Reviews with content warning for Grief - Slightly Tempted

Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Slightly Tempted by Mary Balogh

2 reviews

solacelight's review against another edition

medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

I truly do not know where to start with this book. It's such a disappointment, as I have enjoyed the rest of series thus far. Frankly, there's so much to dislike about this. Morgan is unlikable as a character. Gervase is unlikable on moral grounds. And let's not get started on some of the other characters. The plot simultaneously drags and is rushed, characters take inexplicable decisions, and one never feels that Gervase has quite redeemed himself because frankly? He never tries. The age gap is so very evident and pointed out so often in incredibly uncomfortable terms. And Gervase's backstory feels undeniably harmful and misogynistic. However, +1.5 stars solely for more Wulfric. I love Wulfric. And also I am excited about the setup for Alleyne's story so I'm hoping that's not a letdown.

Now to go on to some specifics:
Morgan was incredibly inconsistent as a character. She made idiotic, selfish decisions motivated by her own distorted sense of self including:

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Going to a soon-to-be war zone while leading someone on;
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Refusing to leave said war zone despite that war looms as an imminent threat as in the next day simply to attend a BALL;
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And actively choosing to put herself into situations she KNOWS are compromising simply because she feels the need to prove she's Smart and Mature and Knows Everything. The shame is that she does know in this instance and instead of choosing to exercise this knowledge, she acts like a fourteen year old who's just been issued a dare.
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Also why does the family seem to SO quickly move on from Alleyne's death?? We get like maybe twenty pages in total of reflection on this.
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In grand summary, the difference between Morgan and previous FMCs is that they have some modicum of life experience behind them that isn't being a spoiled brat. Her being 'so wise' is so obviously untrue because if she was wise she would have used that brain of hers (which I KNOW WORKS) to not continue to do idiotic things for literally no reason (at least Freyja had her reasons for her dumb decisions).

Gervase was just a horrible human being who did absolutely nothing to redeem himself.

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He sees an eighteen year old girl, innocent, and then decides to enact revenge upon her brother for not defending him after he was accused of rape.
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His first thought after he is intimate with Morgan for the first time is of how he has finally enacted revenge upon Wulfric. I don't need his thoughts to be particularly loving, but THIS???
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After feeling small pangs of guilt and realizing she is shockingly a person who deserves to be treated as thus, does he attempt to appropriately extricate himself from the situation and make amends? No. He chooses to actively ruin her with an audience simply to further inconvenience Wulfric.
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Morgan has the excuse of being eighteen years old and being in the literal first blush of youth, but Gervase just goes 'I love Morgan!' There is no moment, no thought prior to it that indicates he loves her. I read somewhere that romantic love in the European Christian world has twisted into an attempt to reconcile lust and 'morality'. It feels like this is Gervase's attempt to reconcile his guilt, his attraction, and her personhood.
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HE DOESN'T DO ANYTHING TO REDEEM HIMSELF BEYOND HANDING OUT APOLOGIES OUT OF NOWHERE. Balogh is usually wonderful at emotional development. Gervase seems to simply go superficially from anger to forgiveness. His words of plea and love mean nothing because the reader has insight into his thoughts, and his thoughts seem to have no substance.
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And also he just seemed indistinguishable from Josh who I liked more and who seemed to have more substance.

And his backstory...there is nothing I hate more than a

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'I was falsely accused of rape!'

plotline, and this is no exception.

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Must I go into how damaging and misogynistic it is to make your MMC's big point of trauma a false accusation from a woman?
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The fact that the accusation was a collaboration between two young lesbians somehow makes it worse because yes let's make the only canon gay representation in this entire series thus far two women who have conspired to accuse a childhood friend and cousin respectively of a heinous crime he did not commit, resulting in the fracturing of a family structure and the exile of an innocent man (at least of this crime).
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It's still baffling to me that the final straw was, wait for it, the fact that he stole a brooch. Not the rape, no, they would have just made him marry the woman who he supposedly raped, but the fact that he stole a broach? Well, that's just one step too far. I know it's, like, historically accurate, but damn it was just like another annoyance on top of a plotpoint I already despise.
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Why does Morgan blindly believe that Gervase didn't assault someone? Why does she think it cruel for a father to have believed the 'victim' (I HATE THAT I HAVE TO PUT IT IN QUOTATION MARKS)? Why does she think Wulfric petty for not defending an accused rapist? At least Gervase feels a certain way because he knows he's innocent. Morgan had no such assurance before she spoke to Marianne. (In reflection, why did Freyja similarly believe that Josh's intentions towards the maid were not to force a kiss upon her when he did much the same to her? Dear God, what is it with the Bedwyn women?)
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Just to be clear again, I ABHOR this entire plotpoint.

There was so much to dislike about this and so little to like. What a shame. On to the next one, I suppose.

Content Warnings

now_booking's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

One thing I’m realizing in my re-read of this series is how much this author can make me accept even my least favourite tropes. This book features the revenge seduction trope where Gervase seeks revenge against his mortal enemy Wulfric, the Duke of Bewcastle, by trying to compromise his youngest sister and Bedwyn sibling favourite, Morgan.

I really enjoyed this for the strength of its main character. Many regency heroines are so young and thus, sometimes lacking in agency. But not Morgan. I love how this book very much deromanticized the Napoleonic wars and kind of showed a very good glimpse of the period and the awful realities. Like previous books in the series gender and women’s agency or lack thereof was a major theme, classism and social norms around class was another, forgiveness also was a surprisingly significant theme in this. This book had me questioning my own relationship with forgiveness being a person of faith, compared with the forgiveness these characters in this book were able to find. This book featured some of the extremes that girls who feel powerless and backed into a corner might take to ensure their freedom, which might have severely tragic consequences. It was hard to read and feel okay with what the hero went through without feeling his bitterness. Yet, it was really emotionally compelling reading the bits about forgiveness and rebuilding trust and considering them from my own perspective. I enjoyed how pragmatic Morgan was and I’m just almost bursting with anticipation for Wulfric’s book which was always my favourite. Watch out for grief and death content as well as betrayal, those might be potentially triggering for a sensitive reader.

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