Review: A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh

A Matter of Class suffers from some truly cracktastic e-book pricing. The paperback just released for $6.99 USD but good luck finding an e-book remotely close to that price. I've seen it as high as $15.99. Making things even worse, this is a novella. While I certainly recommend A Matter of Class and would rank it among Balogh's best, I don't suggest purchasing it at full price, much less cracktastic pricing.

Mary Balogh is one of my favorite authors. If books were female stereotypes she'd be the quiet, conservatively clad woman in the corner. Not the one that whips her glasses off, pops her buttons and dances on the table. The one that passes a quiet hour with someone over a cup of strong tea and never raises her voice. She might have a silent tear roll down her cheek, if the topic turns tragic. While others have wandered off bored, you end the hour calmer and somehow rested. In A Matter of Class Balogh forgoes the silent tear. This isn't an angst laden read. It's a bit traditional, a bit of a class study, a sliver of a tale with a few light twists.

Taking the traditional threads of class difference, social ruin and forced marriage Balogh weaves a short tale as satisfying as a full length book. Anna, expected to marry the required older friend of her father's, has ruined herself with a servant. Needing a husband, and needing one quickly, her family procures a groom from a wealthy coal miner looking to buy his gambler son some respectability. Anna and Reggie move to make the best of it while facing the obvious disappointment their parents feel at the ruin of their beloved children's lives. Balogh is a careful with her words, she is one of the very rare authors I re-read to see what I missed while I was watching the plot. Take the common event of people in awkward situations discussing the weather. Reggie and Anna's parents meet to cement the previously unthinkable course of their children's lives. What else is there for them to discuss but the weather? The uncontrollable, unknowable weather.

"Which was a good thing since everyone wanted different weather for different reasons and might end up fighting wars over it if they were able to control it. As if there were not enough things already to fight wars over."


Indeed.

Missed Review: Taken by Desire by Lavinia Kent

Don't buy this e-book.

That's the short version. I'd like to apologize to Lavinia Kent, because my advice to avoid this title has nothing at all to do with her. In fact, I'd selected her as one of my Agency titles to buy this month. Often I buy no Agency priced titles, but it's the holidays so I decided to treat myself. I used to buy Avon's (and a few other imprints) complete monthly run. It was automatic. Now I pick and choose. I scour reviews. I look at smaller publishing houses first. I consider what I have in non fiction, I watch obscure dvds.

The ebook version of Taken by Desire is priced $2 above the paper version. Not $2 above what the paper version can routinely be had for - $2 above the suggested retail price of the book. Effectively, this makes the title (in USD) over twice as expensive in a DRM restricted version than it is in a paper version. Or, you can steal it for free. I wish that you would not. I wish that you would simply join me in not reading this title, in finding another publisher to purchase from.

I am beginning to feel like the Agency authors are in an abusive relationship. I know they want me to buy their books. I want to buy their books. The editors want me to buy their books. But someone higher up than all of us has a different plan. When that someone holds you close at night and whispers that it's not him who drove us away, that he's only protecting you from the pirates, that we just didn't try hard enough? Don't believe him. What we had was real, but I won't be treated this way. You shouldn't be either. We're better than that.

Edited to add - It is my understanding that the price of this e-book has now been lowered to match the MSRP (if not the prevailing cost) of the paper book. Make your choices as you will!