Joan Donaldson’s AE FOND KISS puts two more-or-less out-of-place people into an insular rural background, both of them grieving lost loved ones (William’s sister Rose and Lizzie’s fiancé George). This leaves them to instinctively and inevitably take refuge in each other. But, before they do, each of them has to overcome the griefs, mistakes, and secrets of their past. What’s more, they also have to find a genuine place within their community, overcoming both their own prejudices and those of the locals to make real connections with people.
While Lizzie grew up here, her education, manners, and wealth inherited from her late fiancé set her apart from the bawdy, husband-hunting girl she was—leaving her isolated and alone. William, meanwhile, must both break free from the ties of his mother’s social expectations and win over the poor, rural students who see him as a posh, privileged elite. He also has to mend at least some of the damage done by his biggest youthful mistake. These conflicts add color, shape, and texture to their growing romance, keeping it from being too straightforward and simple to be interesting. A couple of the local male characters come across as caricatures—violent, simple-minded, and abusive to the women in their lives—but there is at least one moment that offers some sort of explanation and understanding as to how they ended up that way. Meanwhile, the connections that Lizzie builds with the local women reveal the depth, strength, and dignity behind their apparent downtrodden status. They also restore her solid rooting in the community from which she had been estranged.
William, too, overcomes his alienation by forming connections to the students he teaches and encouraging them to think more broadly about their futures. He also does this by atoning for his own past mistake in a fashion more socially acceptable to the local community than to his wealthy social circle. The social experiment that was the Rugby Colony is rather vaguely treated in the book, with a few casual references to founder Thomas Hughes’s belief in equality of the sexes. There’s a lot more interesting history there, which goes almost untouched in the more personal and intimate romance. All in all, though, this is a tender and warmhearted novel.
Joan Donaldson’s AE FOND KISS is a sweet and wholesome romance immersed in a well-developed historical context.
~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader