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Look to the Stars

Look to the Stars was exactly the book I needed to read at exactly the right moment I needed to read it. Lately my brain has been in over-drive, catastrophizing and just generally keeping me from sleeping soundly. Look to the Stars was the perfect Regency novella to reset my mind – it’s light on conflict, although the conflict is still there, and I loved the main characters. It’s more a short chronicling of a romance than anything.

Miriam Rosenbaum, an American heiress, is in London with her mother and four sisters for the Season. Her mother is an expat who married an American, and now is returning to London to try and find husbands for her daughters. All Miriam cares about the London Academy of Astronomical Sciences and the astronomers she’s been corresponding with. Miriam could care less about marriage – she’s here for the science, baby. While she isn’t particularly concerned with socializing, when invitations don’t start rolling in, she knows it’s because her family is Jewish, and she sees the pain it causes her family.

Their hostess’s son (and future Earl) Leo Blakeley is looking to escape his uncle forcing him into an arranged marriage, so he pretends to court Miriam. Hilariously, Miriam has other shit to worry about and is unaware that’s what he’s doing. “You want to take me for ices again? Okay, I guess. Let’s hurry back. I got stuff to do.” As a result the two build up a friendship that comes before falling in love.

I think that this book worked for me because, like I said, there wasn’t overwhelming conflict. There is some gentle misunderstanding, but mostly it’s about two people getting to know each other and falling in love. Miriam and her family receive slights due to their religion, and that prejudice is something that’s never resolved, just acknowledged – which I think is fair. It’s not a problem that you can solve today, let alone in a novella.

Overall Look to the Stars cheered me up immensely, and that’s what I look to books, especially romance, for in the first place.

– Elyse

Leonato Blakeley, heir to the earldom of Pennyworth, has no intention of marrying any time soon. He’s not against marriage, unless the term is being paired with his name. His great-uncle, the matchmaking Duke of Danby, has arrived in town, and Leo needs A Plan.

American heiress Miriam Rosenbaum has crossed an ocean to study the stars with the best scientists in the field. Well, perhaps her mother thinks they’re in London to find husbands for the scandalous Madcap Rosenbaum sisters. But Miriam is determined not only to visit the Royal Observatory, but participate in their groundbreaking research.

Together, they might have a chance at accomplishing their goals. But when the Season is over, walling away from each other might be their greatest challenge yet.