.

Heartless is an unpredictable story, full of suspense and emotion, and with a steady evolution of the heroes. Yet another fabulous book by Mary Balogh!

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful love story: heartwrenching and gripping
Review: Lucas Kendrick, now the Duke, has no wish to be back in the country of his birth, much less have anything to do with the family which rejected him ten years before. He certainly has no wish to marry. And yet, within the space of a week he has done all this: returned to London, reacquainted himself with his mother and remaining siblings, and married Anna, god-daughter of his uncle's long-term lover. He makes no claim to be in love with her, nor does she with him; however, they have engaged in several highly enjoyable flirting sessions in public. He finds himself attracted to her, and if he must marry, why not Anna? And he knows he must marry, since his older brother's widow is dropping hints that she would not be averse to resuming their childhood romance.

Anna had also sworn never to marry; all we know is that there is a mysterious man in her past who seems to terrify her. She knows, for the man told her, that he will come back for her one day. He also told her that no man would want her as a wife, since she isn't untouched. And yet she agrees to marry Luke, while dreading her wedding night and the consequences should the terror from her past reappear.

On their wedding night, Anna discovers that lovemaking can be beautiful and very pleasurable; Luke discovers that she was not a virgin. His reaction to that discovery means that no secrets can be confided to each other; their marriage becomes, for a time, a shallow affair in which neither talks of their real feelings: duty during the day, pleasure at night.

And yet, even as they hide their secrets from each other, the man who believes himself incapable of love discovers, day by day, that his heart wasn't buried after all the day he was estranged from his family. Luke is far from being heartless. But, as well as resolving his relationship with Anna, he has a long way to go to regain the trust of his younger brother and sister, and to discover the truth about his older brother's betrayal, the act which had caused Luke to become estranged in the first place.

For a change - Balogh usually tends not to write in simple black and white and her villains are rarely one-dimensional - in Heartless we have two pure evil villains: one Anna's tormentor, and a female accomplice. This is unusual for Balogh, and even more so in that she never really gives her villain a clear motive - except, perhaps, insanity. This aspect of the story is less important than Anna and Luke's relationship: as another reviewer noted, Balogh has done an excellent job of showing how Luke was falling in love with Anna without even realising it. When Luke finally tells Anna of his feelings, it was no surprise to me, and in a way I was surprised that Anna hadn't already realised.

This is a wonderful book, and I'm looking forward to re-reading it. I'm also very much looking forward to reading the sequel, Silent Melody; Heartless has some very likeable secondary characters, and I'm keen to meet Emily and Ashley again.

Rating:
Summary: great read
Review: This book is not Victorian as stated in the synopsis. It is an excellent Georgian romance/ mystery. I don't like all of Mary Balogh but this one is a keeper!

Rating:
Summary: great read
Review: This book is not Victorian as stated in the synopsis. It is an excellent Georgian romance/ mystery. I don't like all of Mary Balogh but this one is a keeper!

Rating:
Summary: wonderful - what a romance should be!
Review: This is one of my favorite romances, for a subtle reason. The plot is not unique (how often do we read of heroes rather childishly withholding love due to a slight from the past?). The conceit of a Georgian hero who is all-man despite some quasi-effeminate mannerisms is a bit different, but again, not totally unique. What I enjoy is the way Balogh follows the "show, not tell" rule of storytelling. She has Luke constantly insist to himself that he is "heartless" but she shows us that he simply can't help himself responding to Anna in a deeply loving and compassionate way. Even when he believes she is deceiving him, his impulse is to protect her. No matter how often he considers their sexual encounters mere "pleasure", they are in fact deeply romantic and "making love", much more so than the generic sex scenes in most romances. Just lovely.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous!!!!!
Review: This novel is a must read. I finished it in 2 days and could'nt put it down. I think that I'm in love with the hero and the heroine.