A Chance Encounter

Rating:
Summary: Her past catches up with her...
Review: Elizabeth Rossiter is a governess working in a small town in the south, well away from London and polite society. And that's the way she likes it. Nothing unexpected ever happens; she takes care of her charges, who will soon be launched into Society, and her employers treat her as a member of the family. She's safe.

Even when the new owner of the local big house, Ferndale, arrives to view his property, Elizabeth has no notion that her life is about to be completely disrupted. And why should it? William Mainwaring, the new owner, is perfectly polite and amiable, if a little shy in company. Interestingly, he seems to show a partiality for Elizabeth, despite her position as governess.

But Mainwaring has company on his visit to Ferndale, and one of his guests happens to be Robert Denning, Marquess of Hetherington - a man whom Elizabeth had hoped never to see again. And she'd been successful for more than six years. Until now; until he'd appeared without warning in the place where she'd found sanctuary. And then he seems to be around everywhere Elizabeth goes, giving her disapproving looks, making pointed remarks about mercenary behaviour and even, at one point, warning her off Mainwaring in such terms as make it clear that Hetherington believes that she's only after Mainwaring's money. And, even more insulting, Hetherington even tells Elizabeth that if she needs money she only need apply to him and he will supply it - the implication being that he would be relieved to be able to pay her off.

What was Hetherington and Elizabeth's past relationship? Why does he hate her so much? Why are her feelings for him so clearly torn between hatred and a deep, deep longing? What about Mainwaring's interest in Elizabeth?

Balogh's talent as a storyteller, always obvious, is even more clear in A Chance Encounter. She keeps readers guessing about Elizabeth's past and what Hetherington has to do with it, and when the truth was revealed some way into the book I was stunned. Nothing I had read so far had led me even to suspect the revelation, and yet when I re-read the earlier portion of the book nothing argued against it either. It was a masterful piece of writing.

Balogh is also an expert at writing stories which pull on the readers' emotions, and this book is a classic example. It's angsty, it has moments of humour, it's suspenseful and it's heartwrenching. I couldn't put it down from the moment I started it.

Unfortunately, like most of Balogh's early Regencies, it's out of print; until her publisher sees sense and starts to re-release her earlier work, the only way you can get hold of it is to pay an inflated price to get it second-hand. And yet it's worth it! Oh, and if you do get a used copy, it won't be mine - that's staying right where it is!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent first half, but the second part was disappointing
Review: Elizabeth Rossiter lives a peaceful life as a Lady companion in Granby, far from the stifled scandal that drove her away from London six years earlier. Taking care of the young Cecily Rowe is all she needs for an uneventful and pretence of a somewhat happy life...

... until shadows of her past come back to haunt her unexpectedly.

They come in the shape of the local manor owner, William Mainwaring, who arrives at Ferndale to get acquainted with the neighbourhood and possibly make Ferndale his main residence. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, Mr Mainwaring brought a party with him, and most especially his best friend Robert Denning, the Marquess of Hetherington, who is obviously involved in whatever drove Elizabeth to leave the high society six years earlier and seek employment.

The first half of the book is purely fascinating. Balogh keeps dropping hints at what happened between Elizabeth and Robert to make them both so cold and cruel to each other. Each of their encounters makes a chill course down the reader's spine, and the hatred between them is extremely well portrayed. Besides, William Mainwaring's behaviour towards the heroine opposes a nice contrast to Robert's iciness.

However, after the high peak of the story, which appears about halfway through (a stunning and very clever revelation that was actually very unexpected, but made a lot of sense), I felt that the plot was dragging on. Until the big revelation, I had been thoroughly enthralled, and the thirty pages immediately following it were probably the best part of the novel. However, what came afterwards seemed to me like unnecessary means to keep the main characters apart. I became increasingly frustrated with Elizabeth' stubbornness not to *talk* with Hetherington, when it was so obvious that talking would solve a lot of things.

The writing style, focused entirely on Elizabeth' point of view, should have been a great strength of the book; alas, it enhances even more obviously the main weakness behind the premise: since as a reader, I didn't have any more knowledge about what had happened than Elizabeth let out, I couldn't blame my frustration with her blindness on extra knowledge I might have of Hetherington's character.

There was still some interesting character development afterwards, but the main premise behind the whole novel seemed entirely too predictable to me. I read on with the hope that Mary Balogh would surprise me in the very last chapter, but unfortunately she didn't, and so the denouement was a bit of a disappointment.

After reading a series of outstanding Balogh romances over the past few weeks, I was expecting a lot from this one - maybe too much. The characters are attaching, which makes up for my frustration, yet I couldn't help but feel that the novel could have been solved in a much more satisfying (albeit still predictable) manner if it had ended seventy pages sooner.