A guest blog by Bélier: Slightly Scandalous, by Mary Balogh (review)

I am very excited to introduce to you, ladies and gentlemen, my first guest blogger on Writing for keeps: Mr. Bélier, who usually pegs away over @Interrelié [Chez Bélier], and has agreed to review for us some books I recently sent him through the mail. (Since formatting the whole text as a quote would look ugly, I will simply use quotation marks to signal the beginning and end of what he wrote, to separate it from my commentary.)

“Slightly Scandalous was my first taste of romance novels, Jane Austen excepted, and Jane Austen is quite universal. Mary Balogh does write in genre. So there I go, in a nutshell: I read a romance novel, I enjoyed it and I’ll read more.

It’s not an unmitigated feeling, though. From the start, several basic elements didn’t quite agree with me. First the very choice of protagonists as gentry in Regency England; this much I could quite accept. But then these two socially elevated characters would discard propriety and social graces for sheer amusement’s sake and throw a public argument for no other reason than fear of boredom… Riiight. I balked at that a little.

It turns out neither is quite as shallow as they appeared at first, but that too is a bit overdone, with the homecoming of roguish marquess Hallmere showing him as nothing less than an unassuming saint. What with (SPOILER) his proximity and easy way with commoners, his acceptance of his special cousin, his support of a raped woman on his own dishonor, the love of those who knew him as a child going so far as to damn themselves for him… (/SPOILER) It’s not incoherent in any way, but a bit heavy on the perfection of this gentleman… Though by the time I reached that part, I didn’t mind too much.

I should also mention a very great amount of clichés. I think I saw the fake betrothal somewhere else; also the homecoming that displays unexpected goodness in the gentleman (I think that one was featured in Pride and Prejudice, for instance); and the general structure, where an initial misunderstanding is compounded by graver, more serious matters for the protagonists to attend, which make them reveal more of themselves and accept more of each other (and possibly themselves), until threats are resolved about right when the protagonists are ready for an HEA commitment, reminds me of Austen again. It does look like a very well-practiced, tried-and-true narrative structure. Not a bad thing, but from my first romance novel I expected more surprises.

A great many words felt a bit overused, like “her knees turned to jelly”, “heavy-lidded” during sex, a lot of “tittering”, a lot of attention to the physical perfection of both Joshua and Freyja… And finally, some plot devices felt a bit contrived, starting with the very first meeting between Joshua and Freyja.

But as the plot thickens, Mary Balogh relies less and less on unbelievable coincidences and more on solid ground. And though it all seems a bit easy at times, and Joshua and Freyja – especially the former – are far too perfect and well-endowed (in every respect) in far too lenient a setting to be believable (and I know enough of Regency England to know that for a fact), it is par for the course and doesn’t get in the way of enjoyment.

The point is, there are a few villains, a great many dull people, another great many kind people, and the passionate, heart-in-the-right-place heroes who will eventually prevail. Actually, Mary Balogh doesn’t even try to worry us with external threats. The real question is how love appears and grows and is finally accepted on both sides. And unlike the villains, who find themselves satisfactorily thwarted in a manner the author herself describes as “anticlimactic”, the matter of love is serious.

Well, there’s my novelty. Seeing love overrun deadly danger (in the presence of a pending murder accusation) and the hint of mystery (around said murder) and take precedence in the story, yeah, well duh. It is called a romance novel, right? And it works too. Even though I could see all the strings being pulled at me (like I wrote above, clichés, coincidences, but I’m done with criticism now), I felt a powerful and sound story. So many things are a little too easy, but love is not. Yet it happens, as it seems it should.

A final note on sex scenes. They felt right. That simple. They fitted right in and made sense and were written in just the right angle to serve the story. I have read erotic texts, and these scenes, honestly, are not. Not in my opinion. They are part of the story, part of the romance, and they add a lot of believability to it. They belong.”

I don’t remember enough of the novel to argue about these specific characters’ perfection, but I would still like to challenge the fact that it isn’t “believable”. First of all, the romance hero and heroine are generally described through each other’s perception. Freyja, for example, is quite disagreeable in another of Balogh’s book, but as we see her with Joshua’s eyes, she becomes lovable. A subjective sense of perfection regarding the beloved person is necessary both to justify and to prove one’s affection, I think.

Then again, I must say that I am generally more wary of romance heroes who might be “not good enough” than “too good to be true”. When it comes to love, nothing is too good to be true, whereas anything that’s not good enough cannot be true (love).

I have, however, already been irked by too-perfect characters in romance, so once again these are just abstract comments meant to elicit debate… I also invite anybody who’s read Slightly Scandalous and still remembers it (LOL) to share their opinion on the book!

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