Book Review: Simply Unforgettable by Mary Balogh

Title: Simply Unforgettable
Series: Simply Quartet #1
Author: Mary Balogh
Published: March 29, 2005
Genre(s): Romance: Historical
Page Count: 422
Rating:

Summary from Goodreads:

They meet in a ferocious snowstorm. She is a young teacher with a secret past. He is the cool, black-caped stranger who unexpectedly comes to her rescue. Between these two unlikely strangers, desire is instantaneous…and utterly impossible to resist. Stranded together in a rustic country inn, Lucius Marshall, who is the Viscount Sinclair, and Frances Allard share a night of glorious, unforgettable passion. But Frances knows her place—and it is far from the privileged world of the sensual aristocrat. Due to begin her teaching position at Miss Martin’s School in Bath, Frances must try to forget that one extraordinary night—and the man who touched her with such exquisite tenderness and abandon.

But Frances cannot hide forever. And when fate once again throws them together, Lucius refuses to take no for an answer. If Frances will not be his wife, he will make her his mistress. So begins an odyssey fraught with intrigue, one that defies propriety and shocks the straitlaced ton. For Lucius’s passionate, single-minded pursuit is about to force Frances to give up all her secrets—except one—to win the heart of the man she already loves.

Once again this incomparable storyteller captures a time and a place like no other. And in Lucius and Frances, Mary Balogh gives us her most unlikely lovers yet—a nobleman in search of the perfect wife and an unconventional woman willing to risk everything for an unforgettable love.

List of things Renae doesn’t enjoy: meddling, high-handed heroes who don’t understand the word “No”; enemies to lovers romances than spend too much time on the enemies phase (i.e. 80% of the book); kissing books without kissing; Big Secrets that cause pointless drama and necessitate a Big Reveal.

List of things happening in Simply Unforgettable: see above.

Obviously, this was not the book for me.

I love (rather, have previously loved) Mary Balogh because she writes novels that are honest and true and don’t shy away from the uglier aspects of grown-up relationships. She doesn’t sugarcoat. I appreciate and respect that a lot. But I think Simply Unforgettable is just…too difficult. The hard times are not compensated by sufficient emotion or soft feelings. There was too much difficulty—and it wasn’t justified difficulty, because it was just the hero being a selfish ass.

So, the book starts with a one-night stand. Frances and Lucius are snowed in at a country inn and decide to sleep together, as one does. At the end of it, Lucius offers to bring Frances to London to be his mistress. She says No to that. The he leaves, pissed. Frances returns to her life in Bath.

A few weeks later, Lucius is hanging out in Bath and happens to run into Frances. He tries once again to get her to be his mistress, she says No. He tries to get her to marry him. She says No again.

THEN Lucius tries to “help” by launching her singing career for her. She says No. He doesn’t listen and drags her up to London and tricks her into singing in at a crowded concert hall where all of London’s uppercrust hears her. Frances says she’d like to go to Bath now, Lucius doesn’t listen. (Did anybody expect him to?) He chases her down again, they have another sexual interlude. Then they get married.

I’m sorry, but here’s how it goes: FRANCES SAID NO. She said no over and over and over. Lucius never listens. And because that’s the dynamic between the two protagonists, Simply Unforgettable reinforces the sexist idea that women don’t really know what they want, that “no means yes”, and that creepy men who are persistent will eventually get the girl.

I think Frances says it best herself, so I’ll let her say it:

“You are nothing but a meddler,” she said bitterly. “An arrogant meddler, who is forever convinced that only he knows what I ought to be doing with my life. You knew I did not wish to return to London, yet you maneuvered matters so that I would come anyway. You knew I did not want to sing before any large audience, especially here, but you have gathered a large audience anyway and made it next to impossible for me to refuse to sing before it. You knew I did not wish to see you again, but you totally ignored my wished. I think you really do imagine that you care for me, but you are wrong. You do not manipulate someone you care for or go out of your way to make her miserable. You care for no one but yourself.”

(One wonders why Frances ever married him after this, but whatever.)

This isn’t romantic, guys. If Lucius had been an old man instead of a hella hot 20-something, none of this would have been okay. Yet you shouldn’t get a free pass just because you’re young and attractive! It’s gross.

What, exactly, was I supposed to find enjoyable about this book, I wonder? Lucius’s persistence and inability to respect his love interest’s clearly-stated dissent are not cute. They’re gross. I don’t know what Simply Unforgettable is selling here, but I am seriously not buying. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.