Recommendations from Karin for May 2016.

In order to bring some more variety to my blog, I have asked some of my bookish friends to tell about the books they have in the past month, and to give us a recommendation. Today’s post is made by Karin from Austria.

Karin:

This time I want to keep my recommendations a little short as I want to concentrate on two very different books with two very different unusual heroines.
First I want to concentrate on the last book in the “Survivior-Series” by Mary Balogh. It`s

“Only Beloved”



When I first started reading this series I found that there were ups and downs. I did not like every single book in the series as I liked some others but I had always been fascinated by the character of George Crabbe, Duke of Stanbrooke. The reason why he started the “hospital” for the wounded soldieres and the lonely female in the Survivor’s Club was clearly defined and yet I felt there was something else. Being the sucker for HEAs that I am I wanted him to find his perfect companion despite him being advanced in years (at least for that time! – not nowadays of course!!!)

Balogh let him find that perfect heroine in Dora Debbins, the elderly spinster sister to Agnes, one of the other heroines. As I said she is an unusual heroine for a Regency Romance. She is a mature woman (she is almost forty), she does not rely on relatives to feed her. After her mother ran off with another man, Dora had raised her younger sister, putting behind dreams of a successful season in London. Her father married a second time and Dora left her home to carve out a life as a music teacher in a small village.

This peaceful (albeit very solitary) life is interrupted by the proposal of the Duke whom she has met only when he visited one of the members of the Survivors. Dora has admired the Duke, she thinks of that visit quite often and she accepts the proposal.

This book has everything a reader could want: there is the short development of deep affection between two adult and mature people to something that is definitely love on both sides. There are secrets of the past and deep emotional scars to overcome, there is a villain included who gets what he deserves and there is this wonderful epilogue (I’m a big fan of epilogues!!).
A highly recommended book – if necessary it can be read as a standalone but you would miss out on a really good series if you did that.

The second book with an unusual heroine for this month is

Impervious by Laura Kirwan



Meaghan Keele is a lawyer closer to her fiftieth birthday than her fortieth. She is lonely, loses her job and on request of her brother who takes care of their father (said father suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease) she moves to the town of Eldrich.

Meaghan had a difficult relationship with her father: a lawyer as well, he started drinking heavily. Meaghan has totally cut the ties with her father and keeps occasional contact with her brother.

In the tiny town of Eldrich she finds out that things are not always what they seem. There is more between heaven and earth than the eye can conceive and Meaghan is so important for Eldrich because she is so much like her father: she is impervious to magic – and boy! there is a lot of magic in this book.

It’s a very well written story and I think I’m going to read the next two in the series pretty soon.
This is it for this month. Until we meet again next month: Happy Reading.



Aurian: Thanks for the recommendation Karin! One day I will read some Mary Balogh books, I do have plenty of them!

© 2016 Reviews by Aurian