This RITA® Reader Challenge 2016 review was written by K Smith. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Long Historical category.

Here is K Smith's review:

If I had not signed up to review this book, I would never have thought about it critically (or at all). Unfortunately, I did, and there are…problems. Let’s get this straight: I love this story. Love. I just want to acknowledge that it is liable to enrage some folks, so let’s wade right into trouble.

But first, so as not to have spoilers ahead of the jump, and also because I cannot refrain from referencing The Toast (what will we do without it?) I need to share with you this passage:

…when a man offered exquisite verse, his gaze full of sincerity and sentiment, a lady was helpless not to listen.

This is meant in all earnestness, but made me think of Mallory Ortberg, particularly the last couple paintings.

This is the best kind of problem to have, and was honestly the only part of the book that jarred me from a state of perfectly mindless bliss while I was reading.

When I tried to put the review together, however, the book started to fall apart. Warning: spoilery spoilers that will spoil things follow.

The heroine is, essentially, a doctor. Her family wants her to give it up, but she will not. She compares her devotion to healing to the sexual proclivities of one of her brothers:

“Nicholas worries that I’ll contract some dread disease, but he worries gossip will see you swinging from a gibbet.”

The brother is at risk because he’s a secondary character who’s attracted to men in a historical romance, and thus has terrific odds of just such tragic death (and/or sudden villainy). He argues that he doesn’t have a choice – which is a refreshing if anachronistic view of sexuality – while she is choosing to put herself at risk by doctoring the poor. The understanding of contagion is also anachronistic but you have to roll with it.* Everyone believes our heroine is risking her life because she doesn’t value herself or her happiness properly. She claims she does what she must, because she must.

Sometimes, caring for the sick warmed Nita’s heart, more often it broke her heart.
It is unclear if she has a real calling, or is martyring herself because no one can be bothered to lure a competent doctor to the environs, freeing her for the life she’d rather.

Sigh. It is the latter. Though the hero has an epiphany and supports her right to catch and spread plague as she likes, what she likes is to settle down with fat babies of her own, maybe consult as a midwife now and again, precisely as she was unwilling to do – until she has her own (simultaneous, it’s always simultaneous in Romancelandia) epiphany and sees that risking your life is so cruel to your loved ones that you should hire someone else to do tough icky things.

This is deeply unsatisfying to contemplate. It’s like Gift of the Magi on steroids.

Also, the angsty brother? Marries a lady in distress and will be true to her and all is well. Look, I’m thrilled that someone who is bisexual even exists in fiction, and can be faithful, no less. At first I just wanted him to be happy with himself, and her to be safe, and they are so yay. Ultimately, unfortunately, this secondary romance is somewhat unconvincing.

I thought the passage about the oldest brother’s worry was there because while watching someone else follow their dreams can be harrowing, love or avocation is not a choice. But it turns out that really you should always obey your local representative of the patriarchy and settle down to a comfortable life near your family with lots of babies in the epilogue.

If this thesis fills you with rage you have my blessing, and encouragement to go into politics, or write romance novels, or become a social worker, or generally address the wrongs of the world however you see fit. I get it, I do. So you want to know how this book gets an A-. I can’t help it! I loved this book. I loved the experience of reading it. My mind may not be improved, my politics are certainly not satisfied, but I don’t expect or even necessarily want that from art. Did it move me, did it engage me, did it make me care? Absolutely! Did it transform me? Not so much. Was it cathartic? Oh, yes. Did it make me happy? Very. And that is what I want from a romance novel.

But how? How could it make me so happy when it’s enmeshed in patriarchal propagative propaganda?

The writing is great. Burrowes is consistently one of the coolest stylists out there. The many characters are delightful. I joke about angsty brother being aware that he’s fictional, but in fact he is a very believable, three dimensional presence. He’s more real to me than any number of people I actually know, and that is wholly typical of all these characters, however minor. They have interconnected, dynamic relationships, fraught, confused, wonderful and real. There is warmth and complexity and humor in these relationships, and in the novel as a result.

The hero and heroine get along splendidly, and fall in love smoothly but believably. It is gratifying to witness. I genuinely like them both, and I believe they will be happy together – this should be a given in a romance novel, but judging by the thousands I have read, it’s difficult to manage. There are the concerns of a large family and neighborhood to ensure there is always something happening, making it engaging without requiring the hero or heroine to behave poorly in order to produce a plot. Let me repeat that because it’s a big deal: at no point does anyone act out of character because reasons. The big misunderstanding arises plausibly and is dealt with swiftly, without inane posturing. Only other avid romance fans can appreciate how unusual and thrilling that is.

This book is not just fluff, with all attendant pros and cons. I don’t read romance for its progressive agenda, fortunately for me, but it’s certainly worth commending when it happens. There is no judging of the sexual adventures of the heroine, her sisters, or indeed the village whore, except by explicit villains. The solidarity is great.

There is some domestic abuse. Of course that’s difficult to read about, but it’s written about sensitively, there is no victim blaming nonsense, and the situation is remedied, not left to be resolved in a sequel. Speaking of tough to read about, there is reference to a dead baby, if that’s a deal breaker. For me, in this instance, all the grit makes for an emotional payoff. Burrowes is one of a few authors that could pull that off, and she really delivers. They don’t live happily ever after in a world with no winter; they are happy even though it’s brutally cold.

I beg you: read the book, don’t think about it. It is delightful, it is entrancing, it is perfectly crafted, emotionally satisfying entertainment. It is not morally improving. Art doesn’t have to be.