Published by: Signet
Publication Date: October 28, 2014
Series: The Survivors’ Club, #4
Genre: Historical Romance
400 pages
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kobo, Barnes & Noble
Find on Goodreads
Sypnosis:
Flavian, Viscount Ponsonby, was devastated by his fiancée’s desertion after his return home. Now the woman who broke his heart is back—and everyone is eager to revive their engagement. Except Flavian, who, in a panic, runs straight into the arms of a most sensible yet enchanting young woman.
Agnes Keeping has never been in love—and never wishes to be. But then she meets the charismatic Flavian, and suddenly Agnes falls so foolishly and so deeply that she agrees to his impetuous proposal of marriage.
When Agnes discovers that the proposal is only to avenge his former love, she’s determined to flee. But Flavian has no intention of letting his new bride go, especially now that he too has fallen so passionately and so unexpectedly in love.
Review:
I was on my way to our hometown to attend my cousin’s graduation day when I decided to read Only Enchanting by Mary Balogh. It wasn’t really my first choice but we’re already in the month of April and I still haven’t read a thing from my long list of books to read in the Historical Romance section, so when I saw the cover of this book, I just said, why not?
I’m not usually attracted to Historical Romance but I have plenty in my TBR. Haha, you can’t blame me, the feedbacks were pretty convincing. And for this story, well, it did gave me a hard time. I honestly don’t know how to rate and write my review. I guess this is one those days that I just literally don’t know what to write. So for this review, I’ll try to be direct and mention some things that I like, I like the least and other things that I noticed in this story. I’ll try not to drop some spoiler, but I can’t promise. *wink
The first 100 pages of this story was DAF (dull as f*). I’m normally impatient and always wants to be given the juicy part whenever I am reading a book from a new author, plus it’s historical so that explains the dull introduction (sorry, no offense meant). But dang! It would have been ok but I’m a dialog reader and I hate blabber. For example the daffodil painting. A lot, as in A LOT of pages were spent on daffodils that I am beginning to fell asleep. So yep, this was actually one of those books that I skipped a lot of pages. I’m impatient remember? haha. But even if I skipped, it was surprising that I was still able to understand the story. And what’s also appalling was that I started to enjoy the second half of this story that I finished it in just one sitting!
The story got more animated when they got married. All happened so fast but surprisingly, I find it quite romantic really. And I have to say that all the best parts happened in the second part of the book and they’re really really really good.
It’s also in the second part that both the characters improved so well. Agnes becomes more clearheaded and she start thinking in a linear way and act with strength which really surprised me. I never knew she have that badass streak in her.
“I will not tolerate being seen as the other woman in a tragic love story. He married me, Lady Hazeltine. More important, as far as I am concerned, I married him, and I count. “
Now that’s totally badass, don’t you think? I love how she was able to proved them wrong, I love how she stood up for herself especially when she was sensationalize because of what her mother did almost 20 years ago. I love how her character transformed from this plain widow to a fearless wife.
Flavian on the other hand was better too. He was like one of the zombies in the hit American TV series, The Walking Dead in the first part, but after their marriage, he start becoming a person. There’s something about Agnes that’s invigorating and brought him in the land of living. It was excellently done and I am in love!
I guess the marriage did good to the both of them. It was made in haste and without proper thinking but I was glad it turned out great. The two of them had their own set of excess baggage and I’m glad that they were able to deal with them together. Isn’t that just sweet?
Their love story after marriage was really sweet and endearing because they’ve got to find out that they had something very previous growing between them and I loved it. I’m not totally a fan of the temporary amnesia but I have to agree that it did add some spice and thrill to their story.
After reading this story, what I had in mind is to give it a 4 star rating. But thinking about it now, I have to consider what I felt and did while reading the first half of this story, so I decided to drop the half star and gave this story a 3.5 star rating instead.
Only Enchanting is beautifully written and I did enjoyed it. Not bad for my first Historical Romance read this year eh? This is the 4th book of the Survivors’ Club series but is pretty much ok to read standalone. So if you like things more at the sweet end of the romance with a touch of spice, I would highly recommend this book.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kobo, Barnes & Noble
Reading this book contributed to the following challenges:
- 2017 New To Me
- 2017 Mount TBR Reading
- 2017 eBooks Reading
- 2017 You Read How Many Books?
- 2017 Review Writing
