A Gift of Daisies

by Mary Balogh

The impossible Mr. Gower

Lady Rachel Palmer was quite used to men falling helplessly in love with her. Every gentleman in aristocratic society, including her devoted fiancé, Lord Algernon Rivers, fell a willing victim to Rachel's dazzling beauty and bewitching charm.

Every gentleman, that is, except Lord Rivers' closest friend, the studiously unfashionable and splendidly handsome Mr. David Gower.

Mr. Gower made it clear that the ravishing Rachel represented everything he scorned, and that he was the very last man in the world she could ever ensnare. It was a challenge Rachel could not ignore - from a man she could not resist ….

Genres: Romance, Historical Romance, Regency, Historical, Regency Romance, Historical Fiction, Fiction

223 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 1989

About the author

Mary Jenkins was born in 1944 in Swansea, Wales, UK. After graduating from university, moved to Saskatchewan, Canada, to teach high school English, on a two-year teaching contract in 1967. She married her Canadian husband, Robert Balogh, and had three children, Jacqueline, Christopher and Sian. When she's not writing, she enjoys reading, music and knitting. She also enjoys watching tennis and curling.

Mary Balogh started writing in the evenings as a hobby. Her first book, a Regency love story, was published in 1985 as A Masked Deception under her married name. In 1988, she retired from teaching after 20 years to pursue her dream to write full-time. She has written more than seventy novels and almost thirty novellas since then, including the New York Times bestselling 'Slightly' sextet and 'Simply' quartet. She has won numerous awards, including Bestselling Historical of the Year from the Borders Group, and her novel Simply Magic was a finalist in the Quill Awards. She has won seven Waldenbooks Awards and two B. Dalton Awards for her bestselling novels, as well as a Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award.

Reviews

[Ev. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A week ago, if you had presented this book to me, I'd have said, "What? Me read and enjoy this?! Never!" Well, maybe I wouldn't have said so in such precise terms--this is Balogh, after all, whose works I've enjoyed for a long time--but I definitely would've been scratching my head and racking my brains as to why I'd like such a premise. I mean, a hero who's a vicar? A man of religion? ...Religion?

I have nothing against the Christian religion, of course. It's the proselytizing that gets to me. The message of Christianity, of love and charity, has always rung true with me. And this is certainly one of the overarching themes of this book. It's apparent in everything the two characters do: their agonizing, their pining, their frustrations. Their complete selflessness when it came to the fate of their beloved. And, frankly, it was tiring about 75% of the way through to read about how they loved each other so much that they daren't not be together.

Yet I still enjoyed this book more than I've enjoyed any other book I've read in the past couple of weeks. Because the characters were refreshing! And, *gasp*, while there was a case of "love at first sight," it was handled in a very realistic, very human way. It wasn't presented as true love at first sight, of course, no matter how the characters chose to describe it. It was lust, madness, and desire and just generally confusion. And I loved every bit of it. I loved reading about it. I even appreciated this writing style, which was clearly a production of Early!Balogh.

So yeah. I really liked this book. I blew through it with surprising fanaticism, even though it had 2 features that'd usually turn me off from certain stories. Maybe my tastes are changing. Or maybe Balogh just knows how to write a story (which she totally does, by the way; most of her tales are unique, delicious, and seriously steeped in dramatic irony--which make them hilarious).

[Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading a Mary Balogh’s book is always such a treat!
Lovely story 🥰

[Saby Reads All Day]

The heavens have fallen. I am DNFing a Balogh :(
I want to cry because I love her books so much, but I can't bring myself to finish this. You'll like this if you are OK with clergymen MMCs and religious-themed romances, but I found some of the dialogues bordered on sermons, and there was zero chemistry between the two MCs. Sigh.

[Aneca · Rating 3 out of 5]

started this book with great expectations. So far I have always enjoyed Balogh’s traditional regencies and I was planning on loving this one too.

But this book is very different from all the others I’ve read before by her. First of all it has a strong religious side. The hero is a vicar and extremely dedicated to his good works and helping his poor parishioners. And then there’s the fact that the heroine is rich and noble and the hero is poor and a second son and it’s the heroine that asks the hero to marry her and he is the one who refuses.

Lady Rachel Palmer is beautiful, wealthy, and frivolous--as well as betrothed to someone else--when she meets and falls in love with the high-minded Reverend David Gower, who is devoted to a life of service and poverty. It seems like an impossible match, especially when David is so set against it.

Rachel and David meet in London during the heroine’s season. They fall in love with each other but keep those feelings to themselves till eventually the heroine proposes believing her feelings returned. The hero refuses because he thinks she wont be happy as a poor clergyman’s wife. This leads the heroine to ask a childhood friend to marry her. Eventually she accepts that David loves her but wont marry her and that she must be true to her feelings – breaking the betrothal to the friend she doesn’t love – and dedicate herself to good deeds. Although the blurb mentions she is betrothed to someone else when they meet that is not true.

The second half of the book is about how both of them are dedicated to helping others, that they are happy and fulfilled and that they are resigned not to marry. Then David receives an inheritance that allows him to think of marriage to Rachel, but accepting it however will force him to give up his life as a poor vicar. When he proposes it’s Rachel’s turn to say no because she loves him too much to accept such a great sacrifice from him. It took a compromising situation for them to come to their senses and decide to marry.

Well I never quite understood why they couldn’t marry, yes the hero was poor but he was also part of the nobility and so an acceptable party. And in the end he is still poor when finally the marriage is arranged so I ended up thinking they could have saved all that useless self-sacrifice and just get on with it from the beginning. Or Rachel could have let him accept the inheritance and they could be both rich and do good deeds even if in a different place. I’m afraid that instead of being moved by their actions I was annoyed. And I kept thinking Rachel could have ruined Algie and Celia´s happiness.

Looking forward to hear other opinions from Balogh fans. And thank you I. for lending me yet another HTF oldie. For me this was a C+.

[Jacqueline J · Rating 2 out of 5]

My least favorite Balogh. I don't like stories of people giving up money to somehow become a better, more "Christian" person. All giving up money gets you is poverty. I don't like having religion shoved down my throat. So if those things are what floats your boat, you'll probably love this one.

[Jena]

Self note avoid
Christian romance. Yes, MB actually wrote a Christian romance.

[LuvBug · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

This was undeniably a Christian romance. Yes, Mary Balogh actually wrote a true Christian romance. A real one. Much respect to her for writing it. It was refreshing to see.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary Balogh's A Gift of Daisies is a 1991 book that is different from her other books. The hero is a vicar who wants to live a life of service to the poor and the heroine is a very beautiful woman who seems to be into a life of gaity and frivolity at the beginning of the book. She pretty much throws herself at the hero. He loves her but can't believe she would ever be happy living his chosen lifestyle. He has to learn to let her make that decision for herself and she has to learn that she needs a purpose in life and that is more important than the life of the idle rich she was raised to expect.

This isn't my favorite MB book by any means but it is interesting to see her writing a different kind of book.

[Mindy B (reader_of_the_lost_arcs) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man, I love Mary Balogh. This story was a bit too religious for my tastes, but trust Ms. Balogh to make me a believer. Rachel is a rich heiress having her come out and David is a poor vicar. She falls head over heels in love with him, but he thinks she will be unhappy once she realizes what it's like to be a vicar's wife.

What a rollercoaster of a ride we go on with them from unbridled passion, to hurt feelings, guilt, embarrassment, pride, tenderness, quiet moments and service to others. All while the two characters grow in their faith in a higher power.

I want to believe! This is why I read romance!

[Pauline Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a difficult book for me to judge. Were it by an author unknown to me, I’d probably have gone with 2*, but with Balogh I’m prepared to see it as an aberration, a brave stab at something that ultimately failed. It ranks, however, as by far the most boring Balogh book I’ve ever read.
Here’s the premise: Lady Rachel Palmer is a social butterfly, the beautiful and vivacious star of the London season, charming even the most unlikely confirmed bachelors to her side. David Gower is the precise opposite, a serious, pious clergyman who may be the younger son of an earl, but isn’t going to let that stand in the way of him devoting his life to his parishioners and good works, living a life of relative poverty. Two people less likely to hit it off could hardly be imagined, yet they have the misfortune to fall in love with each other at first sight. It’s impossible, of course. Except that Rachel doesn’t accept that it’s impossible…

And that, in a nutshell, is the entire book. They spend endless chapters agonising over a dilemma that wouldn’t even exist if either of them had two brain cells to rub together. Here’s the thing: there actually is no obstacle whatsoever to them marrying. He’s of suitable rank, she has a dowry sufficient to support them in reasonable comfort even if he gives away every penny of his income, there’s no reason why she can’t satisfy whatever social cravings she suffers from by visiting her relations, or beetling up to London now and then. A little compromising would have done the job nicely. But no, he has to be noble and self-sacrificing because he’s convinced that she can’t hack it as a clergyman’s wife, and it takes him the entire book to realise that actually, she can make that decision for herself, thank you very much.

She, meanwhile, is proving that she’s too flighty for words by dithering about between David, an old friend and a marquess before finally going off the rails completely and walking out in the middle of a ball with a thunderstorm going on. I get that the author wanted to show her finally breaking free of the stifling constraints of society (aka politeness), but that’s just stupid. And what happens afterwards is even more stupid and melodramatic, and seemed to my mind completely out of alignment with the introspective nature of most of the book.

That, I think, was what made it so unspeakably boring, for me. The two principals go round and round the same things (in their heads) with occasional forays into Serious Conversations, liberally larded with religious stuff. Yes, folks, this a deeply Christian book. I’m not qualified to judge that element of the story, and it wasn’t what made it boring (in my opinion, Regency authors should introduce far more religion into the genre, given that it was an integral part of normal life for virtually the entire population). But if you DO introduce it, and portray one of the characters, at least, as a man of deeply felt faith, then you should really not have him inflicting passionate kissing and much pawing on the heroine. Mixed signals there.

No, what really drove me nuts was the constant and repetitive angsting, and the hero disrespecting the heroine by repeatedly stating that she doesn’t know her own mind and he can’t marry her for her own good. Ugh. And I really don’t get why Christian service can only be demonstrated in abject poverty. It’s all very well to give away virtually all your money, but what happens when your eight or ten children all need to be fed and shod and educated in a manner befitting the grandchildren of noblemen, and you’ve given away every last penny of your wealth? You’ll be going to your more sensible relations for handouts, that’s what. I would have loved to see some mite of commonsense penetrate the skulls of these two dipwits, but no, they were determined to be self-sacrificing.

I had to laugh, though, at the heroine going about the parish distributing cakes to the poor, or reading to them, which is very nice and all, but I’m sure they would rather have had a leg of mutton! I was amused, too, at the lord of the manor grumbling about David doing his good works about the parish and distributing largesse everywhere. “That’s my job,” the lord says. Which is absolutely true. The church was there for spiritual welfare, and the aristocracy were supposed to take care of the more material needs of the poor.

I think this was a brave attempt to write a properly Christian book, and although it failed on pretty much every level for me, it’s still a beautifully written failure. There were a few historical errors, but the only one that really grated was that the clergyman was addressed as Reverend Gower, or even Vicar Gower, which was not common practice then. He would have been plain Mr Gower. And his income comes not from his patron paying him a salary, but from the tithes of the parishioners. A clergyman couldn’t just decide to retire, either. He held the living for life, although he could put a curate in if he wanted to retire from active work in the parish.

To be honest, I don’t recommend this except to Balogh completists. It’s an interesting attempt at portraying two people with deep philosophical differences, who prove ultimately to be more complex than originally suspected. I like what she tried to do in theory, I just didn’t enjoy the result very much. Three stars.

[Patti Irwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this was different. Hero is religious and has found his calling in the church. Heroine is a social butterfly lacking but longing some serious purpose. I certainly understand the joy of a purpose driven life and appreciate that being the characters’ motive as well. The religion was a bit much for me. Still much less frustrating and disturbing than the last book by this author I read.

Reread 3/23/25. Raised the rating. Not as bothered by the religion This goround. Don’t know why. Maybe because falling in love for shared values seems a better reason than others. Discovering what kind of life you want/need to lead along with discovering a life companion is as worthy a dream as any to read about. I enjoyed the humor of two of the characters describing the perfect partner for their friends without realizing they are talking about each other.

I also like this insight, “He just gave me that smile of his and said that it is better to give to some unworthies than not to give to some who are really in need.” I so wish the MAGA republicans could learn this. The fraud and waste they so fear which is causing the current slash and bit of our social safety systems is so minute compared to the benefit it provides and I am so scared of the kind of country we are living in that doesn’t also believe what this character expresses.

[Peri Baker-Horner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but slow with much internal dialog.

I love Mary Balogh and I look forward to books where the H/h are good people. The problem for me is they are too good. There is so much internal angst I wanted to slap someone. David is a second son who had gone into the church and is a new vicar, Rachel is gentry and appears a flighty and silly. David is cousin to her best friend Algie whom she has an expectation with. David has so much internal dialog about finding his calling and making a vow of poverty at Oxford. He falls in love with Rachel but he thinks she can only be rich. Rachel falls in love with him but he won't marry her because she would be poor. This goes back and forth until David inherits his great aunts fortune but only if he gives up his modest parrish and lives in her property for 5 years and takes a job assigned by the bishop. But he wants to be poor but decides to marry Rachel and be rich but she is insulted because she can be poor with him. This goes back and forth and on and on. I would think being a new vicar with a new post maybe he should consult with the bishop for guidance but no he just decides what's right for everyone. I skimmed through the end just to get through it. If you like a lot of internal dialog and Bible verse this may be for you. It wasn't awful but I won't be rereading it.

[Asya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lady Rachel is the belle of the ball and slated to marry her lifelong friend and neighbor Algie. But only one glance at his cousin David and she is in love while he thinks her shallow and frivolous.. It turns out David is to be the rector on Algie's estate and is poor and unsuitable for Rachel who is the daughter of an earl and planned to marry comfortably. Their love grows out of the meaning they both find in doing works of charity and as much as they resist each other, they cannot give up their love.
I didn't enjoy so much the religious aspect of the book but that couldn't be avoided since David is a rector and Rachel finds herself through religion. If not for that I would have given it more stars.

[Alice Lucca]

This is by far my least favorite Balogh book. Within the first chapter you knew the whole story and
I do feel that one knew what was going to occur every step of the way. Not much more to say about
it. For those who may have been reading Mary Balogh for the first time, please give her another
chance. She is a fantastic writer with in-depth characterizations of personalities and the
historical fiction that is woven into her stories.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Everyone was a little too perfect in their efforts to reach to the lesser in their worlds or uplift those in need of compassion.

Too preachy, too simplistic and though I love "happily ever after", I didn't buy it in this case.

One of Mary Balogh's early books and she is a much better writer today.

Cross this one off my "to keep" list.

[Amarilli 73 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Non tra quelli da ricordare. Non è scritto male, ma non amo i personaggi redenti sulla via di Damasco. Per fortuna, è un Regency, altrimenti Rachel e David avrebbero donato anche l'ultimo vestito ai poveri per imbarcarsi per qualche missione in Africa...
Troppo poco spazio alla seconda coppia Algy/Celia che era invece la mia preferita.

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a typical Mary Balogh novel. A hero (high-minded vicar) and heroine (wealthy, lighthearted deb) ultimately agree to embrace a lifetime of poverty to fulfill their Christian ideals, after many doubts about whether they will suit. Not one of my favorites!

[Jennifer Fner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite an old Balogh. I think this was her only foray into Christian romance. Not my cup of tea, although I will say it's less self righteous than other Christian romance I have (accidentally) read.

[Lois Mason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ambivalent

I'm a long time fan of MS. Balogh. I enjoy her superior writing skills . This time I thought the time spent in introspection by the main characters was very tedious.

[Ruby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meditative — deep — saw great growth in the characters. Five star because I will read again.

I am surprised and disheartened by the number of poor reviews snubbing this as a Christian romance. I don’t know that I quite see it that way, even as a Christian. I see this story simply as a romance — and even Christians should find love in regencies, not just the manhoes and lusty babes of Kleypas and Byrne. The Kleypas and Byrne stories (and here I use these two authors as a mass-reference to all the regency writers who for good or ill use the era as an excuse to write what is little more than written porn, and almost all of it very, very badly done) all follow a pattern. (I have set up a wheel to spin so that I know now how Kleypas chooses elements for her stories. Hint, she does not randomize that his chest is always furred, the lady’s hairpins always scatter, she was a thing made only for pleasure, the man has always been hoeish, the woman is almost always a virgin, the man has no good father figure, the woman has no good mother figure, and lots of oral sex is had by all — yet rarely by the woman, Devil’s Daughter being an exception.)

What Balogh does is consistently come away from a pattern and tell stories, not scenarios for you to imagine yourself in. I am delighted — thrilled — that a regency story FINALLY does not end up with a man being secret nobility or the bastard son of a duke somehow magically inheriting anyway; he is not a social climber with access to tons of ill gotten booty or bill gotten ooty. How convenient all those other writers give a happily ever after that doesn’t come with effort and sacrifice; such past reading has been like dining on popcorn until now, and what a feast this book is. am delighted — thrilled — that two lovers settle down to a life of relative poverty, ready to take on the world together.

For that is what most of us are. We are not rich. We love our lovers. We will have a life not of parties and balls — how often I have read regencies thinking, “What a dashed boring life to live,” and I read on anyway hoping for something more and have now found it in this book — no, not lives filled with parties but with storms, childbirth, growth, giving to others. Or at least I hope that is what our lives look like. So snub the book if you desperately desire an obscenely rich billionaire (a la Timms and her modern AI generated, I am convinced, derivatives) or if you want a regency roué a la Byrne and Kleypas and all the rest. This is a book which, in my season of wanting something beyond the aloneness of my quiet life, reminded me of something more. That love is around the corner, back home, safe and poor and happy and hard-working. Do only Christians want that? I very much wonder.

[Becket Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely Romance

Can a seemingly frivolous, sparkling, popular debutante, who adores waltzing at ton balls and flirting with a coterie of attractive, wealthy suitors, find true love with a humble vicar whose deeply abiding faith has replaced the devil-may-care persona that informed his early days at university, and has now become the cornerstone of his life? Can the heroine’s quiet friend find fulfillment with a man who seemed for all intents and purposes to be devoted to acquiring the heroine’s hand in marriage?

In Mary Balogh’s capable, masterful hands, these love affairs blossom and overcome obstacles that must certainly derail the happiness train. Balogh’s prose is, as always, delicate and nuanced; her characters’s courtships, from initial attraction to the promise of passion to come, are heady and breathtaking to read.

This novel is sweet, with religious underpinnings (not surprising, as the hero is a vicar). If the reader is looking for scenes of unbridled lovemaking, this novel might not fit the bill. However, if sighing over True Love is the reader’s goal, this book is sure to delight.

[Sandra Hutchison]

This is an early Mary Balogh novel that I found on Hoopla and thought I would try since it involves a clergyman and a choice between wealth and service. It's a sweet, clean romance with mild Christian content. It feels a teeny bit dated, which makes sense because it's a republished older novel. I'm not sure how it is that Regency romances can feel dated, exactly, but I guess the mores of writing them have changed over time. I'm not an expert -- I'm just beginning to delve into those in a serious way this year (not counting Jane Austen) -- but compared to most I've read recently, there's more exposition and much more use of the past participle (which seems to be disappearing in contemporary commercial fiction). There's a certain mannered level of "heat" that isn't much heat at all by modern standards. Anyway. I suspect all Regency romances published since the actual Regency reveal much more about their authors' era than they do about the era they are set in. Recommended as a reasonably fun, short read for romance fans.

[Heidi Fogelberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a historical romance. Usually I like this author's writing, with a few reservations. It's formulaic to a pretty strong degree, even for romance novels. Generally I enjoy the part where Balogh mixes up her characters a bit - they're usually not the picture perfect beautiful people, etc. But this one .... sigh. It's pretty baldly religious, which I'm not. It's clear from her writing in general that religious principles are important to her, but this one ... sort of marinates in it. Luckily, she has eschewed her usual sedate smut scene for this outing, but even so, I feel like I've glanced unthinkingly into a family bedroom at a truly awkward moment. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it. But it's one I won't reread, even when I want to ladle romantic ooze over me.

[DD · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have enjoyed most of this author's books, So this one coming out in ebook format was a good thing.
3* because it's well written
But
I didn't like either David or Rachel, he maybe a little more admirable than she. Somehow she turns from being an empty headed girl into something deeper in mere weeks, asks most of the male characters to marry her, and is utterly spoilt.
Celia is a much more interesting person, if she'd been out heroine the book would be much better.
I didn't like the moralistic, slightly lecturing time reminds me too much of Welsh chapel.

Not for me

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know who on earth wrote the plot description for this website, but it's terrible.

Sweet story about a young woman who feels restless and unsatisfied with the life and future she's expected to want. She meets a young vicar who makes her realize that helping other people is what makes her feel happy and fulfilled. She falls in love with him, but he doesn't believe that she'll be happy leaving her comfortable, upper-class life behind to be his wife.

[Cheyenne Wildt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very sweet story of two people appearing to have nothing in common falling in love. I really enjoyed the scenes with the Perkins family. There is a bit of religious talk in this book, but no more than you would expect from a story with a clergyman as a romantic lead. I never felt put-off by it as someone who is not Christian.

[Rosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was right up my alley. If you come to Mary Balogh for sexy times, this will not be for you so bear that in mind. This is more a classic teen romance tale where the whole point is to watch the leads fall in love and end up together, and while there are some lustful thoughts between the two, it's very tame and not acted upon within the story.

Now, a lot of people have downrated this particular Balogh work because the main character is a vicar, and they don't find men who are truly devoted to their calling to be interesting or sexy for a romance novel. But, as the daughter of both a male and female pastor, and as a clergy woman myself (and one whose literature husband is Austen's Mr. Henry Tilney, a parson, at that!), I found Balogh's writing of this particular hero to be one of her stronger and more likable ones.

I also love our heroine, who gives all the appearance of being vapid and frivolous, but only because she's one of those people who tends to ramble when she's nervous, and her attraction to the man she learns is to be her new vicar happens at first sight. However, she's neither vapid nor frivolous, but is instead genuinely caring and interested in making the lives of her family's tenants into the best they possibly can be.

And this is where the tension comes in with this love story. The heroine falls first and eventually the hero also falls in love with her and both believe the life of the other would be upended by marriage and that they would only make the other person unhappy in the end. It's a very believable conundrum that is, of course, very easily solved but I do enjoy getting to sit through these very real-world problems with them.

The only reason this is downgraded to 3 stars instead of 4 is because the ending is based on this strange idea historical romance writers have that people of the Regency period didn't listen to each other when it comes to matters of propriety. I'm sorry, but if a girl was forced to stay in a single *gentleman's* house (and a vicar at that!) while his housemaid was still present in the house at all times because a truly violent storm ripped through the neighborhood, and multiple people were able to point out that they were actually in the company of other people in distress the ENTIRE.NIGHT., there would be no scandal! These two are "forced into marriage," (which I put into quotations because these two wanted to be married anyway, so there was no forcing here really) over a situation that is terribly contrived and, in reality, would have been absolutely no issue whatsoever in these particular circumstances. There are much better ways that Balogh could have resolved the main issue of this story, but whatever...I liked the couple, and I was happy to see them get together, despite the somewhat forced climax to the story.

[Felicity Wicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful story from Mary

A truly uplifting story. Beautiful story telling thoroughly enjoyable and I could not put it down. Mary is my very favourite author and she continues to please.

[Andrea Kidder · Rating 3 out of 5]

hints of "Emma" and "Gift of the Magi".

I think this is an earlier work, I will check later. I found the female main character a bit annoying, and Balogh may have written her that way in purpose, but it did not work for me.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an odd one. I haven’t found many vicar regency romance - not glamorous enough. It’s alright but you can’t eat live and passion in an era with no contraception is going to make the vicarage much less pleasant.