This HaBO is from Laura, who wants to find a particular historical romance for a friend:
Somebody came to me for romance expertise & it bugs me that I can’t figure out what book this is! Here’s the description that was given to me:
“It is a historical romance novel set in the 1800s where a girl switches places with her brother to go to a university. The girl wants to become a doctor so she disguises herself as her brother. However, the girl ends up falling for one of her professors and to keep the charade up, she meets him when she is dressed as herself and he ends up falling in love with her. In the middle of the story, the girl even ends up performing a successful c-section on her sister. In the end her professor, finds out and they get married and open up a practice together.”
I’ll admit that’s a really cute HEA. Anyone know this?
Sounds like Miss Grimsley’s Oxford Career by Carla Kelly.
https://www.amazon.com/Grimsleys-Oxford-Career-Carla-Kelly-ebook/dp/B008S3GJYC/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8#navbar
Wait a minute I don’t remember a c-section in that so maybe not
My first thought was also Miss Grimsley’s Oxford Career, but I remember Miss Grimsley wanted to study literature, not become a doctor, and there’s definitely no c-section in the story.
Someone please figure this out, it seems like candy to me!!! must read!
Can we please have a boatload of recs for books of this sort? 😀 *rolls in all the catnip*
This isn’t the answer, but a similar rec:
Heaven’s Fire by Patricia Ryan
It’s set in medieval Oxford. The heroine disguises herself as a boy and hides in the household of an Oxford professor.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t the book in the HaBo, but for Cas’s request for more books along these lines, I’d suggest Domina by Barbara Wood. It also took place in the 1800s as a story of a woman who went to college to be a doctor – in this case, I think the loophole was that she applied and was accepted under her initials instead of her name.
There’s no women dressing up as men (that I remember), and the romance side of the story is kind of weak compared to the overall medical story, but it’s an interesting read for anyone that likes historical fiction. One of the major storylines revolves around a courtroom battle over false labeling of patent medication, and another around opium addiction. I picked it up at a used book store a long time ago and it’s on my “keep and re-read every few years” list.
Aww, that book sounds cute! I read something similar once but I’m pretty sure it’s not the same book because the girl was studying to be a lawyer, not a doctor, and it was just a subplot in the middle of a book about something else.
I hope someone knows the title because I love all crossdressing tropes.
When I read the description I thought of Whom the Gods Love, by Kate Ross, but the girl who masquerates as her brother is only a secondary character there, so perhaps this is the book Ren is thinking of? I would recommend it, only: It’s not a romance, but a historical mystery; it’s the third in a series (the Julian Kestrel Mysteries), it seems to be out of print, and due to the fact that the author tragically died in her early fourties there’s only four books in the series, and there is no real resolution to the series’ main character’s storyline. Still, if somebody likes historical mysteries, they’re very good, full of fascinating characters (including the girl who pretends to be her brother).
Yep, that’s the book I was thinking of, thanks Rasa. Good book, though I liked the first and the fourth book better. Despite the lack of a “proper” resolution to the series (Kate Ross found out she had cancer and cut short the plot she had planned to develop over several more books) I thought the finale was very satisfying. Don’t know about it being out of print but an ebook version is available.
Not the same time period, but worth a mention because it’s so darn good, The Beacon at Alexandria by Gillian Bradshaw is set at the time of the Byzantine Empire. The heroine disguises herself as a young man to go study medicine in Eygypt which was a center of learning then. Then she works as a doctor at a Byzantine army camp in the Balkans. It’s one of my favorite historicals of all time because she’s so earnest and competent. And there’s a love interest.
This is a tangent, but it reminded me of the movie The Major and the Minor. Very cute, with the delightful Ginger Rogers who disguises herself as a 12 year old girl in order to ride the train at a cheaper fare. I’ll leave it to your curiosity how that turns into a romance (it’s not creepy).
@Kris Bock – I love that movie! Every time I watch it I think there is no way it could ever be remade because it just would be creepy set anytime but in the 1940’s. I don’t know how Ray Milland manages to pull it off without veering into creepster but I just find him charming. The entire movie makes me laugh from “Well Madame Curie brew me up some perfume” to Ginger Rogers as twelve year old heartbreaker Suesue.
If you’re strictly looking for women disguised as men, my all time favorite is Tamora Pierce, Lioness series. Four YA books about girl who takes her brother’s place in knight training. I just love all the reveals when other people find out.
I miss the Tortall universe. I really wish she’d write some new ones again.
I at least feel better that others are also stumped! Miss Grimley’s Oxford Career is one I kept coming across in my searches, also Almost a Scandal by Elizabeth Essex (impersonating her brother to join the navy).
“Do we not bleed?” (the James Enys mysteries volume 1) by Patricia Finney aka P F Chisholm has a heroine who masquerades as her brother to study as a lawyer in Elizabethan England. It’s a mystery with romantic elements. I’m hoping that a sequel won’t be too long arriving.
@ Amy: Thank you very much!
I hate to stay off-topic, but I’m also chiming in with love for the Kate Ross books, which got even better as the (short) series progressed. Such a loss.
@Olivia
Tamora Pierce is writing a new Tortall series called Exile. The first book will be The Gift of Power and comes out 2017.
This doesn’t hit all the points, but is a fictionalized biography of an actual woman:
“At the turn of the nineteenth century, ten-year-old James Miranda Barry enrolled as a medical student in Edinburgh, the start of a glorious career as a military surgeon. Across the Empire, Barry achieved fame not only as a brilliant physician, but also a legendary duellist and a celebrated social figure. But James Miranda Barry was also a woman. Her greatest achievement of all had been to ‘pass’ for a man for more than fifty years. Patricia Duncker’s novel tells Barry’s story for the first time, in a richly inventive and entertaining tale of dark family secrets, adultery, questioned paternity and colonial history.”
The Doctor (in the U.S.) or James Miranda Perry ( in the U.K.) by Patricia Duncker
Darn it, why is there no Kindle version of The Beacon at Alexandria? I was primed for an impulse buy.
Thanks to Minerva for reccing Heaven’s Fire, I devoured it very quickly and then read another of her books. Was also genuinely surprised by the villain in both, but maybe because I wasn’t really looking both times.
DUDE THIS BOOK IS ON WATTPAD OMG BUT I DONT REMEMBER THE NAME UGHH. ITS ONE PART OF A WHOLE SERIES OF BOOKS. EACH BROTHER AND SISTER HAS THEIR OWN BOOK