Review: Philippa's apologia.
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 22, 2013
I was fortunate to read Balogh's new novelThe Arrangement(to be released August 27) through Amazon's Vine Program.  This short story gives us more information about Philippa Dean, the young woman that relatives of Vincent, Viscount Darleigh, the blind hero of the upcoming novel, were hoping to match him up with.In the novel, Philippa doesn't come off looking like a very sympathetic character, but Balogh uses this short story to reveal the extenuating circumstances that led her to behave the way she did in the novel.  So Philippa turns out to be a perfectly fine young woman who just happens to be in love with somebody else and has been for 2 years.Her love, Justin Crabbe, was a bit wild and her parents did not take to him, but Philippa is hoping that time will be in their favor as he matures and becomes more responsible.  But that won't happen if she has to marry Viscount Darleigh.This is Philippa and Justin's love story and a boring one it is.  No conflicts, nothing very interesting happening, truly non-eventful and dull. Its only reason for existing that I could see is to make readers feel a bit more sympathetic to Philippa and, perhaps, also for Balogh to get with the HR author program of releasing short stories of little substance for more money than they're worth.