Though marketed as a Victorian, the story is a Regency romance that begins in 1815. Lady Sophronia Sorrow (Sophie”) is a bluestocking who likes to categorize people like animals. She comes from an interesting family where her mother’s husband tolerates her affairs and the children they produce (including Sophie).
Lord Rafe Gilbert is a rake (“rakus lasciviosus”) who also likes to study animals and enjoys his conversations with Sophie as she is refreshingly different. His father, a duke, is a man who rules with an iron hand and forbids Rafe from speaking with her. To bend Rafe to his will, he threatens Rafe with harm to Rafe’s mother. So Rafe does as he is ordered and Sophie feels abandoned. She marries the only man courting her, who turns out to be a bad guy.
With Sophie now widowed and Rafe returned from a South Seas voyage, the two find themselves on a journey together from London to a castle in the Scottish Highlands where they search for a doctor who may have answers for them both (Sophie seeks the name of her father; Rafe seeks a cure for his mother’s melancholy).
The story’s set up was very clever and Sophie is an endearing heroine. However, the duke’s son suddenly becomes a Scot with a kilt when he crosses the border on his way north. And, about one third through, the story dragged with unnecessary repetitions. I began skipping paragraphs and missed nothing. The ending was better with the mystery solved as to Sophie’s sire, however, loose ends remained at the end, presumably for future books. Still, it was a worthy effort by a talented author with some charming scenes.
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