Bedwyn Family Books In Order

Publication Order of Bedwyn Family Books

The “Bedwyn Saga” otherwise known as the “Slightly” or “Bedwyn Family” series are a series of historical romances by Mary Balogh the Welsh-Canadian author. The “Bedwyn Saga” is set in Regency England and follows the life and times of the Bedwyn siblings. Mary Balogh was born to painter and sign writer Arthur Jenkins and homemaker Mildred Double in 1944. She would immigrate to Canada in 1967 when she got offered a teaching contract after completing her university studies. She met Robert Balogh the Canadian ambulance driver and coroner, whom she married him a few months and went to live with in Kipling, a small prairie town of Saskatchewan. Balogh worked as a high school teacher in Canada for several years and rose through the ranks to become principal before she left to pursue a writing career. She got three children with Balogh; Sian, Christopher, and Jacqueline that have given her five grandchildren Christo, Cash, Jayden, Shianne, and Matthew.

Mary Balogh first got into Regency romance when she read the works of Heorgette Heyer and was immediately hooked. As such, most of her novels in the “Bedwyn Saga”, “Brides and Wives”, “Sullivan”, “Georgian” and her single standing novels are all set in Wales, Georgian England, or in the Regency period. Even as she loves to write historical romances, most of her heroines do not fit the lady mold as most of her contemporaries love to portray. Some are ruined, fallen, illegitimate women, or courtesans. Nevertheless, all her heroines enjoy a sensual connection and often marriage full of passion that follows their recognition of true love. Balogh launched her writing career with the writing of “A Masked Deception” that she used to write on the kitchen table surrounded by family. The novel that she published in 1985 was a Regency romance that won the Best New Regency Writer Award at the Romantic Times Awards. Since then, she has published more that 30 novellas and over 60 novels and become one of the most popular Regency romance authors on the globe. She has won several awards over the years including the Career Achievement Award from the Romantic Times for Regency Short Stories.

The Bedwyn series of novels opens with two prequels; the 1999 published “One Night for Love” and the 2002 published “A Summer to Remember” that introduced the Bedwyn family. The first true novel of the Bedwyn Family series was the 2003 published “Slightly Married” which was so successful that it spawned six more titles to culminate in “Slightly Dangerous” in 2004. “A Summer to Remember” the prequel to the series features Freyja the eldest Bedwyn sibling. Freyja is a beautiful and headstrong girl who turns up to cause a ruckus between the heroine and hero of the story. The novel introduces several of the Bedwyn family including the Duke of Bewcastle and the Wilfric Bedwyn the powerful, cold, and calculating elder brother. In her Bedwyn series, Balogh puts her heroine and hero into events that make it possible for them to know each other, even as she explores their relationship with other people in their lives. The stories are full of tension and emotional pain and yearning as the protagonists fall in love with each other yet find it almost impossible to be together. Balogh writes romantic and tender narratives of romance that culminate in explosive love scenes between her heroes and heroines that would make for an excellent movie portrayal of the period. The setting in the Welsh, English, or Georgian settings come alive in realistic depictions amid the captivating and emotional dialogues to make for some of the most enchanting of books. These are poignant novels that take one down the subtle path of discovering love in unexpected places.

“Slightly Married” is the first novel of the Bedwyn Family series of novels by Mary Balogh. The lead protagonist of the series is Aidan Bedwyn the second son of the family that has so far proven to be marriage shy. However, he soon discovers that the most seductive act of all may be matrimony. Like most of the Bedwyn men Aidan is known for his cool arrogance though he also is a lord that has a passionate and loyal heart. Given his fierce loyalty he visits Ringwood Manor when a dying soldier requests that he visit his bedside. He makes a promise to protect and comfort the dying soldiers sister, but he never thought he would find a fiercely independent woman that wants nothing to do with him despite the promises he made. What makes it even harder for Aidan is that she is a beguiling woman who has managed to penetrate and capture the heart he typically guarded with his life. But then a relative turns up and threatens to dispossess the lady of her home, and Aidan takes the opportunity to offer his protection; marry him to save her home from the malicious relative. London breathlessly waits for what they hope will be the best couple in town, even as the two proclaim that it is only a business arrangement. But with one embrace and one searing touch the business embrace is threatening to become something more enticing.

“Slightly Wicked” the second novel of the series is about the rebellious third son of the Bedwyn family Rannulf Bedwyn. Rannulf enters into a slightly wicked, somewhat naughty, and rather risque liaison. He is a hard man to resist with his rakish good looks, wild and laughing eyes. But for Judith Law a woman that he rescues on the road when her stagecoach gets in an accident Rannulf is heroic stranger that she intends to spend one night of debauchery with, before she heads north to take up her pace as companion to her noble born aunt. She wakes up to learn that the man she spent the night with is none other than the notorious and most eligible bachelor in all of England who is heading to the Harewood Grange estate for a marriage proposal for her cousin. He owes Judith nothing and neither does Judith but Rannulf cannot get the uninhibited night of passion they spent together out of his mind and neither can she. The scandal soon comes to light setting the Grange household abuzz until Rannulf devises a plan to make her his through wedlock or illegal liaison. When she says no to both proposals he has nothing left but to reignite the spark of pleasure that she knows she enjoys just as much as he does in the quest to make her love him again.