The Heart Must Choose — Mary Burchell

Wouldn't you love to live the life of a debutante, just for Coronation Year? Not many of us can, of course, but the next best thing is the follow the fortunes of Flora Elvain, who did have the opportunity to do just that. Mary Burchell has made Flora such an endearing heroine that one shares in, rather than envies, all the varied delights of her "season". And if she had to encounter a certain amount of heartache too, well, that just the price that one does pay for the privilege of being young and in love.

Flora begins her year hoping to see Jamie, the young man she has adored since he comforted her after her father's death at only eleven. Living in genteel poverty, it is unlikely she will have a "season" until an American acquaintance offers to defray the costs if Mrs. Elvain will be the guide and chaperone for her daughter Marilyn.

This all seems perfect until the arrival of Marilyn and her mother with the news that she met Jamie in New York and became engaged on the ship coming over to England. The witness to Flora's pain is Timothy Godwin, a rather cynical lawyer who rumour suggests was involved in a rather unsavoury divorce scandal. Through the machinations of Marilyn, afraid of Flora's friendship with Jamie, and the gossip machine, Flora and Timothy must become engaged in order to protect her good name.

Through all this, Flora makes her bow to the young Queen, shines at a coming out ball and at other functions for the debs. She goes to Covent Garden to the Opera and Ascot and even to Glyndebourne, reflecting the keen interest of Mary Burchell in the Opera scene.

How Flora grows and changes over the season and how she learns where her heart truly lies makes for a sweet and engaging story with a very young not quite eighteen heroine and a charming hero of thirty years. These days a heroine that young would be consigned to YA or the New Adult romance genre and not allowed near a mature man.

Hero: Timothy Godwin
Heroine: Flora Elvain