Christmas Belle (Signet Regency Romance)

Rating:
Summary: A flawed book, but still worth reading
Review: A great actress, Isabella Gelle, Comtesse de Vacheron, is invited to spend Christmas at the country home of the Duke and Duchess of Portland. The widowed Isabella and her two children will be honored guests at the family gathering; Isabella has also been asked to present a short program as part of the Chtistmas Day entertainment.

Isabella is anxious about accepting the invitation, aware that the Duke and Duchess's grandson, Jack Frazer, is also likely to be present. Years before, at the start of her career, they had been lovers, but they had parted bitterly. Now Isabella is both hoping - and dreading - that Jack will be there.

This is one of a series of novels and short stories set around Christmas in Regency England by Balogh, and, as always, the description of the festivities is wonderful. She handles a large cast of characters with ease: I particularly liked Isabella's young daughter, Jacqueline, whose passion for the violin Isabella tries to suppress, in a mistaken attempt to protect her daughter from the hurt she herself has suffered in pursuing her own gifts. Jacqueline finds an unexpected champion, and the relationship that develops between the two is touching.

Jack is under pressure from his grandmother to find himself a wife. He finds it enormously difficult to deal with Isabella's unexpected presence at his family's gathering. She is the only woman he has ever loved, and he was deeply hurt when she disappeared from his life.

Isabella and Jack's resolution of the bitterness of their past, while under the ever-watchful eyes of his vast family, is emotionally wrenching. In the end, secrets are revealed and family expectations are satisfied in unexpected ways.

What spoiled this book for me, a little, was Jack's intemperate language when talking to Isabella. It made him less likeable, and flawed an otherwise moving story.

[Note: some of the same characters appear in The First Snowdrop.]

Rating:
Summary: Sweet Holiday Story
Review: Another good Mary Balogh book about family reunion at Christmas -love lost and then found.

Rating:
Summary: Had problems with the history...
Review: I read this book some time back (nearly a year ago) and criticized the history and some other aspects of this on a Balogh fan list. [Whoa! Never criticize Balogh to her most die-hard fans]. The love story is not bad, although I had a hard time believing in many aspects of it, partly because of the serious historical mistake that Balogh makes. Since the other two reviews explain why the romance leaves them cold, I will not go into details on that. The romance actually worked better for me than did her second-to-last book MORE THAN A MISTRESS (which I really could not find entirely credible). The problem I had with this book is Isabelle's ability to jaunt to and from France *during* the Napoleonic Wars. I am not doubting that free-traders and spies were wont to cross to and fro; however, it beggars the imagination that a young woman (even a promising actress) who was English would have been able to make her way to France - and launch a career *and* a marriage to a Frenchman. Even if this occurs at the time of the Peace of Amiens (1802), the timing of Isabelle's return is a bit off to say the least. As a Frenchwoman (by marriage), the earliest she could have returned to England and re-launched her acting career would be 1814. There is of course the little problem of Waterloo in between, not to mention the fact that even Mrs Siddons would require some time to establish (or re-establish) herself. The dates did not quite match the age of Isabelle's child; that was one of my problems.

The second problem I had was in believing that the youthful romance between Jack and Isabelle could be kept secret in London. Possible yes. Likely, perhaps. But it strains my credulity again.

The third problem I had was in Jack's family welcoming Isabelle into their homes as a guest, given her status as an actress. Very famous actresses might be acceptable, but even then, unless they were clearly happily married, they might not be considered equals - let alone allowed to socialize with the younger unmarried ladies. Isabelle was a widow, albeit of a French noblewoman. If she had previously been invited to other country house parties, it would have been as a noblewoman, not as an actress. Again, a little build-up to the Duke and Duchess's decision to have an actress come as an equal to their country house would have been helpful; i.e. understanding that they were not precisely conventional stick-in-the-mud types. [In fact, reading the prequel THE FIRST SNOWDROP helps here].

I could not really care for Jack's attitude to Isabelle, and the opinions he holds of her. Generally, romances where the hero behaves badly towards the heroine (on little or no grounds) and then is forgiven easily at the end appeal less and less to me. That made the romance part a little hard to swallow.

This is certainly not a bad book. I would say that Mary Balogh's "duds" are still pretty good compared with the average output in the Regency market. In fact, CHRISTMAS BELLE comes off well compared with three of the last four Baloghs I have read and reviewed - A MASKED DECEPTION, THE DOUBLE WAGER, and A CHANCE ENCOUNTER (the fourth being THE COUNTERFEIT BETROTHAL). Mary Balogh has achieved the angsty note that is peculiar (i.e. unique) to her, but the plot and the romance in this book is not entirely convincing. For a better read on the theme of youthful love and separation from the same author, try THE COUNTERFEIT BETROTHAL (still not one of her best, because the secondary romance is actually the primary romance). Or try LORD CAREW'S BRIDE, the story of a young girl who gives her heart to the wrong man. This book rates at about 3.5

Rating:
Summary: Had problems with the history...
Review: I read this book some time back (nearly a year ago) and criticized the history and some other aspects of this on a Balogh fan list. [Whoa! Never criticize Balogh to her most die-hard fans]. The love story is not bad, although I had a hard time believing in many aspects of it, partly because of the serious historical mistake that Balogh makes. Since the other two reviews explain why the romance leaves them cold, I will not go into details on that. The romance actually worked better for me than did her second-to-last book MORE THAN A MISTRESS (which I really could not find entirely credible). The problem I had with this book is Isabelle's ability to jaunt to and from France *during* the Napoleonic Wars. I am not doubting that free-traders and spies were wont to cross to and fro; however, it beggars the imagination that a young woman (even a promising actress) who was English would have been able to make her way to France - and launch a career *and* a marriage to a Frenchman. Even if this occurs at the time of the Peace of Amiens (1802), the timing of Isabelle's return is a bit off to say the least. As a Frenchwoman (by marriage), the earliest she could have returned to England and re-launched her acting career would be 1814. There is of course the little problem of Waterloo in between, not to mention the fact that even Mrs Siddons would require some time to establish (or re-establish) herself. The dates did not quite match the age of Isabelle's child; that was one of my problems.

The second problem I had was in believing that the youthful romance between Jack and Isabelle could be kept secret in London. Possible yes. Likely, perhaps. But it strains my credulity again.

The third problem I had was in Jack's family welcoming Isabelle into their homes as a guest, given her status as an actress. Very famous actresses might be acceptable, but even then, unless they were clearly happily married, they might not be considered equals - let alone allowed to socialize with the younger unmarried ladies. Isabelle was a widow, albeit of a French noblewoman. If she had previously been invited to other country house parties, it would have been as a noblewoman, not as an actress. Again, a little build-up to the Duke and Duchess's decision to have an actress come as an equal to their country house would have been helpful; i.e. understanding that they were not precisely conventional stick-in-the-mud types. [In fact, reading the prequel THE FIRST SNOWDROP helps here].

I could not really care for Jack's attitude to Isabelle, and the opinions he holds of her. Generally, romances where the hero behaves badly towards the heroine (on little or no grounds) and then is forgiven easily at the end appeal less and less to me. That made the romance part a little hard to swallow.

This is certainly not a bad book. I would say that Mary Balogh's "duds" are still pretty good compared with the average output in the Regency market. In fact, CHRISTMAS BELLE comes off well compared with three of the last four Baloghs I have read and reviewed - A MASKED DECEPTION, THE DOUBLE WAGER, and A CHANCE ENCOUNTER (the fourth being THE COUNTERFEIT BETROTHAL). Mary Balogh has achieved the angsty note that is peculiar (i.e. unique) to her, but the plot and the romance in this book is not entirely convincing. For a better read on the theme of youthful love and separation from the same author, try THE COUNTERFEIT BETROTHAL (still not one of her best, because the secondary romance is actually the primary romance). Or try LORD CAREW'S BRIDE, the story of a young girl who gives her heart to the wrong man. This book rates at about 3.5

Rating:
Summary: Not up to the usual standard from Balogh
Review: Much as I hate giving a Mary Balogh book less than five stars, this one is not her best by any means. It's a shame, because a lot of the time she writes Christmas very well; witness A Christmas Promise. However, with this and The Last Waltz, I was disappointed.

I'm not really sure why; the story had plenty of potential to grip my emotions. Jack and Isabelle were lovers years earlier, but both misunderstood the nature of their relationship, each in love but believing that the other saw their relationship as only representing a transaction: sex in exchange for money. Isabelle, an actress with a passionate desire to succeed in her craft, knew that Jack hated what she did, and that he resented other men looking at her. In his response to that resentment, he emphasised that her role in his life was as his whore; she hated that description and the implication that he didn't care for her at all, and so she claimed to have other lovers, and then she walked out on him.

Now they meet again, eight years later; she's a widow with two children, and he's about to become betrothed at a house party to which they're both invited. Gradually, as they find they can't avoid one another's company, they work through the misunderstandings and realise that they were in love all along - and are still. But Jack's still committed to making an offer to Juliana, his chosen bride, and Isabelle still has a secret untold...

Some nice secondary characters, although the family gets very confusing if you haven't read the first book in this mini-series. Overall, though, Jack and Isabelle never made me love them sufficiently, and the book left me unsatisfied.