S. I. (RedHeadDread) reviewed on 9/24/2008 + 43 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 6

Mary Balogh's The Secret Pearl starts off with an emotional wallop with the "brutal deflowering" of the destitute and starving heroine by the "hero." This is a book where the hero basically rapes the heroine and yet is NOT the villian of the story-- the villian is described as being worse. I could not fathom how these two could ever have anything like a HEA ending and it was that curiousity that kept me reading, but Balogh managed to pull it off, just barely. I think it's a testimony to her writing chops that I didn't throw the book even once, though there were countless in the plot where a lesser writer would have blown the whole thing to smithereens. This was not a happy book, despite the happy ending.

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