Trust in Tomorrow by Carole Mortimer (also known as Cherish Tomorrow) offers an engaging romance between its main characters. Sadly, the overall plot suffers from implausibility and a lack of emotional depth.
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Trust in Tomorrow by Carole Mortimer
Rating: 
Published: 1985
Illustrator: Dick Kohfield
Imprint or Line: Harlequin Presents #804
Published by: Harlequin, Mills & Boon
Genres: Category Romance, Contemporary Romance
Pages: 192
Format: eBook, Paperback
Buy on: Amazon, AbeBooks
Reviewed by: IntrovertReader
TOTAL SPOILER ALERT ⚠
The Book
What can I say about Carole Mortimer’s Trust in Tomorrow (published as Cherish Tomorrow in the US and Canada)?
Sadly, I wasn’t really feeling this one. The romance aspect of the book was fine—actually, it was kind of adorable.
It features a young heroine, Chelsea, in pursuit of the much older hero, Lucas. She knows she wants her man and is willing to fight for him. I really wish Chelsea and Lucas could have had a better plot to go along with their romance.
But despite the perfectly adequate romance, it was the story that had me going, huh?
The Plot
Chelsea’s mother has died suddenly under mysterious circumstances. Since her father is a famous TV celebrity, he dispatches her from California to England to get away from the press.
He sends his barely legal daughter to stay with an old family friend, Lucas McAdams. The problem is Chelsea hasn’t seen him since she was 12 and Lucas was 27…
Back when she had a HUGE crush on him.
Creepy, but whatever. That’s a Harley for you.
Since they haven’t seen each other in years, neither one recognizes the other. So that leads to a bit of a misunderstanding about their identities
He thinks she’s a hooker on the prowl; she thinks he’s an uptight prig. They’re both wrong, and both points are quickly cleared up.
Chelsea upturns Lucas’s staid life, displeasing his disapproving housekeeper and his very disapproving mistress.
But the sparks fly between the two. In time, Chelsea realizes she’s in love and will do whatever she must to make Lucas believe her love is true.
That was the good part of the book.
My Opinion
The Bad Parts
The plot is just too unbelievable. Within a matter of days, Chelsea’s mother dies from suicide. Then Chelsea finds out her father eloped with a close family friend just months after her parents divorced. Moreover, it was this secret marriage that caused her mother to kill herself.
But the bizarre thing is Chelsea’s not upset. She’s delighted for her Dad and his new wife. Besides, she’s madly in love with Lucas, so what’s there to worry about?
Mom would’ve kicked the bucket one way or another anyway. So, everybody gets to have a happy ending, right?
Maybe it’s just me. I know if all this happened to me in one week:
- My parents’ decades-long marriage ends in a sudden divorce.
- My mom is dead from a suicide, for which I blame myself as I wasn’t there to stop it.
- I am flown out of my country to stay with someone who I haven’t seen since I was a child.
- I was tricked into spilling my life story to what seemed like a kind stranger, only to find that stranger was a reporter. Now, my life is splashed all over the front pages of newspapers worldwide.
- My dad revealed a secret new marriage to my mom’s friend, which was the cause of the suicide.
- And finally, my mom had been suicidal for years while my parents had a loveless marriage, and I was totally clueless.
I’d have at least some turbulent emotions to deal with and wouldn’t be as happy-go-lucky as Chelsea!
I know Mortimer was trying to show that despite being only 19, Chelsea was mature and resilient.
Although I doubt that people twenty years older would have such an easy time adjusting after such a series of tragic events in so brief a time.
But maybe it’s me, and I’m just a judgmental, emotional curmudgeon.
Final Analysis of Trust in Tomorrow
Whether the book is called Cherish Tomorrow or Trust in Tomorrow, it makes no difference. Both the hero and heroine deserved to be in a better book than this one, because this was not one of Carole Mortimer’s best works.
For a more satisfactory Harlequin Presents by this author, with a similar plot of a free-spirited heroine in love with an older man, I’d recommend Darkness into Light instead.
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| Overall: | 2.7 |
Synopsis
It was ironic, thought Chelsea, that the man she had adored as a child seven years ago should now think she was a hooker!
But once his mistake had been sorted out, and she had told him why she had suddenly turned up on his doorstep, Lucas McAdams was very kind to her.
He comforted her when she at long last cried over her mother’s death; was furious with her when she inadvertently gave her story to the newspapers; and kissed her until she was breathless when she was rude to his mistress.
And Chelsea fell in love with him!
But Lucas believed she was still in shock from her mother’s death and tried to keep his distance!
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