Remember When is my favorite book in the Ravenswood series so far! It’s Clarissa’s story, Devlin’s mother (the Dowager Countess of Stratton from Remember Love) and it’s a sweet, second chance romance. It has an older couple who enjoy a summer romance at the beautiful Ravenswood Estate and I found it heartwarming and refreshing.

Clarissa has returned to Ravenswood after a season in London, where she presented Stephanie, her youngest daughter. Stephanie has gone to visit her sister, Pippa (married to Luke) to help Pippa in her confinement. Clarissa has been longing for peace, quiet and some time alone and, on her own, goes home to Ravenswood for the summer.

Matthew is a gentleman who grew up near Clarissa and they were close friends and a little bit in love with each other when they were younger but Clarissa did what her parents expected and married the Earl of Stratton. Clarissa’s life has had its woes–in Remember Love her husband’s infidelity caused a scandal for the family. Now she is a widow with five grown children. (Balogh shares a family tree with all of their names at the beginning of the book which I found helpful.)

At Ravenswood, she finds out that Matthew, now a widower, has returned after being gone for ten years and is a wood carver with his own wood shop in the village. She goes to see him and she commissions him to make a beautiful crib for Jennifer and Ben (from Always Remember). Matthew is a gifted artisan and the descriptions of his carvings were incredible. As the two spend time together, thirty years after their youths, they enjoy a glorious summer of long walks getting to know each other again.

Clarissa turns fifty in the fall so she and Matthew are older which was fun. We get to see many characters (maybe too many) from the earlier books in the series when they come to visit Clarissa. Her kids don’t want her to be lonely! There was some humor in that because though she loves her children, she felt annoyed every time one of their carriages pulled up the drive.

Matthew has been thinking about his older brother Reginald (Reggie) whom he has been estranged from for years. He and Reggie had a difficult father who was hard on Matthew and something happened between Matthew and Reggie to cause Matthew to leave and never return. Clarissa offers to go with Matthew to visit his brother (She also knew Reggie when they were young). It was heartwarming to watch Matthew and Reggie talk about their past and learn to forgive each other. I think Balogh excels at this theme.

Clarissa and Matthew’s summer together makes them feel happy and young again and they want their romance to continue. The setting at Ravenswood and description of the land and gardens on their summer walks is beautiful with grassy hills, a pond, butterflies, swooping birds and sheep in the meadow. It also made me grin that, even though Clarissa and Matthew were older, they had steamy times outside, in the grass during a picnic then later on the hard ground by their favorite tree (which didn’t sound comfortable, but they didn’t seem to mind).

There were some parts of the story that were a little wordy – some thoughts and dialogue felt repetitive. But other than that, I enjoyed the story. There is a theme of forgiveness in this book that was lovely.

The romance with older characters, humor with her children, beautiful setting and the theme of forgiveness made this a nice, gentle read and I adored it.