However, in spite of her growing feelings for him and their status changing to that of lovers before their summer sojourn is over, she can’t bring herself to even entertain any kind of future with him. But Peter is nothing is not persistent, charming his way into a friendship with her that makes her realize her preconceived notions about him were wrong. Upon hearing his title, she instantly remembers him, and although she only briefly met him once before, she has a rather sordid and tangled history with his family, making her instantly dislike him. When Susanna visits her friend and former teacher, Frances, and her titled husband over the summer, she chances to meet Peter while out walking with her friends. She was a star student and eagerly took up a position as a teacher when she was of age, a job which she loves. Unable to find work in spite of lying about her age, Susanna faced an uncertain future until someone offered her a spot as one of the charity pupils at Miss Martin’s School where she’s lived ever since. But after her father’s death, she overhead remarks by the lady of the house that made her suspect she would be a burden on them, so she ran off to London and applied for a job with an employment agency. Her father had been a secretary to a titled gentleman and she’d become close with the family. Susanna’s mother died when she was born and her father passed when she was twelve. This knocked my rating down just a bit, but I did still enjoy the story overall.

However, their respective difficulties in identifying and admitting those feelings could become just a tad tedious at times. The two week summer holiday that Peter and Susanna spend together truly is magical and I could feel deeper emotions passing between them. There’s a great deal of beauty in the subtle simplicity of this story.

But fate has other plans in store for them as it brings them together again and again, until it becomes clear that they’re meant for each other. But the differences in social station loom between them, as well as Susanna’s desire to remain independent and her love for her job, keeping them from making any further commitment. During that time, they become close friends, and by the time they both must return home, they’ve also become lovers. The two chance to meet up once again while visiting mutual friends over a magical summer holiday. She’s paired with Peter, a viscount she met once as a child when he briefly visited the family for whom her father worked. In this one, we have Susanna, the youngest teacher, who started out as a student at the school. Simply Magic is the third book in Mary Balogh’s Simply Quartet that follows the teachers at Miss Martin’s School for Girls in Bath.

Simply Magic by Mary Balogh