Balthazar: The Spare cover art

Balthazar: The Spare

The Hale Saga Series: Americans in London, Book 1

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Balthazar: The Spare

By: Minerva Spencer, S.M. LaViolette
Narrated by: Clare Staniforth
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About this listen

Victoria Dryden gave Balthazar Hale the last thing he ever expected. A reason to stay . . .

Balthazar and his siblings are living the good life in the utopian community of Canoga, New York, where they have a degree of sexual and intellectual freedom few men—and even fewer women—have ever known. But sadly, all good things must come to an end.

When their father dies, the Hale siblings discover two disheartening truths. First, they have an older brother none of them knew existed. Second, this stranger is not only the heir to an English dukedom, he's also their new legal guardian.

Before the Hales know it, all five siblings are dragged to England to take their places in strait-laced, stuffy ton society, where their guardian expects them to make respectable marriages. All Balthazar wants is a way out. Until he meets her.

Victoria is a woman with dangerous secrets. She's the exact opposite of marriage material. Falling for her could ruin both their lives. But none of that matters when she's in Balthazar's arms . . . and his bed.

Finding their way to happily ever after would be so easy in Canoga. Too bad they aren't in utopia anymore . . .

Contains mature themes.

©2023 Shantal M. LaViolette (P)2024 Tantor Media Historical Historical Fiction Royalty Utopian
All stars
Most relevant
I like this author, and at various times during the story, I was conscious of thinking that I was enjoying it. The premise of the series was more than a little unbelievable, but that wasn’t much of a problem, a bit of fantasy is always good.
The narration was pretty bad - the characters’ tone voice scarcely ever varied, making them very one-dimensional, and lowering their credibility, and the heroine was given a saccharine, young voice quite out of character with her role in life. The narrator often seemed to forget to vary the pitch of her voice appropriately during shifts from one character to another, sometimes leading into a male character without deepening her voice, disrupting the thread of the story.
The sex scenes started out ok, but began to seem gratuitous, repetitive and somewhat instructional as the story progressed, and (spoiler alert) the frequent references to anal sex were unpleasant.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly….

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