Slightly Dangerous
The culmination of Balogh's Bedwyn series and considered by many critics her best novel. The impossibly rigid Duke of Bewcastle and the warmly chaotic Christine Derrick. Balogh writes character depth and emotional interiority better than almost any genre author; this novel is the purest expression of her gifts.
Christine's exuberance, meant to thaw a cold duke, reads to a good number of readers as immaturity instead of charm; one calls her “childish and foolish, not charming,” and another says she “appeared condescending and cruel on more than one occasion” toward Wulfric. A late rejection speech she delivers strikes several as excessive, pushing one reader “right up to the edge” of giving up on her. Wulfric himself disappoints some who expected more than the setup promises, one flatly calling him a lukewarm fish even after the relationship is supposed to have thawed him. The premise itself, Christine a widow while Wulfric carries a mistress in his past, struck at least one reader as an unappealing complication rather than an intriguing one. And this is the sixth book of six; readers agree the payoff barely registers without the other five behind it.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
