The Surgeon's Lady by Carla Kelly
Dec. 6th, 2009 02:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreSomehow, I missed the fact that Carla Kelly was writing again until I saw a secondhand copy of this. Apparently, this is her second book since returning, as it’s the second book in a series.
Widowed after years of nursing her much-older husband, Laura Taunton is finally free of him (she was literally sold to him by her father) and ready to live her own life when she receives a letter from a half-sister she didn’t know she had. When she meets her sister, who is married to a naval captain, she also meets Philemon Brittle, a naval surgeon, and soon becomes involved in his work with wounded soldiers.
Kelly’s romances tend to be very straightforward and down-to-earth, and her angst-of which there is always plenty-more realistic than most. She also tends to avoid the upper class characters most Regency writers use, focusing instead on the middle classes. Unfortunately, this isn’t so much out of interest in the middle classes as it is disinterest in learning titles and rules, something that shows when she does include the upper classes. In this case, Laura’s husband was an aristocrat, but there was a very “modern” feel to her working in the ward, and her interactions with Philemon in general. Kelly also got a bit close to Laura needing Philemon and his manliness to heal her wounds for my taste.
Still, a “lesser” Kelly is still well worth reading, and I’m glad she’s writing again.
Widowed after years of nursing her much-older husband, Laura Taunton is finally free of him (she was literally sold to him by her father) and ready to live her own life when she receives a letter from a half-sister she didn’t know she had. When she meets her sister, who is married to a naval captain, she also meets Philemon Brittle, a naval surgeon, and soon becomes involved in his work with wounded soldiers.
Kelly’s romances tend to be very straightforward and down-to-earth, and her angst-of which there is always plenty-more realistic than most. She also tends to avoid the upper class characters most Regency writers use, focusing instead on the middle classes. Unfortunately, this isn’t so much out of interest in the middle classes as it is disinterest in learning titles and rules, something that shows when she does include the upper classes. In this case, Laura’s husband was an aristocrat, but there was a very “modern” feel to her working in the ward, and her interactions with Philemon in general. Kelly also got a bit close to Laura needing Philemon and his manliness to heal her wounds for my taste.
Still, a “lesser” Kelly is still well worth reading, and I’m glad she’s writing again.