One Night for Love

Oh my goodness, all the stars! This was my first Mary Balogh, and I can't tell you how excited I am to read all the rest! This made other historical romances seem overly glossy in comparison. I hadn't fully realized how female leads are hardly ever given a genuine problem to overcome, more than just an annoying family, or being poor, or not being considered a proper match for the man. Where as male leads are often given disfiguring battle scars, or severe dyslexia, or PTSD, or someone who wants them dead- something substantial to wrestle with and perhaps overcome on their way towards growth. What a missed opportunity that is to show the strength of the women! Or how there is rarely any risk of something awful *actually* happening and show more not just the threat of it. This is not overly fairytale and I liked it all the more for that! Adventure! Mystery! Growth! A truly good man who isn't just a thinly veiled asshole! =D This just delighted my heart all the way through! show less

Lily Doyle was an army brat who followed her father from one battlefield to the next all her life. When her father died he made his commanding officer, Neville Wyatt, promise to keep her safe. With the French army about to overtake them, Neville hastily married Lily so that, as an officer's wife, she would be treated well. But in the battle, Lily was killed and Neville was terribly wounded. Eventually he returned to England to take up his title as Earl of Killbourne, and even resolved to marry again, this time to his childhood friend. But just as they are about to wed--Lily bursts into the church. Because, it turns out, Lily was taken prisoner instead of killed, and has endured a year of captivity and months of hardship to be at show more Neville's side once more.

Neville is an honorable man, and truly cares for Lily. He immediately sets her up as his Countess, and defends her from his shocked family. But Lily has had no experience in high society, and she continually embarasses and shocks his family and villagers with her ignorance and rough manners. She feels trapped and bored, talking to people about subjects she has no interest or experience with, bound by rules she doesn't know. And so when Neville finds out that their marriage was never legally finalized, Lily refuses to legally marry him, thus freeing each of them from their unequal match. Instead, she becomes his cousin Elizabeth's paid companion; Elizabeth, a strong-minded woman with a love plot of her own, hires tutors so she may learn English and music. Lily revels in leaving behind her illiteracy and ignorance. In a passage I particularly enjoyed, Neville gets angry that Elizabeth is changing his free-spirited love by making her like all the rest of Society, but Elizabeth points out to him that Lily's fundamental character isn't changing, but rather her horizons are expanding as she learns more. Learning gives her more options, more choices, than she had before.

A murder plot is foiled, Neville and Lily confess their love, and finally they marry again, this time publicly acknowledged as equals.

I loved that this wasn't an easy Cinderella tale, nor (despite her introduction) was Lily a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. This felt like a particularly rich, dense book, with lots of relationships, side characters, and plots. The lovers weren't seperated by a misunderstanding, let alone a silly one that could have been easily cleared up. There were serious issues* that Lily and Neville had to work out, and schemes by other characters that had to be dealt with.

*Trigger warningLily was raped while a prisoner, and she, Neville, and Elizabeth all talk and think about it a great deal over the course of the novel. I don't think there's any victim-blaming (although Lily does struggle with survivor guilt) or detailed flash backs. show less

Now this is what I’m talking about with a Balogh romance! Emotionally tense, well-rounded characters I love, a romance I can get behind, and attention to specific historical details to give us a great setting for the relationship all make an appearance.

The primary attraction for any historical romance, the main relationship, shines in this book, along with our leads. From the beginning, Neville and Lily have an unmistakable chemistry. Their relationship starts out as a promise to take care of Lily after her father’s death. But it blossoms into something very special, even after a long separation and some serious trauma. I was engrossed by every interaction between these two.

I liked that most of the drama wasn’t from the show more miscommunication trope that so many historical romances fall into. Nothing irritates me more. Right from the beginning, Neville and Lily both are up front and honest about their feelings for each other. It’s their different stations in life, past trauma, and self-esteem issues that impedes the blossoming love.

I liked that the author isn’t afraid to explore those darker elements. What happens to Lily during her captivity truly moves the heart. I liked that her trauma wasn’t just ignored or thrust to the side so the romance can proceed without impediment. What she went through prevents her from being able to completely revel in her relationship and to meet Neville as an equal party emotionally. It does seem to be resolved a bit too soon for my taste but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the romance overall.

I liked the details that Balogh incorporated with the Peninsular War, life in the army, and all the societal mores for Regency life. It was interesting to see all that went into making a lady “accomplished” for society, all that Lily had to learn on the fly and quickly. Her life traveling in the army and how the rank and file worked also added an interesting layer to the story and the characters portrayed.

It’s works like this that made me fall in love with Balogh. She knows how to blend characterization, romance, dramatic tension, and period details to create a fantastic historical romance. I look forward to delving into more stuff by her! show less

Lily grows up as a soldier's daughter on the Iberian peninsula and follows the drum. When she becomes an adult, she falls in love with Neville, her father's officer. They spend one passionate night together but then are cruelly torn apart by the war. When they meet years later, Neville has succeeded his father as an earl and there are more heavy obstacles in the way, so it doesn't look as if they have a chance to resume their love.

I enjoyed reading this novel, although the characters are a bit superficial, especially Neville, who doesn't have many characteristics apart from loving Lily. Lily got on my nerves sometimes and I couldn't believe that she committed so many faux-pas when entering society. Even if she grew up with soldiers, she show more should have had more of a clue.

The topic of rape is mentioned frequently in the story, although it happens off-screen, but still the treatment of the topic and how the characters deal with it is questionable - but then this book was written in the 1990s.

The plot has a few surprises that I really liked - especially the reversal of roles when suddenly Neville has to fight for Lily after she advanced within the ton and I just love Balogh's style, so I am looking forward to reading the second prequel.
I was a bit disappointed that the Bedwyns do not appear at all here, but I know where the connection to their family is (it's Lauren, Neville's fiancée at the start of this book, who later marries Kit Butler, Freya Bedwyn's first love) and I am eager to learn what happens in the next book. show less

It wasn't a bad book, and I'm not sorry I spent a few hours reading it. If Balogh had managed to make the people talk or act as if they belonged to the time period, I might have even kept it. I think the most disconcerting and certainly the most egregious anachronism was the repeated insistence of Aunt Elizabeth that she and Lily were going to have "fun, fun, fun!" You keep using that word, Ms Balogh, but in 1818 it does not mean what you think it means. Not long before the time of this story Dr Johnson stigmatized "fun" as a low-class cant word, and its meaning was still carrying connotations of cheating, hoaxing, or mockery more than gaiety.

Balogh is, of course, a better-than-average Regency author in this regard and most of the time show more it was easy to suspend disbelief and ignore a few anachronisms and improbabilities. Here's one: Lily is a working-class young woman; she is illiterate and utterly uneducated; but somehow she has quite a genteel turn of phrase. In actual fact, in the utterly unlikely event that such a person were to speak with elegant upperclass diction, she could not say three words without her accent betraying her humble origins. (Two words: Eliza Dolittle.) To Balogh's credit, it was more than halfway through the book and Lily was already struggling with literacy before I had the "Wait, what?" moment: she has tutors for pretty much everything except elocution!

Only after finishing the book did I notice the inner cover with the bulging-muscle hairless-chest dude and the blue-eyeshadow chick getting swooningly naked in the waterfall pool. Oh my. Fun, fun, fun. show less

This was lovely with a ton going on. Warning for past sexual assault which was hard to read about (nothing graphic but still). Lily went through a ridiculous amount here, and I’m glad that she’ll have her HEA with Neville. Since I’ve read all the different books after this already, it was interesting to see how Balogh structured the suspense/mystery happening here too. Also I’m glad I’ve already seen Lauren and Gwen get their happy endings; Gwen wasn’t shown in that great a light here. The different class systems shown here were very interesting, and I’m not sure if it worked or not at the place where Lily ended up.

Balogh has an interesting style, doesn't she? I was not totally convinced when I read my first book by her, but this one felt utterly perfect for the moment. I adored the free-spirited and joyful (but not at the cost of her being realistic) heroine, and the hero was...doting. Devoted. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.
3.75