Beyond the Sunrise

Rating:
Summary: Sheer brilliance
Review: All of Mary Balogh's books are wonderfully written, elaborate love stories that make the heart weep and cheer. And none more so than "Beyond the Sunrise."

This novel captures the spirit of a bygone era. The protagonists, Jeanne and Robert, meet in Regency England, fall madly in love and are forced apart by the cruel hands of their respective fathers. Jeanne returns to her native France while Robert enlists in the army.

They meet 10 years later at a ball in Portugal. He recognizes her immediately, she doesn't him. This time fate is not the only thing keeping them apart. War does as well, a particularly brutal war on the Iberian peninsula. It pits them as spies on opposing factions. Passion flares but so does betrayal and heartbreak, and only through sheer perseverance and determination, does love triumph.

Balogh is a magically gifted storyteller. She writes dialogue that is purely brilliant and that Hollywood should take note of. You can actually visualize the characters acting out the scene.

Her settings are brutally realistic, with as much detail on flora and landscapes as to the cut of a man's uniform. The men are real men with real feelings, the women, true but never weak. Her characters are thoroughly fleshed out and multi-faceted. They seem human, which is rare in a Romance novel.

You will love this book, even if you don't like Romance novels. It is a classic, and one that every writer could take a lesson from.

I have read and reread this novel at least 20 times and it never ceases to make me weep of despair or cry for joy. It is truly moving.

Rating:
Summary: Sheer brilliance
Review: All of Mary Balogh's books are wonderfully written, elaborate love stories that make the heart weep and cheer. And none more so than "Beyond the Sunrise."

This novel captures the spirit of a bygone era. The protagonists, Jeanne and Robert, meet in Regency England, fall madly in love and are forced apart by the cruel hands of their respective fathers. Jeanne returns to her native France while Robert enlists in the army.

They meet 10 years later at a ball in Portugal. He recognizes her immediately, she doesn't him. This time fate is not the only thing keeping them apart. War does as well, a particularly brutal war on the Iberian peninsula. It pits them as spies on opposing factions. Passion flares but so does betrayal and heartbreak, and only through sheer perseverance and determination, does love triumph.

Balogh is a magically gifted storyteller. She writes dialogue that is purely brilliant and that Hollywood should take note of. You can actually visualize the characters acting out the scene.

Her settings are brutally realistic, with as much detail on flora and landscapes as to the cut of a man's uniform. The men are real men with real feelings, the women, true but never weak. Her characters are thoroughly fleshed out and multi-faceted. They seem human, which is rare in a Romance novel.

You will love this book, even if you don't like Romance novels. It is a classic, and one that every writer could take a lesson from.

I have read and reread this novel at least 20 times and it never ceases to make me weep of despair or cry for joy. It is truly moving.

Rating:
Summary: A Good History Book
Review: Beyond the sunrise is one of my favourite books. I have had it now for several years and I just love reading it over and over. The characters are so well written that they seem like they could be real life people.

The character of Jeanne Morisette was the best heroine I have ever read. She is witty and charming and has a lot of spunk. She has sharp remarks for everything. She is the kind of person who thinks on her feet and it's a quality that is really endearing.

The character of Robert Blake is perfectly matched for our heroine. Although he thinks he can not trust her, he ends up trusting his heart in the end. Of course he doesn't realize it that he was following his heart the whole time. He may think that his love for her has faded, but in fact it only increased.

I thought the story was wonderful, the characters came to life and were a joy to read. The scenery Miss Balough sets is breathtaking. I almost imagined I was there.

This was a great book and I recommend it to anyone who likes Miss Baloughs stuff. I sure do.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I have ever read.
Review: Beyond the sunrise is one of my favourite books. I have had it now for several years and I just love reading it over and over. The characters are so well written that they seem like they could be real life people.

The character of Jeanne Morisette was the best heroine I have ever read. She is witty and charming and has a lot of spunk. She has sharp remarks for everything. She is the kind of person who thinks on her feet and it's a quality that is really endearing.

The character of Robert Blake is perfectly matched for our heroine. Although he thinks he can not trust her, he ends up trusting his heart in the end. Of course he doesn't realize it that he was following his heart the whole time. He may think that his love for her has faded, but in fact it only increased.

I thought the story was wonderful, the characters came to life and were a joy to read. The scenery Miss Balough sets is breathtaking. I almost imagined I was there.

This was a great book and I recommend it to anyone who likes Miss Baloughs stuff. I sure do.

Rating:
Summary: A Good History Book
Review: If you want to know all about the historical events of the summer of 1810 when the French advanced into Portugal and the British, Spanish, and Portuguese response to it; this is the book for you. It is full of details of battle scenes and the boring life of the officers in between. If I had liked the characters it would have been easier to get involved in the history, but they were not likable or even believable. It's all about a woman who dedicates her life to getting revenge after witnessing the rape of her sister. She, because of her beauty, ensnares and manipulates every man she ever comes in contact with, including the hero who is a bitter man due to uncontrollable life circumstances. I think it is an insult to men to believe that they could all be manipulated into doing almost anything just because a woman is beautiful. A well written book, but definitely not my cup of tea.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing characters makes this less than sparkling
Review: Robert Blake is the illegitimate son of a marquis. Acknowledged by his father, nevertheless he is still a bastard and heir to nothing. At the tender age of sixteen, he encounters a beautiful young girl, a guest at his father's home, Jeanne Morrisette, the daughter of a French nobleman. They fall in love - but Jeanne, persuaded by her worried father that Robert couldn't possibly love her, cruelly rejects him, saying that she could never love a bastard. Devastated, Robert runs away and joins the army as a common soldier instead of accepting the commission his father would have bought for him.

Many years later, they meet again in Portugal; Robert, now promoted to Captain, is carrying out commissions for Wellington while recovering from a battle-wound. At a ball, he meets the Marquesa, the beautiful widow of a Portuguese noble whom all the British officers fall over themselves to impress... and realises that she is his Jeanne. And, since she is French, she's probably a spy - so, when Wellington instructs him to work with the Marquesa, he is very wary of her.

And thus begins a sort of 'road story'; they have to travel some distance together, and en route she - not having recognised Captain Blake as her Robert - tries to seduce him, while he refuses to play her games of flirtation. Then, when under Wellington's orders Robert has to travel into Spain and allow himself to be captured by the French, Jeanne ingratiates herself with her French compatriots - again on Wellington's orders - to make Robert's treatment worse. It's a complicated - and, at this point, somewhat incredible, plot.

But what I disliked more than the plot in this book were the characters of Robert and Jeanne. I had little time for Jeanne because although she had plenty of time, once they had fulfilled their mission, to tell Robert the truth about herself, she persisted in allowing him to believe the worst about her. Robert I disliked because he seemed occasionally to behave violently purely for the sake of it. As for romance, there was none of it in this book beyond the first chapter. What Robert and Jeanne had between them was lust, not love.

As Balogh's books are always better-written than most authors' work, it was still very readable and had enough interesting material to keep my attention, but while this will remain on my Balogh bookshelf I'm unlikely to want to read it again.

wmr-uk