A review by turophile
A Christmas Bride / Christmas Beau by Mary Balogh

2.0

Rating and review Mary Balogh stories is always challenging, because I just love her style as a romance novelist. My rankings tend to be against other Balogh novels, not other romances.
Putting the preface out there because this matching set of Christmas stories wasn’t a favorite. In fact I really was not a fan of the first story.

What makes Balogh’s stories stand out for me is that she’s a master with writing flawed and/or injured characters who must overcome or adapt to that challenge while falling in love. It often works, but in a Christmas Bride it did not work for me. The heroine, Helena, is battling her inner demons, and it is odd as heck. Apparently she and the hero were side characters in different stories. There are external conflicts keeping her and Edgar apart, but the bigger conflict is her own feelings of guilt and unworthiness that seem overdone and puzzling. Something happened with her stepson, not quite incest, but we’re still not sure what happened. It goes overboard and is puzzling because I’m never quite sure whether to empathize with the heroine or not. Disappointing story overall.
The second story was fine, better than the first but as a pair, I’m giving this 2/5 on the Balogh scale.