Review: The Country Gentleman by Dinah Dean (1986)

This is another author who published Regencies back in the day, now being republished in ebook form with new covers. I’ve not encountered this author before, but I absolutely adored this book. It has a charming rural setting, a mysterious (but not too threatening) hero, a downtrodden and thoroughly deserving heroine, and a romance that builds slowly over the course of the book. And no pesky anachronisms (that I spotted).

Here’s the premise: Miss Lucinda Calvert is the daughter of her somewhat disorganised and short-sighted rector father and her ailing mother, leaving her the mainstay of the village, constantly busy about her charitable works for the poor. There are few people her own age in the village, apart from one female friend, the curate and a French emigre, so she looks set to drift into spinsterhood. But the arrival of mysterious Mr John Harris at the long neglected estate of the Pinnacles sets her life on a different course. John is charmingly attractive, and soon shows that he enjoys her company, but he’s oddly reserved about his past. He’s been abroad, but where? And when? And more to the point, why? Questions are gently deflected, but Lucinda soon discovers evidence that he’s not all he seems. Yet he’s so attractive…

The romance is lovely, and quite unusual for the era it was written in, which more usually follows the Georgette Heyer policy of wrapping the romance up with a kiss on the final page. Here Lucinda very gradually find herself falling for the hero, and although we never get John’s point of view directly, it’s obvious that he’s following the same path, firstly paying equal attention to Lucinda’s friend and then over many chapters diverting his attention solely towards Lucinda. I loved the way this was done, and of course, Lucinda is very torn because she is aware of all John’s suspicious activities too, so there’s a little tension (but not very much, it had to be said, since the resolution of the mystery was blindingly obvious almost from the first moment).

There is a minor romance for Lucinda’s friend, too, although I was a bit shocked by the speedy, not to say perfunctory, way in which the last vestige of an obstacle was swept away. To be honest, it was hard to see why there was ever an obstacle at all.

But really, one of the great attractions of this book, for me, is in the wonderful depiction of village life. It’s all in the details, like the cats, and the milk turning in the hot weather, and the lyrical description of some of the walks Lucinda went on. And I loved that the sexton doubled up as coachman and even butler for the rector’s family when required.

The ending was a little too glib (didn’t John have to at least consult his father before proposing?), but I’m not going to complain because otherwise this book was well-nigh perfect. Highly recommended. Five stars.