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    A Secret Affair
    A Secret Affair
    A Secret Affair
    Audiobook11 hours

    A Secret Affair

    Written by Mary Balogh

    Narrated by Anne Flosnik

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Born a commoner, Hannah Reid has been Duchess of Dunbarton since she was nineteen years old. Now her husband is dead and, more beautiful than ever at thirty, Hannah has her freedom at last. To the shock of a conventional friend, she announces her intention to take a lover—and not just any lover, but the most dangerous and delicious man in all of upper-class England: Constantine Huxtable. Constantine's illegitimacy has denied him the title of earl, so now he denies himself nothing. Rumored to be living the easy life of a sensualist on his country estate, he always chooses recent widows for his short-lived affairs. Hannah will fit the bill nicely. But once these two passionate and scandalous figures find each other, they discover that it isn't so easy to extricate oneself from the fires of desire—without getting singed.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateOct 1, 2010
    ISBN9781441880529
    A Secret Affair
    Author

    Mary Balogh

    New York Times bestselling, multi-award-winning author Mary Balogh grew up in Wales, land of sea and mountains, song and legend. She brought music and a vivid imagination with her when she came to Canada to teach. There she began a second career as a writer of books that always end happily and always celebrate the power of love.

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    Reviews for A Secret Affair

    4/5

    232 ratings27 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I was kind of disappointed in the previous couples for judging the heroine based on rumor. Seriously? With everything they've been through in this series?? But otherwise this was carried out pretty well. I didn't like the cockiness and game playing the heroine started out with, but thankfully she moved past it fairly quickly. I was entertained. This series had a rocky start for me, but I've liked the last three.
    • 5/5
      OMG! This is a fabulous book. I so enjoyed the story.

      The change from the Duchess to Beautiful and loved Hannah tugged at my heartstrings.

      I actually cried when the message from the King was received.

      This is the best book I have read in a while.
    • 5/5
      I didn’t think I would but I actually really loved this story. Get your tissues ready it’s a tearjerker (in the best and lightest of ways) I realize I’ve been saying this a lot for my MB book reviews, but I had no idea on how MB would make the main female character Hannah the Duchess likable. She seemed super arrogant (even for a duchess) and just someone I would not normally see myself rooting for. In typical MB manor I was proven wrong. By the end of the book I wanted to hug Hannah and high five Con who in past books I wasn’t even sure that I liked his character either. As I’ve said in other MB book reviews the great thing about MB books is that she shows that people aren’t always what they seem, this story if you love that MB magic of taking a character and totally transforming your whole perception of them and of life in general, this one will not disappoint!
    • 1/5
      The narrator’s male voice was terrible - one cannot listen to it without getting completely annoyed. Sounds like a constipated person with laryngitis
    • 5/5
      This ended up being a good book. At the beginning I didn’t care for either character but there was much more to each of them as the story went on.
    • 3/5
      Couldn't even finish it.
      What a boring story.
      I'd much rather hear about Barb
    • 1/5
      Dragged on and on and on. Narrator and book very boring.
    • 4/5
      I really, really enjoyed this book! The protagonists' passions for helping those less fortunate, even if it meant sinking a ton of money and losing their riches, got me in the feels.
    • 4/5
      Finally. Constantine's story, and all the mysteries are resolved. I'm not going to give anything away, though. The heroine is a Duchess with a background coloured by rumour and innuendo. Everyone assumes they know her story, but you can guess early on that they are amazingly wrong. Sort of like how you know Con's cousin Elliot MUST be wrong about him as well. Watching these two people, determined to just have a casual affair, find out they are having anything but was really wonderful. Hannah fits in with all the other social misfits the Huxtables seem to collect.
    • 4/5
      As readers if you have read the preceding 4 books in this series, you have seen Constantine Huxtable as a variety of characters - recluse, friend, supposed rake - but in this - his story - the true Constantine is revealed. Those who "know" are happy that he will finally get his happily ever after, but are we sure? Usually we see romance novels from the female characters point of view and we do here, but we also see Constantine's POV as well. It was refreshing and entertaining and for those that are not a stranger to Constantine's past, at times a tearjerker.Well done!
    • 4/5
      I have always been a big fan of Mary Balogh's romances. They are always good stories with good characters, and make you feel good at the end. This one is no different. I enjoyed it immensely, and was even moved to tears at points (of course, I'm the kind of person who cries at anything). So a good, touching, sweet and feel-good book.
    • 3/5
      Writers are taught that we can't use cliches, that we must show and not tell, and that we must not, under any circumstances, allow our characters to spend copious amounts of time navel-gazing.

      Balogh breaks all of these rules. The majority of the book is actually spent telling versus showing and the characters ask themselves philosophical questions about why they feel this way or that all throughout.

      Despite that, this was an enjoyable read. Balogh initially presents the characters as viewed by the ton, who have them all wrong, of course. You learn just how wrong public perception is as the book rolls along.

      I particularly enjoyed the ending (though it should have wrapped up shortly after the final conflict was resolved and instead lingered on as though the author was loathe to say goodbye).

      The Secret Affair was a satisfying read overall.
    • 5/5
      Love Balogh, love the Huxtables, and really love Con's character. No surprises in terms of quality or genre, just an excellent read.
    • 4/5
      I'll explain first my problems with the cover, that dress doesn't fit that model correctly, a wealthy duchess would not be seen in a dress like that, maybe her friend who acts as a sounding board would be seen in that dress. Also, the heroine is described as blonde, not the cover model. To be honest the cover doesn't reflect the story inside.Hannah, Duchess of Dunbarton married her elderly husband for reasons other than love, her mourning is over and now she wants to experience some of life. She decides to take a lover and fixes on Constantine Huxtable, illegitimate son of a powerful family he has power of his own and rumours follow him, like they do Hannah.Both of them are great characters, not willing to let anyone else determine their fates, they take life and make it work for them. That I enjoyed.However there were some niggles that I couldn't ignore, english precident is funny and as Duchess of Dunbarton she would still retain that, even when married to an earl as she is the widow, not the daughter. The names for handicapped people during the period were different too, but modern sensibility wouldn't like them so I would excuse that. I would have searched for some more neutral period-sounding phrases though. These are pretty minor niggles but they drew me away from the story into critical thinking.
    • 5/5
      Five stars means that I thoroughly enjoyed this book -- particularly because I had read its four predecessors. It would be much less enjoyable as a standalone.

      What I Liked
      Constantine! He's been a looming, sometimes gloomy, presence in the four previous books. Dark, handsome, mysterious. The Duchess of Dunbarton picks him to be her lover for precisely these reasons, but she's in for a surprise.

      The Duchess of Dunbarton. She's glamorous, haughty and cold-hearted. And that's why Constantine agrees to be her lover for the Season. Naturally, he's in for a surprise too.

      The Duke of Dunbarton (and by the way shouldn't he have been Scottish?) He's already dead before the book begins, but the duchess talks about him constantly. She loved him and truly grieves his passing. He married her, a country nobody, to rescue her from a tragic situation and taught her how to be a Duchess with a capital D. The duke's backstory gradually comes out, and it's quite touching.

      The Huxtable family. All of Constantine's cousins, their spouses, and their children play prominent roles in the story. It's nice to catch up with them and learn what's happened over the years.

      The inner dialog. Through this we learn how Constantine and Hannah gradually correct their misperceptions of one another and reluctantly fall in love.

      What I Didn't Like
      The inner dialog. There's WAY too much of it.

      The hotness. Or rather lack thereof. Somehow, I just didn't feel the heat. Perhaps it was because of the unromantic nature of the lovers' brief midnight assignations.

      The last two chapters. The obligatory wedding was overly orchestrated and wrapped up so many loose ends that it became just too much.

      The epilogue. I simply hate, hate, hate the "And Baby Makes Three" epilogues that so many authors seem to feel obligated to add. Oh, and puppies makes it even worse.

      What Bugged Me

      I don't think that putting "a spin" on some event was part of the Regency vocabulary.







    • 4/5
      I have always been a big fan of Mary Balogh's romances. They are always good stories with good characters, and make you feel good at the end. This one is no different. I enjoyed it immensely, and was even moved to tears at points (of course, I'm the kind of person who cries at anything). So a good, touching, sweet and feel-good book.
    • 5/5
      Amazon preorder

      I wasn't as fond of some of "girls school" books although they were still very good.

      This is the last of the Huxtable books (and in Balogh's way it has all sorts of minor echoing back to previous books.)

      If Balogh didn't do it so well, I could be very irritated that both of them have noble secret projects that are far ahead of their time, and less than completely likely to say the least.

      But this is Balogh and she makes it work and as the hero and heroine make their way from being seen as a man who apparently misappropriated jewelry during a time when it belonged to his younger but legitmate brother with Down's Syndrome, and a woman who apparently married and old man, had lovers during his life and inherited a lot of money after he had lived longer than she might have expected.

      Balogh makes me believe in them and care about them. The hero's journey in this one includes apologizing for and righting some wrongs he did commit in previous books.

      This seemed like classic Balogh and I loved it.
    • 3/5
      Mary Balogh has never been a personal favorite of mine, but I understand why she is so widely loved and respected. She always digs a little bit deeper into her characters' psyches and challenges them to experience real growth in order to achieve a happy-ever-after. She's written some books that I've loved, and some books that I've hated, but I'm always willing to give her another try.

      I thought A SECRET AFFAIR was good. Not great, but pretty decent. I was really engrossed at the beginning, watching Hannah and Constantine's characters develop, and a little bit annoyed by the end, when we get a LOT of repetition. A major theme of the book is masks; Hannah and Constantine each cultivate an unflattering mask in order to hide their nicer, more ethical and lovable true selves. Constantine presents himself as a selfish devil, Hannah as a gold-digging slut. This seemed a little odd to me - sure, a mask is a great form of self-defense, but neither Hannah nor Constantine has a good reason for deciding that they should convince everyone they possess qualities that they personally loathe and condemn. Aren't masks generally more appealing than the truth beneath? I can understand why Constantine and Hannah keep their most significant good works under wraps, but there's a difference between not flaunting charitable activities and going out of one's way to seem like a jerk.

      This mask theme kept me eagerly turning pages until at least the halfway point. I kept wanting to know what the hero and heroine were hiding, how it would be revealed, what events would spur each revelation. That was really fun to read. But around the halfway point, we have all the facts and the plot shifts a bit. Hannah and Constantine like and respect one another, but they agonize at length about how their affair can only be brief and emotionless. We already know, what with all the masks, that they're reluctant to expose themselves to heartbreak or humiliation. Which is realistic enough, but it got tedious as hero and heroine restate, again and again and again, the Deep Dark Secrets that they had been hiding. I wouldn't mind a reminder or two, but it becomes constant, and the explanations are long, repetitive monologues. Then, toward the end, we get some external conflict...probably the only thing that could have jumpstarted the novel after it stalled.

      On the whole, the book is a little bit slow. In the beginning, there are so many excursions to this garden party or that ball, and I got tired of wading through dull social gatherings in order to arrive at a few paragraphs where Hannah and Constantine interact. And because this is part of a series, there's a huge ensemble cast - all of the Huxtables - each of whom demands a certain amount of attention. So each Huxtable wife has to have her moment alone with Hannah, giving her advice, and each Huxtable male has to have his time in the spotlight, enthusing about the joys of wedded life and fatherhood. These ensemble characters are introduced, for the most part, after Hannah and Constantine have arrived at the stalled and muddled late-mid-section of the book, and they couldn't disguise the fact that the romance wasn't really going anywhere productive.

      I'm not sorry I read it, in any case - the first half was good enough to make the rest worthwhile. This one is probably more fun if you've followed the series from the beginning, but it's readable on its own.
    • 3/5
      Very predictible. I generally like Balogh's books as I enjoy those stories in that time period.
    • 4/5
      I just love Mary Balogh.I actually really liked this book but I'm glad I didn't pay a hardback price for it. For starters it was only 275 pages long and secondly I really resent a hardback price for an ebook.Anywho, this story doesn't have a lot of internal conflict between the couple - they kind of just meet and fall in love. And, even though they start having sex almost from the start, there's not actually a lot of sex in the book (which was a little disappointing as I think just one more scene later in the book when the couple had acknowledged their love each other (to themselves if not to each other) would have been worthwhile to the story. Most of it was closed door though.Having said all that, I like relationship stories with a bit of external conflict so it was all good. I half expected to be exasperated by the reason to the feud between Elliott and Con which is finally revealed in this book, but surprisingly, I wasn't. It made sense to me actually.Overall, I thought this series was very strong and, while not my favourite in the series, that would be...hm, bk 3 I think, it was very good. I do love Balogh.
    • 5/5
      I reviewed this book for Romance Reader At Heart website:RAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS: This is Ms. Balogh’s fifth book in the Huxtable Series, and it is Constantine Huxtable’s happily-forever-after.In reviewing A SECRET AFFAIR, I was given the opportunity ("excuse") to take a good chunk off my TBR list. In order for me to understand Con’s happily-ever-after, I decided to read Vanessa’s (FIRST COMES MARRIAGE), Margaret’s (THEN COMES SEDUCTION), Katherine’s (AT LAST COMES LOVE) and Stephen’s (SEDUCING AN ANGEL) stories first. You don’t really have to. They each stand on their own, but for me, I wanted to experience the beginning as much as the end of this series.Right at the beginning of the first book, in the prologue of it, Ms. Balogh casts a hook and slowly reels us in with a very mysterious, dark and brooding character of Mr. Constantine Huxtable.“They had celebrated Jon’s sixteenth birthday, the two of them, with all his favorite foods, including custard tarts and fruitcake and with his favorite card games and a vigorous game of hide-and-seek that had continued for two whole hours until Jon had been exhausted and helpless with laughter- a fact that had made him ridiculously easy to find when it was his turn to hide. An hour later he had beamed up happily from beneath the covers of his bed before his brother blew out the candle and withdrew to his own room.‘Thank you for the lovely birthday party, Con,’ he had said in his newly deep voice, whose words and expression sounded incongruously childish. ‘It was the best ever.’It was something he said every year.‘I love you, Con,’ he had said as his brother bent over the candle. ‘I love you more than anyone else in the whole wide world. I love you forever and ever. Amen.’ He had giggled at the old joke.‘Can we play again tomorrow?’But when his brother had gone into his room the following morning to tease him about sleeping late now that he was sixteen and almost an old man, he had found Jon cold. He had been dead for several hours.”And so we meet Con, a man who stands on a cold and wet day by the grave of his younger brother and says, “'You will be able to do without me, Jon?’ he asked softly.”By the end of this prologue, I was in tears and couldn’t wait for the fifth installment; yet, I was so glad to have read the previous four because I got to watch him grow.If you’ve ever read any of Ms. Balogh’s stories, you already know that every one of her books is character-driven; therefore, you will be attached to these people, for better or worse. You will be a part of their families, and you will get protective of your favorites. She’s very good at pulling you into their world and keeping you there, long after you’re done reading.Through each book, I saw Con from everyone’s point of view but his own. For some, he was the black sheep of the family; for others, a friend. I was left to wonder, from one book to the next, and finally I got to meet the real hero. I felt very protective of him. I wanted him to meet his lady love, and I had a perfect heroine in mind for him. He needed someone with joy and light, someone to love him unconditionally as Jon did. And then Ms. Balogh gives him Hannah! The beautiful, smug, selfish and spoiled, arrogant, shallow and utterly vain Duchess of Dunbarton, a widow! That is NOT who I want for him! She’s too cold and calculating, too self absorbed, and this will not do! I want a virginal heroine!For the next hundred pages or so, I’m frustrated, angry, and sad. I want to be locked up in a room, alone with Hannah, and give her a piece of my mind! How dare she treat Con this way?And then it hit me. How clever of you, Ms. Balogh! BRAVO! You led me a merry chase and let me see Hannah through everyone’s point of view, except her own. Once you allowed me in, I got the heroine I wanted for Con.If you’re looking for a ‘bodice ripper’ or a very dark story, this is not for you. If you’re looking for a character driven, multi-layered story with unique and very complex characters filled with witty and sharp dialogue, you’ll cherish this story. I loved A SECRET AFFAIR, and I was sad to say good-bye to this series. Highly recommend it.Melanie
    • 2/5
      Disappointing in the final analysis.The book starts with what I consider a huge error. We are asked to believe that the hero's parents married two days after his birth and he was therefore cut off from succeeding to the title. My strong belief is that the registration of the birth could be registered in any Parish and who would be there to dispute the date of birth? That it happened on the wedding day or after would not be easily disputed. And certainly any lord would want to make sure of an heir.Another implausibility is that after losing her virginity at age 30 she did not discuss it with her best friend who was due to get married a few months later. Or if they did the author does not refer to it in any way. Likely that there was no discussion? Hardly.The book also is a little bit leaden and one things of the lightness of treatment that Georgette Heyer and Julia Quinn exhibit and appreciated what marks out the good from the pedestrian writer. Adding another 30+ pages after the resolution of all the hindrances to them wedding was just an example of the leaden effect. Having said that, it was still a reasonable read and did pluck at the emotions.
    • 5/5
      Another excellent edition to the Huxtable series.
    • 3/5
      Pretty good regency but it seemed to move somewhat slowly. Balogh repeated certain facts about her characters in several places, such as how the protagonist, Constantine, seemed like a devil. Interesting characters, particularly the heroine. I may go back and see if I can find the rest of the Huxtable family. This seems like it may be the final book in the Huxtable family series.
    • 4/5
      Hannah, the Duchess of Dunbarton, has recently completed her year of mourning for the Duke of Dunbarton and has decided to take a lover for the season. Hannah was very young when she married the Duke who was decades older than she. She had loved him deeply and he had taught her well, but now it was her time to live. She had her eyes set on a specific lover, Constantine Huxtable. He was handsome and enigmatic and everyone knew that he took one lover every season...and only for the season. That is exactly what Hannah needs...no emotional involvement; just sex. When Hannah and Constantine start their secret affair, it seems perfect for both of them...they enjoy each other's company and become friends as well as lovers. But it is hard to keep emotions at bay for very long and soon both Hannah and Constantine begin to wonder what will happen at season's end.This 5th entry in Balogh's Huxtable series features Constantine Huxtable, the black sheep of the family and does a good job of tying up loose ends in the series. As a stand-alone entry, it is a delightful regency romance full of humor and romance and intrigue. Balogh is one of my favorite regency authors. I especially enjoy her series which feature multiple members of a specific family. Highly recommended for regency romance readers.
    • 4/5
      The Duchess of Dunbarton, a lovely young widow, is finally past the year of mourning for her elderly duke and determined to take a lover. She settles on dark and devilish Constantine Huxtable. But neither of them is quite what the world believes them to be, and their affair turns into something much deeper.A lovely conclusion to the Huxtable series. Balogh is, as always, a delight.
    • 2/5
      “Secret Affair” is the concluding book in the Huxtable Series and as I found while reading the first few chapters, to be very aptly named. This is the story of the darkly mysterious Constantine Huxtable and Hannah Reid the Duchess of Dunbarton and how they become lovers for the spring season.This book has all that its genre requires of it - a darkly handsome and brooding man with a misunderstood past, a very, very beautiful and rich widow, who is vastly misunderstood by the ton. Throw in several well kept secrets, make them kind and caring people (yet another secret to those around them) throw in some extremely mild sex and you have the perfect historical romance. Add to this the wonderfully executed double entendres and witty repartee . And let us not forget the wonderful and much in demand “happily ever after” and you can’t go wrong. Except that in some ways it does go wrong. I found myself unable to really get into the story, or even like Hannah and Constantine very much. It took me more than two thirds of the book to become engaged in the story. If I heard Hannah talk or think to herself about how beautiful and lovely she was just one more time…I understand her affectations were germane to the story but it was overdone to the point that I actively disliked her and I don‘t know that I ever really did started liking her. I do think that this dislike of Hannah was the authors intent though. The characters did, eventually, grow to a point that I started to care about them a bit. I actually enjoyed reading more about the secondary characters than I did about Con and the Duchess. I also had a problems with Ms Balogh’s overuse of certain words such as “tedious” another affectation of Hannah’s, and over-emphasizing (placing in italics) of other words. The continual inner-dialogue that Con and Hannah kept having I felt, was a slight bit over done, since it was mostly vain ramblings on Hannah’s part.This is the first time I have ever read something by Ms Balogh and I find that may color my review since I have nothing else of hers to compare “A Secret Affair” to. I don’t know if this book captures her past writing style accurately. If it does, then I’m sure you will love this conclusion to her series.The book was somewhat redeemed by last 75 -100 pages or so, but not enough for me to think of this as a permanent part of my library.