Desert Isle Keeper
Remember Love
Remember Love is the first in a new series by prolific historical romance writer Mary Balogh. I was excited to crack this one open; I was not disappointed.
Devlin Ware has no reason to doubt the goodness, the honorability of his family. His father is the Earl of Stratton, and a family man beyond reproach, or so it is believed. Devlin is his heir, and admires his father in all things, until a celebration on their estate reveals a horrible secret. Exiled from Ravenswood, Devlin goes off to fight Napoleon, leaving much behind.
Gwyneth Rhys and Devlin were in love, but his banishment put an end to their budding romance. It would have been an excellent match, but it wasn’t to be, and Devlin disappears from her life for six long years. When Devlin does finally return, it’s to a devastated family and a life that no longer feels like his. He must set things right, but it’s been a long time, and Devlin doesn’t think he can ever be the person he was, if he can love again, or even if he should.
I am a sucker for a second-chance romance, especially in historicals, although I was a bit taken aback by the structure of the story, since most with a similar plotline and time jump between ‘then’ and ‘now’ have less exposition at the beginning, but it really works here. A lot of books would just begin after the return of the heir and the reader would spend the rest of the plot trying to unravel the mystery of his traumatic banishment. In this case, giving us the full story at the start is a good call. Not only does the reader understand the characters’ motivations, the two principals mostly understand each other. Misunderstandings as a trope have a time and a place, and I’m glad this book doesn’t rely on that.
Remember Love is a pretty angsty read, and Devlin does not always cover himself in glory when it comes to the way he treats Gwyneth. A lot of his coldness to her and others is certainly because of the trauma he experiences, and he does redeem himself in words and in actions by the end. Devlin’s central struggle is with himself; he goes through a lot of change in a very short time, and he needs to reorient his worldview, which is realistic and understandable. Gwyneth is patient without being a pushover, and I really appreciated that. She isn’t shy about what she wants, and she’s seen as desirable by others.
I enjoyed Remember Love a lot. I remain a big Balogh fan, and I’m looking forward to the next few books in the series. The Ware siblings intrigue me and I can’t wait to read the rest of their stories.
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Book Details
| Reviewer: | Rachel Finston |
|---|---|
| Review Date: | July 29, 2022 |
| Publication Date: | 07/2022 |
| Grade: | A- |
| Sensuality | Warm |
| Book Type: | Historical Romance |
| Review Tags: | Napoleonic wars | Ravenswood series | second chance romance |
I’m a fan of Balogh’s older standalone titles, the Bedwyn and Simply series, and a few of the Survivor’s Club series; but the newer series ones not so much. I thought I’d give this new series a try and (for me) it was only ok.
First, there was way too much exposition in the first half; first with how perfect the family was and then describing Dev’s war. Too much telling, not enough showing. One can only hope it won’t be repeated at this level of detail in the rest of the series. Second, there was way too much of (what I think) of as “spiral” writing (the continual revisiting of information/interior dialogue over and over again), e.g. how many times is it necessary for Gwyn to mull over that she had been in love with Dev for years, that Dev surely had never, ever even noticed Gwyn, or for Dev to remind himself that Gwyn didn’t like him because she disappeared so quickly whenever he was around. Balogh isn’t the only writer who uses this technique, and I assume it is supposed to ratchet up the tension between main characters. But it almost had me DNFing the book before I was halfway through.
I’m almost afraid to go back to some of those early favorites only realize that both of these writing techniques (heavy exposition and revisiting the same thought) are a consistent thing in Balogh’s writing?
Fortunately, I started skimming through these sections to (eventually) find an interesting set of family members and secondary characters. I enjoyed the scenes between Gwyn and Dev, and getting to know Dev’s siblings through his interactions with them. I would have liked more of that. I will perhaps give the other titles in the series a try to find out more about who these characters are and how each fares in them. Although like this one, I’ll be getting them from the library to give them a test drive before deciding whether to purchase or not. If the books seem expensive at first blush, they become even more so if one is skimming 20% or more of a title.
I love MB. Some of her stories I’ve re-read many times. I usually don’t even mind the often awkwardly written but poignant sex scenes. The scene written in Remember Love was so incredibly odd and distanced IMO and did not do justice to the emotional development of the H and h. Can historical romance authors please never use the phrase ‘hot gush’ again? Also, I did not like Devlin’s POV about experiences with other women…normally I don’t care but these reflections were really jarring in tone to the rest of the book. Or maybe it was just me and I was in a bad mood while reading this one. :)
The family dynamics and secondary characters were great though…of course, MB excels at this.
I just finished this and as always with MB was not disappointed, but I’m with you Dabney… that’s a lot of money and not even for the actual paper copy of the book!
I rented it from the library and if it happens to go on sale in the future will pick up a copy because I tend to re-read Balogh a lot. If you are looking for her usual awesome story and world building you won’t be disappointed but beware of the price!
$15.00 for a Kindle copy, though. That’s eye-popping.
I saw that when I was inputting the review – it’s ridiculous. It’s 5 quid in the UK though. I can’t work out why some books I’m seeing at over 10 bucks in the US are a couple of quid in the UK, digital versions especially, as we’re not talking about print run sizes and the like.
It looks like the print copy is a $20 hardback — but there might be a simultaneous $17 trade paperback edition. So they are probably trying to attract readers who bought the newer trade paperback Bridgerton editions. (Those readers might avoid mass market editions.) The mass market paperback version doesn’t come out until December, and maybe then they’ll decrease the ebook price.
Amazon has a paperback version for $17.25 which comes from the UK (!) so takes up to 2 weeks to receive. The price is $8.99 for the mass market paperback in December. Maybe this is a case of an author whose new releases used to be in paperback and now are going to be released in hardback first then mass market paperback 5-6 mths later?
And I love Mary Balogh and have been looking forward to this book but the current prices are steep so I’m waiting until December. I have all of her books in paperback and want to continue my collection. I’m glad the book was good!
I honestly can’t believe – or understand – why anyone would pay that amount of money for a book. To use the vernacular where I come from – prices like that are taking the piss.
It is the most expensive book of hers on Kindle. The next one down is 11.99 which is still a lot. It’s annoying that all the Italian versions of her books are 2.99 but for us in the US, they’re vastly more.
I can’t believe that Heartless, Indiscreet, and Silent Melody are $11.99! Most of the other reprints are far less than that — even the HTF Regency trads. Beyond the Sunrise is also $11.99, but it was $3.99 when I bought it.
My sense is that prices went up with everything else in general this summer. I also noticed Amazon RAISED the original prices of a lot of books right around Amazon Prime day to make the sale prices seem like a deal when so many were not. I’m getting most of my fiction from the library these days because I can’t afford the new pricing. Perhaps this will motivate me to read more from my TBR and also turn to re-reading more.
My husband paid something like $15 for the trade paperback of Circe last year. I grumbled but said nothing because he wanted to support the small independent bookshop. Fine, I’m all for helping out, but the book isn’t even made well. After one gentle reading (my husband is very kind to books) and a year on our shelves already looks like it will fall apart. It will be donated to our library soon, and I hope they can (literally) keep it together.
I generally won’t pay the hardcopy prices, but at the same time I wonder how fewer printed books will affect libraries.
The good news is that MB is so well established that public libraries are very likely to stock this title. Read now, buy later when the price comes down.
David Baldacci’s kindle books are $15, too. So are Grisham’s and Patterson’s. I don’t have a problem paying the price for Mary’s books.
I wasn’t talking about quality or whether MB is worth the same price as those other authors you mention – to my mind, they’re wildly overpriced as well. Of course authors deserve to be paid for their work, but I couldn’t justify spending almost a fifth of the weekly food budget on a single book.
I didn’t think you were talking about quality and I’m sure you do think authors deserve to be paid. Never meant to imply either of those things. I was just pointing out that authors in other genres are paid that much for ebooks. I had to go check because I live in a bit of a ‘romance’ bubble and wasn’t really positive if the price of MB’s book was out of the main stream or not.
Oh, I know you weren’t – don’t worry; if I was abrupt, I apologise.
I think NO Kindle book should be more than $10.00–that’s the most I’m willing to pay. That’s just me but that is my line in the sand, in general. I hate KU–it’s been ruinous for book sellers–because in part I don’t think anything should be free. It devalues the product. I’d prefer a book world where all books were reasonably priced and authors could support themselves!
We all have certain limits by choice or by necessity on the amount we’ll spend on any given thing. I used to pay $20 for the hardback of her books so I’m less bothered by $15. There’s a very few other authors I’ll spend that much for.
I’m glad to see authors do well on KU, although I’ve never had much success in the two times I had a series there. It’s skewed pricing for the rest of us. We’re capitalists though and the market got what the market thought it could get for MBs books!
KU is not free, it is a subscription service.
Just for precision.
That’s true. But each book is then free. It’s like Netflix in that way. You pay a single low monthly fee and then you can watch anything on Netflix with no additional charge. The more you watch, the less you are expending per watch.
Like you Dabney I’ve been very down on KU – almost since its inception. But a comment I posted recently elsewhere here at AAR from a self-pubbed writer who claimed to make more $$ via KU reads than outright book purchases makes me think it is ok to support new or new-to-me writers this way. Clearly, KU is how writers are building their customer bases. I’m won’t be a monthly subscriber. But once or twice a year I can subscribe for a month or two, and tryout writers of AAR recs that are either priced too high to purchase and/or are not available at my library.
I ran the numbers for the first half of this year and my average Kindle book price was about $5.50 per unit. I’m generally ok with that price point, especially since I knew what I was getting in each of those cases. But I took a couple of flyers on new-to-me writers that were in the $7.50 range and was disappointed in them generally, and especially at that price. So KU (unfortunately) makes some sense – for both the writers and my book budget.
IMO, it is up to a writer, like Lily Morton, or Ruby Dixon, May Archer, Penny Reid* or many others, to decide how she sells her stuff. If they do KU, they choose it. I support writers, but I also accept the model I am offered as a consumer, be it samples or subscriptions.
I do not see such a massive difference between a library subscription or a KU subscription, unless the simple fact of Amazon behind it is the deciding factor.
Like nblibgirl, I would not read certain writers if they were not on KU. And a few, I am happy they are there, but they are not keepers. So I will still not buy. A very few, I actually bought anyway because I want them permanently in my library, and not on a 10 book maximum rotation in KU.
So yes, I do my best to understand how my behavior impacts authors I want to support, and read what you say, but I cannot (yet?) recognize how I am condoning evil abuse and should stop subscribing to KU.
This is not intended in any way as provocative, I am just stating my current view.
* all on KU at Amazon.de right now ( with some or all books)
I’ve heard many authors say it is ruinous for them. (Here’s an article explaining the problems). _But, from my perspective, it’s horrible for us. We don’t make a penny on KU books people buy through our reviews. My musician friends say the same problems exist for them with Spotify. If you don’t pay artists a decent sum for their work, in my view, everyone suffers.
But that’s just me!
Thank you for the article. Will read & think on it.
In Germany the Kindle is 11,99 € (1€ nearly equals 1 $), the epub version 12,19 € by other retailers. The GB edition is on offer for 5,49, I bought mine for 6.49. On the other hand many ebooks by british editors are very expensive, up to 20 €.
The prices of other ebooks lately became generally higher, up to 30 til 40%. Base in my Won buying I fear readers will buy fewer books. Not good for the industry.
1In Europe, especially in Germany, we have higher prices for nearly everything beginning with food and ending with electricity thanks to Putin’s war.
Mary Balogh rarely misses. This is so exciting!