I have decided to read my way through all the books that Mary Balogh has written . . . and having a wonderful time! Unforgiven is wonderful, I love Kenneth and Moira. Though they make life hard for each other it really is a great love story. I'm going to have to find all the Horsemen Trilogy books. I can hardly wait. Highly recommend this book! I know I keep using "wonderful" but it is what it is!!😃

I have decided to read my way through all the books that Mary Balogh has written . . . and having a wonderful time! Unforgiven is wonderful, I love Kenneth and Moira. Though they make life hard for each other it really is a great love story. I'm going to have to find all the Horsemen Trilogy books. I can hardly wait. Highly recommend this book! I know I keep using "wonderful" but it is what it is!!😃

This is another of Ms. Balogh's older books. This trilogy has a lot of Jane Austen character types in it. Here, Sir Edwin Baillie reminds the reader of Mr. Collins or Sir Walter Eliot with his pomposity and good-hearted ridiculousness. But the main story is about Moira and Kenneth, scions torn apart due to a Romeo and Juliet type feud.
It took me almost to the end of the book to like the hero and heroine. They fight, nastily and a lot. Yes, it's due to that 'love being the other side of hate...

This is another of Ms. Balogh's older books. This trilogy has a lot of Jane Austen character types in it. Here, Sir Edwin Baillie reminds the reader of Mr. Collins or Sir Walter Eliot with his pomposity and good-hearted ridiculousness. But the main story is about Moira and Kenneth, scions torn apart due to a Romeo and Juliet type feud.
It took me almost to the end of the book to like the hero and heroine. They fight, nastily and a lot. Yes, it's due to that 'love being the other side of hate' trope, but it's hard to see it here. And the scene where they're caught in the snowstorm was clearly because they wanted to have sex, not just stay warm, so it came off pretty silly. It's pretty obvious that they are two people in denial.
But Ms. Balogh writes a good story and the couple got there in the end, despite all.

Mary Balogh is a different sort of writer, spare with dialog, but the dialog is powerful. She explores all the nuances of human emotions, and produces a story that is deep and satisfying. In this case, two young members of feuding families love as children, but both feel betrayed by the other. Kenneth goes off to war for eight years, and returns, assuming Kathryn has long since married. She is not married, but is going to marry the distant cousin who inherited all from her father because her ...

Mary Balogh is a different sort of writer, spare with dialog, but the dialog is powerful. She explores all the nuances of human emotions, and produces a story that is deep and satisfying. In this case, two young members of feuding families love as children, but both feel betrayed by the other. Kenneth goes off to war for eight years, and returns, assuming Kathryn has long since married. She is not married, but is going to marry the distant cousin who inherited all from her father because her brother had died in the war. She and her mother have been living in the family home at the cousin's sufferance, but worry that they will be evicted if she does not marry him. The cousin in priceless! Talk about powerful dialog! He is prosy, prissy,
obsequious to his betters. Kenneth and Kathryn have a long, hard path to understanding and renewed love. And that is the story.

Unforgiven review

Thus far, I have to say this is my least favorite Balogh book, even though it is well written and well crafted. The heroine is what ruins the book for me. I honestly didn't want them to end up together and wasn't convinced by the ending's sudden HEA.

The hero is an amiable, honorable, loving man, (albeit a terrible lover, as one reviewer already pointed out), but the heroine is nothing but hate. No one deserves to be treated the way she treated him. She is like the wif...

Unforgiven review

Thus far, I have to say this is my least favorite Balogh book, even though it is well written and well crafted. The heroine is what ruins the book for me. I honestly didn't want them to end up together and wasn't convinced by the ending's sudden HEA.

The hero is an amiable, honorable, loving man, (albeit a terrible lover, as one reviewer already pointed out), but the heroine is nothing but hate. No one deserves to be treated the way she treated him. She is like the wife in The Secret Pearl (one of my favorite Balogh books, except the wife is the "villain" in the book, not the heroine). She knows nothing but hate and has the maturity of an adolescent.

Compliment her and she's angry. Don't compliment her and she's angry. Buy her a gift and she's angry. Don't buy her a gift and she's angry. Talk to her and she's angry. Don't talk to her and she's angry. She can't live with him because she hates him, but then she can't live with him because she loves him. He'll want to spend the day with her, so she'll make sure he knows that she despises his company and doesn't want him anywhere near her, but then she'll be disappointed when he takes her at her word. Or they'll both have plans to spend a day together, and she'll make sure to tell him she doesn't want him with her, so he'll be hurt and agree not to go with her, and then she'll be hurt and angry that he decided not to go with her. Over and over again this same setup and conversation. It's not her being quarrelsome. It's not even a simple matter of teasing or saying the opposite of what she means, for she is so hateful to him that a person would be a fool to assume she doesn't mean it and subject themselves to further hatred or risk angering her further. If someone constantly told me they hated me and didn't want me near them, that the mere look of me disgusted them, I most certainly wouldn't force myself in their company. If they're disappointed that I took them at their word, then darn. The hero is either an idiot or a sap because despite her constant hatred, he's still determined to make it work. She makes sure the hero knows every chapter that she hates him and wishes him dead, and yes she says these very things with venom. She even did everything in her power to starve herself so she would miscarry because she didn't want his child. How is this a heroine that you WANT to end up with a happily ever after with the hero?

Right up to the very end, she is the same, no change, no growth. Page 347 says it perfectly from her own perspective: "She was behaving just like a silly child. She had goaded him to irritation and now resented it. She had deliberately ruined her own afternoon and now wanted to indulge in self-pity and throw all the blame upon him." That sums up the entire book pretty well, honestly. The book might be slightly redeemable if she at least grew as a character, matured. Alas, she remains a flat character from beginning to end. A little ball of hate. There is a brief paragraph or two in the very last section where she inner monologues about needing to let herself be loved that might have redeemed her if it were a stronger part of the story line from perhaps midway forward. As it stands, it's meaningless coming from her. She does nothing but lie to the hero in the story--about everything. She even hides both her pregnancies for no rational reason. The only one who really changes is the hero, but he doesn't change in any character development way, rather a decision to be content with living with a ball of hate for a wife.

This was a wholly unpleasant book to read. From my perspective, it was a romance between the hero and villain-wife of The Secret Pearl. I wished through most of the book that she'd meet the same fate as that wife so that the hero could find true love with someone who deserved him and would be capable of love. This heroine is not capable of love. Even when the chapters were from her perspective, it didn't make anything more rationale. She was just a woman determined to hate everything and make people miserable at all cost. Even before the unforgivable events/disagreement years prior, it was made clear that he had confessed his love for her multiple times during their youth, and she spurned him each time for no discernible reason.

The heroine was incapable of love and kindness well before the unforgivable events and well before the reunion years later. The hero and the story itself would be terrific if the heroine were just written with less hate. Perhaps if she struggled with being dominated by a man or if she struggled with being loved....anything except a hate-filled heroine with no redeemable qualities. The hero clearly needed a headstrong woman who would be his equal, not his subordinate--great! Let's get him that heroine rather than the venom spewing woman in this bilk.

The book, heroine aside, is as well written and well structured as all Balogh books. Everything about the book is great except the heroine. Well, her and the first sex scene, which was uncomfortable to read as it almost read like a rape and didn't make rational sense. If they had been in an argument so heated that the anger turned to passion, then it would be understandable, despite cliche, but the scene as it is reads awkwardly and irrationally. Rework that scene and replace her with a heroine who is capable of love, and the book would be Balogh's usual 5 star read. It's a 1 star by Balogh standards but I've given it a 3 since anything she writes is still light years better than the drivel out there selling for hist romance these days.

I can't argue with reviewers who wished more time was given for the resolution of the conflict between the hero and heroine. Moira does seem to hold onto her anger to the point of only hurting herself. But Mary Balogh's writing redeemed her and Moira is very human. She uses her anger and resentment because she was so badly hurt by Kenneth simply because she was so vulnerable to him. By the end of the story, the reader learns why both Kenneth and Moira have behaved so badly and treated each ot...

I can't argue with reviewers who wished more time was given for the resolution of the conflict between the hero and heroine. Moira does seem to hold onto her anger to the point of only hurting herself. But Mary Balogh's writing redeemed her and Moira is very human. She uses her anger and resentment because she was so badly hurt by Kenneth simply because she was so vulnerable to him. By the end of the story, the reader learns why both Kenneth and Moira have behaved so badly and treated each other so badly. They are victims of someone they each trusted and never suspected of being so selfish and destructive.

Mary Balogh understands what motivates human beings which is just one reason I am a fan. She is able to place her characters in a historical setting and while having them behave according to the rules of that time and place and their own class, she reveals that despite those requirements, human beings are susceptible to the same needs and desires. Both physically and emotionally.

This is part of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse trilogy. It's set in England just after Waterloo. If you are looking for a light, frothy regency read, don't choose this one. If you are looking for lots of hot sex with graphic descriptions, this is not the book you want. If you enjoy a fully developed story with characters you can lose yourself in, I can recommend this story. I will read this one over and over.