Review: Slightly Married by Mary Balogh

Slightly Married by Mary Balogh follows Colonel Aidan Bedwyn, who promises a dying soldier that he will protect his sister Eve Morris. Eve is in a precarious situation where if she does not marry in the next few days, she loses her home and wealth. Aidan finds out about Eve's precarious situation and proposes an immediate marriage of convenience.

This has been the fourth book in my historical romance experiment, and I have been shown that I am terrible at choosing what I will like in this genre. I really think that I should have been more discerning in choosing what to read. I didn't really like this book at all. I had heard great things about the last book in this series, but instead of just reading that (the series does not demand you read them all), I insisted on reading them in publication order.

I didn't think this book in inherently terrible or anything; I am just sure that this book was very much not for me. If I was the kind who DNFed books, I would have DNFed this. I did not like Eve or Aidan. Eve is sickly sweet; she does not really have a personality trait that isn't based on a maternal character type. She is incredibly sweet and loyal, immediately deciding to be loyal to her husband she does not know at all; more confusingly, she is immediately connected to him. Much of her story revolves around the loyal servant trope, one of the most personally upsetting tropes I can think of. This trope is in no way pushed back upon despite the fact that Eve is not from the aristocracy. Literally, there is a point where Eve notes that the aristocracy is less free than everyone else; my eyes rolled so hard.

Aiden was honorable to a point that didn't really make sense. The extent he goes to honor the words he said to a dying man was a tad baffling. I also found so many of his actions that were meant to be honorable to be upsetting. He is controlling; even when Eve does not comply at all, I just was not at all charmed by the way he talked to his wife. I just don't like the way this character was written; I found myself continuously annoyed by him and not that impressed by his 'positive' actions.

The collection of side characters were Aidan's siblings, who will act as a focal point for their own future books and a bunch of character archetypes there to prop up Eve or Aiden's character to make us like them. I found this frustrating; I would have loved some more depth from any of the side characters; any element of surprise from them would have been wonderfully refreshing.

I really did not like the pace of this book. The beginning was quite slow, which I did enjoy, but it never really picked up much. The whole middle of this book is held to the rest of the plot by mere threads. Both lead characters had a former romantic attachment that served a very similar role in the plot, and the pair had the same issue on repeat. I was just bored by these things. I was not compelled by the romance to the point where I would have been invested, I tried so hard to be invested, but this book just absolutely was not for me.

I gave this book two stars on Goodreads and the StoryGraph.