Publication Date: 1990
Setting: Regency England
Five years after A Chance Encounter, Balogh published A Promise of Spring, the tear-jerking tale of a convenient marriage between a young baronet and an older clergyman's sister. But is it the kind of tear-jerker where you feel good and catharsis-ized at the end, or the kind where you feel angry and cheated because you spent ninety minutes laughing at Love Story and now you're crying, even though you think the main character is a douche for not telling his wife she has cancer? (Seriously, dude, she's going to figure it out eventually.) There's only one way to find out!
What Happens?
A Promise of Spring begins
with the death of the Reverend Paul Howard, a young impoverished rector in a
quiet English village. After he sacrifices his own life to save two children
from an angry bull (because TB is so passé), it seems that Grace, his older
sister and housekeeper, will be left alone and destitute. While the villagers brainstorm
ways to help her, the tragically-named Sir Peregrine Lampman does what nobody
expects: asks her to marry him.
Grace is as shocked as anyone else. While she’s attractive
and well-liked by her neighbors, she’s thirty-five years old, solidly
middle-aged by Regency standards. In contrast, Sir Peregrine is a handsome,
popular, rich baronet…who happens to be ten years her junior. Perry says he
doesn’t care about all of that. He respects her for her dignity and
housekeeping skills.
Undaunted by his poetry, Grace proceeds to drop these truth
bombs on him:
(1) Years ago, she bore a son out of wedlock.
(2) When her son was four, he drowned in a pond because the
subpar governess neglected him in favor of his legit cousins.
(3) Following this tragedy, Grace’s family proved themselves
to be subpar as well by saying that it was for the best that her son died,
because of Society. The Reverend Paul was so shocked by this callousness that
he brought Grace to live with him and disowned the rest of his family.
The rest is depressing, depressing history.
“Oh, yeah?” Perry responds. “That just makes me respect you even more.”
“Fine, I’ll marry you,” Grace says, because she’s too tired
to Do the Right Thing by Not Marrying Him. Why is marrying him the wrong thing
to do? Well, it’s partly because her chances of giving him an heir aren’t
great, but you’ll have to wait a few chapters to find out the rest.
Although the neighbors are skeptical about this
June-September marriage of convenience, Grace and Perry find friendship and
affection with each other. The sex isn’t
bad, either. They even visit her dad, older brother, and sister-in-law at the
old family estate.
“I’m sorry that we were completely unsympathetic when your
only child died,” says her sister-in-law. “I was just jealous of you because
everybody liked you more than me, even though you were reckless, disagreeably
headstrong, and a disgrace to the family.”
“That’s okay,” says Grace. “We all make mistakes. Anyway, I was difficult to get along with.”
I’m going to stop my summary to point out that this is
bullshit. I’m all in favor of acknowledging the heroine’s flaws, plus this Prodigal
Son dynamic is quite interesting. Still, it seems déclassé to outline your
sister-in-law’s shortcomings when talking about her only child who died as an
indirect result of your attitude towards him. I cannot believe that Grace is
cool with this fake apology, but apparently this asinine conversation brings an
end to all conflict with her family.
That’s when Gareth, the dude who knocked up Grace all those
years ago, shows up. It turns out that he refused to marry her because he had a
richer girl in mind. I’m going to call shenanigans on this development, too.
Gareth impregnated a girl who was (1) his childhood sweetheart, (2) a perfectly
acceptable match for him, given that she was a baron’s daughter and he was a
viscount’s heir, (3) not poor, and (4) somebody with whom he’d had great sex.
Even if he was a big enough asshole to have a problem with marrying her, I have
a hard time believing that his dad and her dad were unable or unwilling to
pressure him into Doing the Right Thing.
Anyway, Gareth is a rich widower now. There might be rumors
that he murdered his wife, but he doesn’t let that get him down. He’s far too
busy putting the moves on Grace.
“I’ve made a huge mistake,” he whispers in her ear,
serpent-like. “We should totally move in together, even though you’d be ruined
in the eyes of Society! What do you mean, your husband won’t like it? He’s
twenty-five; he can’t handle a sexy mature woman like you. Remember how we used
to bone passionately? Remember how I impregnated and abandoned you to bear a son
who eventually died because nobody in your family could be bothered to look
after an illegitimate child? Apparently, that’s not an instant boner-killer for
me.”
Metaphorically speaking, it’s not an instant boner-killer
for Grace, either. She’s definitely not about to fall in love with Gareth
again, but his words cast doubt on her relationship with Perry. Is their age
difference too great? Do they really have anything in common? He seems to get
along better with Priscilla, her annoying young niece who’s always “casually”
pointing out their age difference.
Perry’s feeling insecure, too. He’s convinced that the
hulking, thirty-something Gareth has a cock, while he just has a wee-wee. Also,
Grace kind-of-sort-of led him to believe that Gareth died in the Napoleonic
Wars. She actually meant that Gareth was dead to her for abandoning her
pregnant self, but Perry didn’t pick up on that linguistic subtlety and now he’s
suspicious of his wife’s true affections.
The couple manages to carry on in a civil if not
affectionate manner. Grace unexpectedly becomes pregnant and they retire to the
country for Christmas so she can get some rest. Unable to take a fucking hint,
Gareth shows up at their estate and gives Grace a letter that contains an indecent
proposal. She shows it to Perry, who somehow doesn’t pick up Gareth’s “pushy
stalker who might have murdered his wife” vibe and tells her to follow her
heart, even if it means shacking up with her frankly terrifying old flame when
she’s almost ready to give birth to a baby she made with her husband . At this
point, Perry’s respect for Grace seems to have morphed into total apathy.
“Gee, thanks a lot,” Grace probably thinks. Then she goes
out into the snow-covered garden, where Gareth is waiting, and tells him that
she doesn’t care about him enough to hate him.
“Aw, man,” says Gareth, before he slinks away forever.
That’s when Grace goes back inside and tells Perry she loves
him. Perry responds in kind, the baby is born healthy a little while later, and
“Running Scared” by Roy Orbison plays in the background.
Is It Any Good?
Overall, A Promise of
Spring is a solid romance. In many ways, Grace and Perry’s relationship is
refreshing. There’s actually a fairly significant age difference between them,
something that cannot be said of many older-woman/younger-man romances. I’m also
very fond of romances in which the reasonable, sweet-natured gentleman proves
to be more of a hero than the angry, brooding douchebag. Finally, I like how their insecurities about
their marriage mirror each other. She’s afraid that she’s keeping him from
enjoying life as a young man, while he’s nervous about not being mature enough
for her. Theirs is a very two-sided relationship.
Gareth, the villain, isn’t quite as effective. His audacious
self-regard and scary possessiveness are fascinating at times, but, at others, he
just seems like a silly, none-too-bright third wheel. The novel might be more
effective if he were less of an ex-stalking, wife-murdering Gaston, and more of
a man wracked by guilt and grief over the woman he foolishly abandoned and the
son he’ll never know. If Grace had to choose between a good, sweet man who
represented her future and a flawed, genuinely tormented man with strong ties
to her past, I’d care far more about the outcome. Plus, that Gareth would be
great sequel bait.
I’ve discussed some other problems in the summary. Most are minor,
but I find it fairly galling how the death of Jeremy, Grace’s late son, is
downplayed. At the beginning of the novel, Grace seems to believe strongly that
her family’s disdain for Jeremy contributed to his death, but by the time she
visits her family, she’s telling her sister-in-law that it could have happened to any of the
children. There’s no real explanation for her sudden change of heart, so it
seems to me like Grace’s family is getting off the hook for serious neglect.
Balogh often tries to humanize her unsympathetic characters by explaining their
actions, but it doesn’t work here.
Still, the relationship between the two main characters
gives A Promise of Spring a strong
core, in spite of some significant problems.
Recommended If: You
like older-woman/younger-man romances. You like angst. You were really into Lord Carew’s Bride and want to read
something similar. You like it when the amiable gentleman comes out on top.
Similarities to Other
Books
- · Like Elizabeth in A Chance Encounter, Grace has a Dark Past.
- · Also like Elizabeth, Grace was Dumped for Not Being Rich Enough.
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