I’ve devised a method of rating characters in the books I read. It’s something I call Armstrong’s Patented Dinner Test, and here’s how it works. Ask yourself, “Would I enjoy sitting down to dinner with these people? Would I find the experience fascinating…maybe a little thrilling…perhaps even a touch dangerous?” Positive answers indicate the presence of sympathetic or charismatic characters, whom you’ll probably like reading about. In Under the Kissing Bough, the heroine passes the Dinner Test, but just barely. As for the hero, he can eat in the kitchen.

Geoffrey Westerley, Viscount Staines, is anxious to please his invalid father the Earl of Herndon by taking a bride before the old man shuffles off his mortal coil. With that in mind, Geoff agrees to marry Eleanor Glover, second daughter of Herndon’s old friend Lord Rushton. Disappointed in love, something of a rake, Geoffrey is surprised when his intended shows a bit more resistance to the notion than he’d anticipated. Eleanor is a shy young woman, well aware that she is no great beauty like her older sister. She’s convinced that she lacks the grace and style that a future countess should have, but she wants to please her parents, so she reluctantly agrees to the match, with one stipulation: Geoffrey must grant her whatever it is she writes down on the back of his calling card, no questions asked. Naturally, complications ensue.

The story, while charming enough, is a catalogue of a series of Misunderstandings, Big and Small, between the hero and heroine. Is she pulling away from him because she’s repulsed by his base behavior? Is he distancing himself from her out of disgust at her unpolished manners and blunt words? Can she ever fill the hole in his heart? Will he ever make her see just how special she is? There’s so much introspection on their parts that I wanted to shout at them, “C’mon, you two – talk to each other, not to yourselves!”

I had a few problems with character motivation. I understood and accepted Eleanor’s motives for acting as she did. She honestly believed that she was the ugly duckling who would never turn into the swan she thought Geoffrey needed. And then, meeting the breathtakingly beautiful, charming, generous woman whom everybody knew Geoffrey truly loved – well, that only reinforced Eleanor’s feelings of inadequacy. As for Geoff, I didn’t particularly care for him. Without spoiling too much, I can say that if he’d slept with half the women even he claimed he did, he would have realized soon enough that his perceived “problem” was nonexistent.

One of the things Donnelly does very well is to offer an accurate depiction of contemporary aristocratic male attitudes toward the sexuality of their female peers: ladies of good breeding and virtue were not expected to derive any pleasure out of physical love. This being the case, I reflected, what the heck was Geoff getting all wrapped around the axle about? He seemed to want to have it both ways, a lady-wife and a passionate lover all rolled into one person. Eleanor was more likable, but the story features a subplot about her desire to replace the annual Christmas foxhunt with a steeplechase, because she’s philosophically opposed to foxhunting. I found the insertion of this anachronistic view jarring.

The minor characters are well done for the most part, especially Eleanor’s three sisters and Geoffrey’s two brothers. It’s so nice to see secondary characters who are more than just Central Casting fill-ins. Alas, however, for that’s just what Geoffrey’s not-so-invalid father is: a meddlesome old man with a perfect (and conveniently now-dead) wife, who knows his future daughter-in-law will never be able to live up to the late countess’s achievements. He deserved more of a comeuppance than either Eleanor or Geoffrey could muster to deliver to him.

While this book left me feeling a little underwhelmed, I wouldn’t mind reading something else by Donnelly. Her style is eminently readable, and some of the dialogue is pretty good. I didn’t particularly care for the heroine and hero of Under the Kissing Bough, however, and it’s somewhat difficult to recommend a book when you aren’t fond of the two people at its center. I guess the hunt for the ideal dinner partner is still on.