Simply Perfect (Simply Quartet Book 4)

The head mistress had a surprise waiting for her. She was loved and gained a daughter as well as a husband. A fascinating love story.

This was the first time I listened to the audio of Simply Perfect, but I've lost count of the number of times I've reread this story. It is literally one of my all-time favorites. Claudia has been hardened by life but still holding that tenderness inside. Joseph is a super sweet cinnamon roll and a true gentleman. And I would dare anyone not to fall halfway in love with him over his relationship with Lizzy. Many bittersweet and heart-rending moments with a beautifully satisfying ending. It's a timeless, classic, love-filled story that you're sure to come back to again and again!

The Simply series was unique in that each heroine brought her different ideas of love and qualities of emotion to her respective novel. Simply Love was definitely a 4.5, as is Simply Perfect. I would have to rate Simply Unforgettable and Simply Magic as 4.25 each. None were worthy of the full 5 stars, as most of Lisa Kleypas' romance novels are. While the characters are good and well-developed, the romantic tension is not as pronounced and sustained as in a Kleypas romance. I enjoyed the plots and the inter-relationships of the various characters that wove throughout these novels. This is a worthy series to entertain and enjoy.Simply Perfect was a romance between mature characters and did not stray from that perspective - with kudos to Mary Balogh for that. Mature love often arises from friendship and mutual understanding and appreciation. As other reviewers have noted, Joseph's feelings for Claudia may lead to skepticism because the reader never knows if he is going to marry within his class out of duty - or expectation - as long as the woman is a " lovely and aristocratic" person. Only when Portia demonstrates how villainous she is at heart does Joseph demonstrate some backbone and fortitude to consider Claudia as his wife. It is like he does not ever expect to be happy as long as he has a title. The title determines all in his life. For her part, Claudia's affection for his daughter comes across as genuine and true. She knows what it is to love children and to work to meet their needs as they grow. This is right down her alley, so to speak. The support characters are all from other Balogh novels and as enjoyable in this novel, as they are in any of the others.This is an entertaining and emotionally satisfying series for romance readers of any age. I would rate the entire series as a 4.5, without reservations.

This is the last book of Ms. Balogh's Simply Series and as usual she leaves the best for last.*****SPOILERS ALERT***As much as I liked this book I couldn't help finding some flaws.It seems to me any obstacles that stand in the way of the H/ h happiness are conveniently removed in the way that's hard for common sense to believe. For 3/4 of book , the story makes so much of Portia (the hero's fiancee) being cold and a stickler for rules, decorum and proprietary. And yet in the end out of the blue the readers are supposed to believe that she could just takeoff to Scotland to elope with another man while still engaged to the hero. Isn't that one of the biggest sins in ton's culture? It's totally impossible to committed by someone like her.And the hero is supposed to be a stickler for being monogamous in his relationship. He's remained unmarried because he can't put aside his mistress because they have a child together whom he loves. And even when he once discovered the mistress had been unfaithful and so no longer bed her he'd rather chosen to be celibate for 3 years till her death than bed others. That's how ridiculously monogamous he is. And yet when he is later engaged to Miss Portia and when one day the relationship runs into problem where Miss Portia threatens to break the engagement he sleeps with the heroine that very night believing he's free but nonetheless knowing the engagement would still be on the next day when the parents intervene. So all those story about him being monogamous is now being thrown out the window and as a reader I felt I was being fooled. I mean it feels like the author had run out of ideas on how to get the H/ h to get together to have their first sex. On top of that, the heroine is a school headmistress, for God's sake and also always is very particular with manners and discipline. But now she agrees to sleep with someone's fiance? Huh..?Other than those the story is good.

This story is an excellent completion to Mary Balogh's 'Simply' series which followed the lives of four schoolteachers from Miss Martin's School for Girls in Bath. 'Simply Perfect' takes as its heroine Miss Claudia Martin herself, an on-the-shelf spinster whose life is bound up in the school and whose antipathy towards dukes and other members of the aristocracy is well known. At the start of this story Claudia finds herself showing the Marquess of Attingsborough around the school before travelling with him to London in order to drop off two pupils at their new positions and to visit her man of business.Claudia soon finds that there's more to the Marquess of Attingsoborough than she first assumed. Initially appearing to be rather a wastrel aristocrat who just lives for parties and entertainments she soon realises that there is more behind his handsome and charming exterior - an unexpected female in his life, one he has to keep away from society.Claudia and the Marquess, Joseph, find themselves thrown together a great deal. This story also includes a roll-call of almost every character Mary Balogh has included in her last dozen or so novels including all the Bedwyns, the women and their husbands from the other books in the Simply series, Neville and Lily from 'One Night for Love' and Lauren and Viscount Ravensberg from 'A Summer to Remember'. For those who haven't read any of Balogh's other books these extra characters might feel rather overwhelming.Another character from 'Simply Unforgettable' also appears, Portia Hunt, the jilted potential fiancée of Lucius Marshall. In this story she is the Marquess of Attingsborough's intended and I felt she was really the only unbelievable character in this book, being a rather nasty and shallow woman who showed these attributes most of the time and yet was able - almost - to snare our hero. There is a new character as well, a person from Claudia's history, who might put a spanner in the works.However most of the action in this story is between Joseph the Marquess and Claudia the schoolmistress. We see both of them gradually revealing their natures and desires and wishes to each other, we see how they treat each other differently than those around them, seeing past the outward ideas of rank and physical beauty and understanding instead how minds can meet. Claudia and Joseph's dealings with a particularly special character are wonderfully and touchingly written. Overall this story is one that is warm-hearted, engaging and also sometimes moving and is a definite return to form by Mary Balogh, some of whose more recent novels have been a little disappointing.Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book © Helen Hancox 2008

One of my favourite Mary Balogh books...and there are many! Joseph is a wonderful hero: most of all for the way he responds so positively to a situation in his life that most men, in those times, would have ‘hushed up’.I did not much warm to Claudia Martin, in the first three books in the series, but she was revealed to be a much more sympathetic character in this final book. Loved it!

I have bought many of the Mary Balogh books on behalf of my mother. Fair to say she is a keen fan of the works! I'm not posting this review for the many others...she has enjoyed them all aided by her helpful daughter purchaseing them!

another brilliant story from the series that blends elements of Georgette Heyer, Chalet School and Riders

Perfect Mary Balogh, as usual.