A Summer to Remember (Get Connected Romances) [Mass Market Paperback]

Again Mary Balogh has given us a work of believable emotion that goes beyond the superficial (though usually enjoyable) wit, games and flowery love of other romances, to give us a satisfying journey into the hearts of two people. I contentedly sobbed my way both with joy and sadness through several sections of the second half of this book, and was very glad I had not given up on it as I was almost tempted to do at the beginning.
Initially I found neither Lauren or Kit particularly sympathetic characters. Lauren especially is so tightly locked up inside herself that she seems to have little to live for and little desire for a life. However along comes Kit Butler. Kit's older brother has died and Kit is now expected to give up the life he has made to go home, learn to be the heir and marry the woman his estranged father has chosen. Kit, understandably, is determined to avoid a marriage to the woman who had abandoned Kit to become engaged to his older brother. Though his initial thought is to marry someone totally unsuitable, to spite his family, he is mature enough to go in the opposite direction and pick out the most proper and suitable Lady he can find, Lauren Edgeworth. He sets about cold bloodedly courting her.
This is the bit of the book that is difficult to get through, they are stilted and superficial and you keep waiting, impatiently in my case, for them to start communicating with each other. And that is the point, once they do it's like watching a flower open as they get to know each other. Kit produces his calculated marriage proposal, Lauren turns him down, then much to her surprise demands an expanation of him as to what is going on. Once he's told her she further surprises herself and him by suggesting she masquerade as his fiancee at his parents country house party and help him establish his place back in his family and avoid the arranged marriage. In exchange for which she asks Kit to help her try to live a little (not be her lover), to try and be a bit more like other people. So in freeing Lauren to live and in helping Kit reconcile with his family, Lauren and Kit heal, grow and learn to love. Just fabulous.

This book is a semi-sequel to "One Night For Love" which told the story of Neville Wyatt, Earl of Kilbourne, and the discovery on his wedding day to Lauren Edgeworth that his former wife Lily, that he believed dead, was alive. One Night For Love tells the story of Neville and Lily and Lauren appears in that as a cold, hard woman.

A Summer To Remember is Lauren's story and picks up a year after "One Night For Love". She has continued living in the dower house attached to Kilbourne's estate and so is constantly reminded of her wedding day disaster. She is enticed to London by her friend, the Duchess of Portfrey, who is due to give birth and wants London doctors. Lauren believes she can safely go to Town with the Duchess as she won't be required to go to ton events and be laughed at as the jilted bride.

Kit Butler, Viscount Ravensberg, is a misbehaving rake who continually gets into scrapes. He first lays eyes on Lauren whilst brawling with 3 labourers in a park and then being kissed enthusiastically by a milkmaid. But he has a problem - his father is arranging a marriage for Kit and Kit doesn't want to go along with this - he needs a bride of his own choosing.

He decides to choose Lauren, sight unseen, and court and woo her. And so he begins, knowing she has a reputation as an ice maiden but relishing the challenge. Lauren's well-meaning relatives warn her off him which causes her to spend time with him - time which is fun and different from anything else. When they realise that a fake betrothal would serve for both of them to extricate them from awkward situations they agree to it. Kit needs a fiancée so that his father's choice for him, Freyja Bedwyn, knows to look elsewhere; Lauren needs some time away from her family to prepare to live retired as a spinster in Bath. Kit promises Lauren a summer to remember at his father's estate, Lauren promises to help him try and heal the rift with his family.

These two people - Kit the fun, warm, lighthearted man and Lauren the ice-cold maiden - have hidden depths and part of the excellence of this book is how their lives are unpacked and they learn to understand each other. I enjoyed this book even more on a second reading as I was able to read it more slowly, rather than racing through the plot, and see some more of the nuances of behaviour.

This book also features the Bedwyn clan in the `slightly' series. I've never been that keen on them all and this book didn't change that, but it's an interesting intersecting of her other series of books with this one. I believe there's also a book in progress about Kit's younger brother which would be part of this series.

As this book moves on it becomes more and more gripping and moving as Lauren and Kit understand each other better. It's the sort of book that can bring tears to your eyes and I think it a real triumph that you are rooting for someone like Lauren who initially seemed so cold and unpleasant. I strongly recommend this as a read just as a well-written story but especially if you like to look deeper into your characters' thoughts and motivations.

In the course of my life-long search for an author to be compared to Georgette Heyer, I have come across Mary Balogh, and I now notice that I have half a shelf of her work above my metre-long row of G.H. There must be a reason to this. I don't love her books, but I must say I like them.

Ms. Balogh, though there is humour in her texts, is not a wizard of sparkling wit (compared to G.H. nobody is). On the other hand, her persons are psychologically coherent and believable, and they develop in a very endearing way during the course of the book. This goes for A Summer To Remember, too. Kit Butler is a wild and rakish, funny and sexy care-for-nobody who is shown to have a deeper, darker side hidden from the world, a side that he has to learn to handle before being able to live his life as a happier person. Lauren Edgeworth is beautiful and "perfect", and the greatest marvel about this book is how Ms. Balogh can make out of this very controlled and reserved person (as such totally contrary to my poor self) someone so thoroughly sympathetic and deserving my warmest regard. She doesn't suddenly change into a wildly romantic and hilariously witty person after coming to contact with Kit, whom at first she despises and little by little learns to like and trust; instead I seem to learn to understand her while she learns to understand herself. She allows herself to breathe more freely and finds ways to let herself love herself and her Kit, and this happens without a total change in her fundamental personality. On the other hand, this personality, in the beginning of the book unsympathetic, has during the course of the book become something lovable and understandable to me. Is this evidence of good authorship? I think that it is.

So as not to frighten away people searching for a good Regency romance with generous splashes of eroticism in it, I must say that actually this is just such a book and not a psychological novel; on the other hand, it is a better novel than many other romances. Ms. Balogh's heroes and heroines tend not to be the standard protagonists, which in my opinion makes them more interesting. Of course I (as always) find it peculiar that protected maidens of the 19th century so willingly part with their virginities, but that is neither here nor there, and it doesn't mean that I don't enjoy reading about it, as Ms. Balogh is never clumsy writing the erotic scenes.

A Summer To Remember is one of the best by Ms. Balogh I've read so far. I am eagerly waiting for the story of Kit's brother, Sydnam Butler, to appear in paperback.