Review: Someone to Remember

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Someone to Remember Someone to Remember by Mary Balogh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's no secret I'm a huge fan of Mary Balogh, both for her stories and for her craft. One of the things I love about her work is how she'll take a stock character like "fussy, aging spinster aunt" and subtly bring her forward until you realize that's a person, someone with dreams and hopes of her own.

Enter Matilda Westcott. She was introduced to us in the earlier Westcott stories as, yes, the fussy, aging, spinster aunt, but we had glimpses of her personhood all along. Then in Someone to Honor she emerged as not only a person, but a key character, and I loved it.

Now we have her own "second chance at love" story, and it's adorable and sweet and yummy. There's no high drama, no pirates, but the question of "Can a woman approaching 60 find love?" is answered in the best way possible. We're reminded that while we see the package--the no longer svelte debutante, the rake of her youth who's now a little thicker through the waist--what's inside are the 20 year olds who were passionately, hopelessly in love decades ago but who now see the world as seasoned adults.

If you've never read the Westcott books (And why haven't you? They're wonderful Regency romances?) you can read this one as a stand-alone, but there will be spoilers for the previous six novels. I recommend instead starting with the first book and sighing your way through the family dramas all the way up to this one. Best news is, there's still a Westcott or two in the wings waiting for his or her own tale.

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