This is a pleasant read, where nothing the least bit unpredictable shakes the plot from well-worn rails, but it’s none the worse for that. I liked daydreaming Elaine (incongruously named for a tragic heroine) and sober Sir Phillip, and if I could have done with less of their internal monologues, that’s just me.
Here’s the premise: Miss Elaine Brooke returns from school in Bath to join her widowed mother in genteel poverty. They live in the shadow of the local ‘big house’, where Elaine’s childhood friend, Daniel Ashburn, has morphed over time into her ideal man, and the hero of many of her fanciful daydreams. Meeting him again and being exposed once more to his careless charm sets her halfway to serious love. But Daniel’s older brother, the weighed-down-by-responsibility Sir Phillip, is determined to see Daniel settle down with heiress Miss Talbot. He’s been courting her all spring in London, but never got to the point of a proposal. Now Sir Phillip is hosting the Talbots and others in a house party to finally bring Daniel up to scratch. Elaine is the big problem here, not only distracting Daniel from doing his duty, but also becoming a distraction to Sir Phillip, too.
And that is basically the whole plot, which unfolds exactly as you’d expect, with the principals starting by cordially disliking each other and gradually inching, in a two steps forward and one back sort of way, towards an understanding of their hearts, or at least a straightening out of the multitude of misunderstandings along the way. There’s a huge amount of internal musing of the does she/doesn’t she and will he/won’t he variety, which I found became tedious after a while. I much prefer a romantic couple who know their own minds from the start, but I freely admit that the author builds their journey from enemies to lovers very skilfully. The encounters between Sir Phillip and Elaine are beautifully written. It’s only the internal wavering that I disliked, so much so that I was skipping forward at the end to get to the denouement.
A well-written tale with likeable and very relatable principals, which could have done with a bit more bite in the plot. Four stars.
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