Mary Balogh

Anne Jewell, a favorite teacher at Miss Martin's School for Girls, is forced to confront the tragedies of the past in order to build a new life for herself and her son after she meets Sydnam Butler, a quiet and gentle hero of the Peninsular Wars.

Simply Love

Lover of Romance 

This review was originally posted on Addicted To Romance

Mary Balogh is a classic romance author, and I have been wanting to pick her up more and more. In Simply Love  we have a story of two lonely people who need each other. Our heroine, Anne Jewell, teaches at a girls school in the country, and has a nine year old son she has had to raise on her own after being forced years ago. Then the cousin of the father of her son, invites Anne and her son to a house gathering for a month, many are relatives of her son. So she agrees, planning on keeping to herself and letting her son enjoy being with boys his own age. But there she meets the Duke of Bewcastle's steward. Sydnam, is a man who once was a talented artist, but sought out to prove himself. So he went to fight in the war, he came back after being tortured, scarred and damaged. He has built a new life for himself, but he still feels alone until he meets Anne who fills a space inside him that has been empty. Sydnam and Anne form a friendship which slowly turns into something more....can Anne and Sydnam find a future together?

I was really overwhelmed in some ways by this story, but not quite in the way that you would expect. Simply Love is a powerfully written story that is beautiful and one of the most poignant stories that I have ever read. There is so much you want for both of these two people. Anne and Sydnam both deserve to find happiness especially when you see how much they have dealt with and overcome. However both of them are pretty stubborn as well. Their friendship is what is the primary focus of the story, I did feel that the actual romance was lacking. That is really the only reason for the lower rating, I was expecting the romance to be more stronger than this story turned out to be. But it was wonderful seeing characters from the Bedweyn series being connected to this story.
 
  “Life so often becomes a determined, relentless avoidance of pain - of one's own, of other people's. But sometimes pain has to be acknowledged and even touched so that one can move into it and through it and past it. Or else be destroyed by it.
 
Simply Love is a romance that will inspire and elighten, leave you happy and craving more stories just like this one!! SIMPLY MEMORABLE.



  Have you read Mary Balogh before? What are your favorite titles? 
  

What is there to love about friends to lovers romances?


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Simply Love

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