Immerse In Someone To Love (Westcott, #1) Depicted By Mary Balogh Delivered In Digital Edition

start to a new series by the author I adore, Mary Balogh is my comfort read, She waves her magic and creates emotionally satisfying world of complex relationships between strong, likable and honorable characters without relying too much on evil villains or annoying misunderstandings, Her stories tend to have more characters introspection as opposed to melt downs or limitless arguments,

If you never read Mary Balogh before, I wouldnt recommend to start here, I think Bedwyn saga or Simply Quartet series or some of her singles are superior to the story,

If you are a fan of the author, I think you would be pleased, Yes, there are ruminations that maybe little excessive and recycled plot devices and storylines but instead of annoying, it brought me comfort and satisfaction, I smiled and sighed with contentment at the end, This is exactly what I needed,

I read this as paperback which featured graphic representation of the Westcotts family tree, I dont know if eversion has it, I hope it does as I found the reference very helpful, especially at the start, when so many family members appeared on the scene,

And, now to the story itself,

Someone to Love is the first in Balogh's Wescott series featuring a family that finds itself neck deep in scandal when the head of the family dies and it is discovered that he had a secret wife and child, which makes his second marriage invalid and those children illegitimate.
Miss Anna Snow, the secret child turned heiress, grew up in an orphanage and became a teacher there, As many orphan children, she grew up dreaming of one day finding her family, And it seems at the age ofher dream came true, But the dream of a happy family collided with a stark reality as she's faced with siblings who want nothing to do with her, and now she has to integrate herself into the ton.

Avery Archer, Duke of Netherby, a guardian to now illegitimate Anns halfbrother, is typically one to keep out of such affairs, but when he sees Anna struggling with her new station, he steps in to help her out.


Avery is not your typical tall, dark and brooding romance hero, He is slight, elegant and beautiful with a carefully cultivated aura of ennui which he uses to keep people at a distance, If it weren't for the sheer forcefulness of his personality and confidence other men would be inclined to write him off, Indeed, there is a background story about Avery being underestimated physically because he isn't tall and big and the way he dealt with it, Despite his appearance, Avery is definitely romantic hero material,

I liked the quiet romance between Anna and Avery, They fall in love day by day, minute by minute, Their relation to one another is based on respect and honesty,

Its a very good story but not perfect, Being the first book in the series, there is a lot of time spent on setting and introduction of various characters, This is expected but made the story drag at parts and the romance as lovely as it is often seems to take a back seat, I wanted to see more of it!

The other drawback is the letters that Anna writes back to her friend Joel, These letters, for the most part, dont provide any new information but just rehash everything that has already happened, They felt a little like filler to me and I mostly skimmed them,

Overall it was a very satisfying read, I look forward to the next book in this series,
This was a solidly average book, I wont go into too many details, See my highlights and notes,

kiss until, sex that wasnt even warm on my hot meter,

H fell in love with h but I never quite caught the moment, . .

Just didnt really capture my attention!

Disappointed Not my favorite Mary Balogh, I have a hit/miss relationship with her books I either love them or I don't, with nothing in between, I always appreciate her writing skills and her relatively dramafree plots, though, and this is also true for this book, That being said, there were a few things that just didn't work for me and kept me from enjoying the story,

First of, there was a massive info dump in the beginning, Setting up a new series is always tough, especially when it's about such a big family, But about the firstpages were devoted almost entirely to setting up family dynamics and the different members' backstory, with the added difficulty that the relationships were completely rearranged by the fact that the heroine is an unknown legitimate daughter from a first marriage no one knew about.
This meant that a whole branch of the family is now illegitimate and none too happy with her, and it actually made my head hurt to remember who was who, and who was on her side and who hated her.


Then there were the mysterious martial arts that apparently caused quite the controversy because the hero learned his unnamed skills from an unnamed ancient Chinese man whose name isn't mentioned and who speaks in clichéd riddles.
I don't have a problem with that he's only in one single flashback from the beginning and in a brief paragraph when the hero tells the heroine about him, But I do have a problem with how it was used: the hero was bullied as a kid and almost sexually abused at school which was mentioned in a mere aside! It had a huge impact on him, but was never really dealt with, so why mention it when it never comes up again because he was pretty, goldenhaired, and skinny.
As a result he spend years honing his body, turning it into "a weapon" with the Chinese man how when what exactly did he learn Question I all wanted answered, and in the end, the bullies were scared of him not because he ever defended himself, but because he had the whole "aura of mystery" around him cliché going on.
Also, when the heroine secretly witnesses his skills in a duel, she writes to a friend, that she is "afraid" her words! of him, musing that she doesn't think he'd ever hurt her "unless severely provoked" again, her words.
Do I really want a heroine who is afraid of the man she marries

Which brings me to another problem, Avery and Anna are both insanely private people, We get very little insight into their thoughts, and I could never really understand either of them, Especially in the case of the aforementioned letter I never really got the sense that she got over her initial fear, which bugged me, Also, it took almostpages for them to kiss, you get their wedding night, and that was it, I just didn't feel any intimacy growing between them, and they hardly spent time together as it was, what with everyone trying to turn Anna into a proper aristocrat,

All in all, there were too many little things that bothered me to mention, but in the end I just didn't like it I just didn't care one bit for any of the characters.
The devastatingly handsome, upright and principled cousin sounds like good hero material, and the cousin who was rendered illegitimate heroine of booksounds interesting even though she spend most of this book as a screeching, irrational shrew, but towards the end she sees reason and decides to let go of her fury and change, but other than that I have a hard time remembering anyone else.
I still enjoyed it because it's Mary Balogh, but other than that, I was a bit disappointed, .

It seems Mary Balogh's books don't quite work with me judging by the three I've read so far including this one, As for those two I've read, I don't remember much,

There are a number of reasons why I didn't really enjoy this book, It starts well enough. I mean, it has this Cinderella feeling and I love a good Cinderella story, But then the author puts many, many, many people in a room throwing their names at us as if we're supposed to know and remember them right away.
To some, that won't be a problem but for me, it was annoying to put it mildly,

Next, neither character was really likeable to me, She is this perfect but not that pretty, mind you generous soul who stands up for herself, And stuff.
If I hadn't read the blurb and saw the name of the hero, I would have thought another person was the protagonist see the comment about many, many, many people.
Usually, when authors create a hero in a historical romance and he isn't supposed to be nice, pleasant and whatnot, they usually make something attractive, It can be anything really from the good looks you are beaten over the head with this one's height and how slender he is to some appealing quality, The real flaws are sometimes there, but not as pronounced, I never warmed up to the hero, He is pretty as an angel, though, That is something this book won't let you forget, He does have a couple of interesting moments mostly what he says,
There were a couple of lovely scenes featuring siblings heroine's cousins and some of those duke's comments were interesting enough, so I can't say I didn't like anything,

As for the writing and the story itself, there lies the real reason I couldn't quite enjoy it, It is repetitive. Let me illustrate: an event happens in detail, then Anna writes a long letter to her friend and we get to read about the same event again in more detail.
This happened at least three times and that's three times too many, At least three times we are told about the duke's past and his experiences at school,
Another thing that kept bringing me out of the book was the behaviour of servants, Let's just say this ton is unbelievably tolerant,

Overall, I am not saying I won't try another book from this author, but I will wait a bit, I am not really interested in the next book in the series since the heroine was horrible in this one,
I like historical romances, It just happens this is, with the exception of a couple of scenes, one of those I couldn't make myself enjoy,

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