When Mathilda Heath was 18, she became engaged to Miles Stephens, Viscount Halifax and the future Earl of Southmoor. Mathilda was happy, she loved Miles and wanted to experience with him all the little romantic gestures she thought common to engaged couples. But Miles was stiff and formal. He never called her by her given name, he danced only a few dances with her, he didn’t take her out for treats and when they went out riding in his carriage, they were always surrounded by other people. One of them was Miles’s good friend, Sir James Parmenter.

James was outgoing, laughing, and fun to be with. Mathilda’s romantic soul was drawn to him and they soon realized that they were more than simply friends. So she jilted Miles and eloped with James to India. The story begins ten years later with a widowed Mathilda coming home to Bath.

I’ll bet you think her marriage with James was horrid and she is a destitute creature forced to live on the charity of her disapproving family. No, and thank you Patricia Oliver for not using that clichéd plot. James and Mathilda had a happy, loving marriage. They had two fine sons, and James has left her quite comfortably well off. While Mathilda’s snobbish brother might look down on her and forbid her his house, her mother and aunt and other families in Bath have quite forgotten the scandal and are ready and willing to accept Mathilda back in Society now that her mourning is over.

The Honorable Willoughby Hampton is a fixture in Bath Society. Willy is kind and sweet, rich and amiable and a prize catch on the marriage mart, but he has avoided matchmaking mamas for years now. He makes friends with Mathilda’s two sons who are horse mad, a trait sure to charm the sports-loving Willie. Willie’s best friend is Miles Stephens, now the Earl of Southmoor and still unmarried.

Miles was deeply hurt and shamed by Mathilda’s jilting of him. He has spent time fantasizing how he could hurt her as much as she hurt him, but when he sees her and her charming boys enjoying the company of Willie, old feelings long buried begin to rise again. He has for the past several years begun to long for a family of his own, and he has not forgotten how much he cared for Mathilda even if he was afraid to show it. Yet she hurt him so. But then, it has been ten years. Has she changed? Has he?

Broken Promises is a very good portrait of regency Society. Those who moved in the social circles of Miles and Mathilda did not live their lives alone. One ate, drank, played and conducted oneself in the company of many others. While this book is the story of Miles and Mathilda, they do not live their lives in a vacuum. They are constantly surrounded by friends, children, family and aquaintences. While Miles and Mathilda are the focus of the story, they live it out in a large group, much as real people of the time must have done.

I have not had a whole lot of luck with traditional Regency Romances this year, but I was very happy with Broken Promises. I enjoyed the story, I loved the characters – especially Mathilda’s two boys, who were very true to life. I hope that sometime in the future, we will get Mr. Willoughby Hampton’s story – he was such a good, kind man. I’ve read and admired many of Patricia Oliver’s novels over the years and have come to depend on her for a good story that always has the feel of authenticity.