If Love at All Ages can be said to have a plot, it’s the wedding of the vicar Mr. Oriel and Lady Gwendolyn, the sister of the Duke of Towers (not to be confused with the Earl of Pomfret Towers). If these names do not sound familiar, it’s because as far as I can remember, we have not met these characters before, or anyone else in that family, and we don’t really seem to get to know them now. However, other familiar characters help with or appear at the wedding.
The back of the novel also mentions the christening of the first child of Lady William Harcourt (previously Edith Graham, who monopolized at least three of the previous novels), but by the time we get done with the wedding, I’d forgotten it.
The title hints that the book includes another love affair, and since Lady Gwendolyn and her intended are well into middle age, the implication is that it involves younger people. This is just a hint that there may be a suitable mate for young Ludo, Lord Mellings, the heir of the Earl of Pomfret.
Otherwise, the book contains the usual plethora of literary allusions, tea parties, boating parties, and so on. The preoccupations that I complained about last time are still all there, too—including yet another mention of Mrs. Fewling’s lack of proper undergarments when she was still Margot Phelps—although not repeated as often. However, there is a scene where Lydia Merton remembers her husband’s old infatuation (with someone very much like Mrs. Brandon but not her, I can’t remember) and then two pages later, her husband thinks about it, and as if that weren’t enough, it’s mentioned again later in the book.
So, no improvement here and less interest, because so much of the book is about characters we don’t know and don’t get to know. However, there’s only one book left to go. (In fact, the cover of my book says this one is the last one, which if it were, would be quite a disappointment as the last in the series.)
whatmeread 
It felt to me like Edith went from being a feckless girl with three potential suitors to a stately young matron and mother with virtually no exposition on the page. I don’t have any real attachment to Edith as a character, but after all the page time that was spent on her prior to her marriage, it seemed odd not to have more of her romance fleshed out. This made it hard for me to care about her daughter’s christening, which was a shame since I wasn’t invested in the “all ages” romance between Mr. Oriel and Lady Gwendolyn, either. The developing romance between Ludo and Lavinia was sweet, but would have been more enjoyable if Lavinia hadn’t been yet another character who appeared out of nowhere. This was definitely not a high point in the series for me, but worth reading because of my affection for the series as a whole.
Yes, I agree with you. It’s almost like, at the end of the series, she’s drawing rabbits out of her hat to be partners for the long-standing characters, and then she brings Mr. Oriel and Lady Gwendolyn out of the hat, too.
Oh dear, I hope the last one picks up a bit. Sounds like she’d eschewed editors by this point, with this repetition again. Well done for pressing on!
I am sort of dreading it, because I understand now that it was finished after her death by a friend. Maybe that will be an improvement, maybe not, but anyway, it explains why some lists of the novels include it and some do not.