Book Review

The Nature of a Lady by Roseanna M. White

The Nature of a Lady is a gorgeous story full of secrets and treasure hunts and mysteries and adventure, with a very sweet central romance and a strong sense of place. It is also that rare gem, an Inspirational romance that really works for me both as a romance and on a theological level, while also being just a really good read.

Lady Elizabeth Sinclair has never been good at fitting in where she is supposed to. She is shy and socially awkward, and finds high society gatherings excruciating because she is both bored and doesn’t know what to say. She would much rather spend her time with her microscope or with her pencils and watercolours, studying the natural world and sketching the diversity of flora and fauna.

Asking her to dance and flirt and attend musicales and teas was like asking a storm petrel to walk confidently on land or dive a yard beneath the surface. She wasn’t suited for it.

When her brother decides that the best thing for her is to marry his friend, Lord Sheridan, whom she doesn’t even like, Libby is appalled, and is quick to accept her maid Mabena’s suggestion that she remove herself from the situation by visiting the Isles of Scilly. Mabena was born in the Scillies, her family are happy to keep an eye on Libby, and her mother approves. Moreover, the islands will be full of new flora and fauna to catalogue – and hopefully while she is gone, Sheridan will come to his senses and realise that Libby will not make him a good wife.

But once on the island, matters quickly become mysterious. Strange men approach Libby with codewords, messengers, and strange gifts, all intended for another Elizabeth, Beth Tremayne. Until two weeks ago, Beth was renting the cottage that Libby and Mabena now occupy, but she has mysteriously vanished. And while Beth is independent and can handle herself, her brother, Oliver, is getting worried.

I loved the adventure aspects of the plot. That initial moment of mistaken identity is just brilliant. Of course when someone asks Libby, ‘Are you Elizabeth’ she is going to say yes. And then suddenly, she is holding an 18 pound cannonball and she has no idea why. As a premise to hook me, it was unparalleled. The plot reminded me a little bit of some of the Daphne du Maurier and Susan Cooper stories I read as a child. Perhaps it’s just that you can’t write a story about Cornwall without having Hidden Pirate Treasure one way or another. Anyway, it really worked for me.

The central romance is a fairly straightforward one. Oliver, in addition to being Beth’s brother, is the vicar of the parish, and also something of a scholar of natural history, particularly botany. He and Libby met once, years ago, shortly after the death of Libby’s father, and he encouraged her interest in botany. There is liking and respect between them from the start, and their mutual attraction grows as they work together to try to discover what happened to his sister (and what it was she was so mysteriously looking for).

She’d always wondered what drew a bee to a flower, what allure nectar had that would bring them flying in from miles away for just a taste. Now she knew. She’d fly miles too, if she had the wings for it, for this moment.

It’s the kind of relationship that feels like coming home. They are intelligent, kind, conscientious people, they make each other better and happier people, and they just fit well together. The only barrier to their relationship is one of class: while Oliver’s father is gentry, his mother was from a farming family, and Libby is the sister of a Viscount.

If Libby’s relationship with Oliver is straightforward, her relationship with her maid, Mabena, is interestingly complex. At the beginning of the book, Libby views Mabena as a friend rather than a servant; she has no real friends of her own class, and she is very lonely (and a trifle naive). But the fact is that she is Mabena’s employer, and this places constraints on the friendship. Mabena may be fond of Libby, but she can’t afford to forget that she is the maid, and this imbalance of power prevents true intimacy. It takes Libby far too long to really understand this, and she is hurt when she finally realises how much Mabena has been hiding from her. Ladies have no secrets from their maids, but the converse doesn’t apply.

I liked the delicate and sympathetic way the story handled this relationship. Both Mabena and Libby are viewpoint characters, and we get to see how this situation appears from both sides.

This is an Inspirational romance, so the characters’ spiritual journeys are an important part of the plot. I think the theological and faith aspects of the book are incorporated pretty seamlessly into the narrative and themes of the story. Having said that, I’m a person of faith, and I am interested in theology, and really liked the main theological argument of this book, so my tolerance for this may be higher than yours. On the other hand, excessive talk about one’s personal relationship with God does make me roll my eyes. I had to roll my eyes twice in this book, if that helps at all.

For Oliver, the journey is fairly straightforward. He is a clergyman, and comfortable with his faith, but during the course of the book, he needs Libby’s help to let go of an old rivalry and to see his former nemesis as a potential friend.

Libby’s journey was far more interesting to me. At the start of the book she has no time for God. She is a student of natural history, she understands Darwin’s theory of evolution, and she has been taught that her scientific understanding necessarily precludes belief in God. Incidentally, as a person of faith who works in a scientific field, I have heard this argument from atheists and people of faith alike, and find it thoroughly exasperating. Anyway, since Libby’s scientific understanding is backed up by the evidence of her senses, naturally she chooses science.

She didn’t see creatures in need of a God to form every claw and beak and feather and dictate to them how they must work. What she saw were creatures capable of adaptation – creatures that evolved to fit whatever environment they were in. Creatures that fought and killed and ate and were eaten, that mated and reproduced and defended their young.

I was really, really worried about where the story was going to go with this.

But to my delight, the narrative, largely in the form of Oliver, affirms Libby’s scientific leanings, and firmly rejects the idea that science and faith must be incompatible:

“I always hear everyone speaking of the mysteries, and they quote the verse where Jesus said no one knows what makes a seed grow. But we do now. Does that mean I’m faithless, because I see only those rules as necessary, rather than the hand of God guiding every seed from planting to harvest?”

“No. Far from it. Humanity has grown. Our understanding has deepened. We know things now that Jesus couldn’t have said to people nineteen hundred years ago, because they wouldn’t have known what He was talking about. Some mysteries are no longer mysteries. That isn’t a lack of faith, to say so. It’s instead acknowledging that He created us capable of discovering nuances in the rest of creation. There is nothing wrong with that. Science and faith do not need to be at odds.”

I really loved this passage. And I loved that this is a novel in which the beauty of nature is celebrated, and the study of the natural world is seen almost as another way to worship God.

Indeed, a central idea in this story is the idea that love cannot exist without knowing, and that to truly know something is to love it. Libby and Mabena’s relationship cannot become a real friendship until the secrets between them have been revealed. Once they are able to know each other, they can love each other better. Libby’s love of the natural world is increased by her knowledge of it, and her growing understanding of nature makes her love it even more. And God’s love for creation is explained in a similar way: how can God not love the things God has made and knows?

Another thing that Libby grows to both know and love are the Isles of Scilly themselves. Initially, this love is about the flora and fauna of the islands, but as the story progresses, it also becomes about the people and about finding a place where she belongs. On the Isles of Scilly, she can set aside Lady Elizabeth and be Libby, and this truer version of herself is able to make the sorts of friendships that she has not had before. It’s another variation on the theme of love coming from knowledge: the people she meets on the Scillies come to know her as she truly is, and so they find her lovable in a way her society acquaintances could not.

There is some really beautiful writing in this book, especially when we are in Libby’s viewpoint. She observes everything with such careful, loving detail, and fits it into her understanding of the natural world as she goes. And I love that she brings the same attention to detail and analysis to watching Oliver rowing:

She’d never thought herself the sort to admire a man’s musculature and physical prowess. But she had to admit, watching him move, that his able form ignited a purely animal response inside her. Not surprising from a biological standpoint, of course. It was the attraction to the fittest that allowed them to survive, by Darwin’s theory. They were the ones to attract a mate, to reproduce, to pass their superior traits along to the next generation.

Her cheeks warmed.

Ooh baby, hit me with your sexy natural selection talk…

I thoroughly enjoyed The Nature of a Lady. The adventure plot was engaging and pleasingly twisty, and kept me wondering what was going on. The romance was sweet and gentle, and the friendships and secondary characters were fantastic. I loved the story’s passionate defense of science, and its loving, generous approach to faith.

But most of all, I loved the story’s delight in the beauties of the natural world. This book left me with a profound desire to visit the Isles of Scilly, to look for water birds, explore the botanical gardens and investigate the ruined castles (pirate treasure optional). By the end of the story, I was beginning to feel homesick for a place that I’ve never even visited.

If you like a story with plenty of adventure, a beautiful setting, and interesting characters, and you don’t mind a bit of theology in your romance, I think you’ll really enjoy this.

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The Nature of a Lady by Roseanna White

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  1. Lynn says:

    I just ordered this book after reading this insightful review. I am an atheist but I always find it interesting to read about faithful characters and their struggles and beliefs – especially in historical settings where religion paid a much larger role in every day life. Also I am always ready to read about nature and plants, you really sold me on this one. This sounds like a good mix of romance and adventure and I’m looking forward to reading it as soon as it arrives.

  2. LisaM says:

    Reading this too quickly, while my first cup of morning caffeine brews, I misread the Scillies for Sicily, and then wondered why there was an English parish with a vicar (and why the viscount let his sister travel there with just her maid). All is clear now, and this sounds lovely.

  3. Jodi says:

    I am relatively new to being comfortable with my faith, but this sounds like one of the loveliest type of Inspirationals where it’s just part of the characters’ lives and influences their choices instead of being oddly shoehorned in at weird circumstances (like when a contemporary couple is kissing and suddenly stops because religion).

    I think I need this one. Thank you for the lovely review!

  4. Lisa F says:

    This has been getting positive reviews down the line; good review Catherine Heloise!

  5. Kareni says:

    Catherine, thanks for your thoughtful review. This does sound excellent.

  6. This sounds interesting, and I enjoy reading a good Inspirational romance every now and then just to keep up with the subgenre.

  7. Mswhatsit says:

    An inspirational romance that isn’t theological trash? My white whale! I will be reading this!

  8. Laura says:

    I’m not a religious person but I’m deeply spiritual and I’ve avoided inspirational romances because I was worried it would be too heavy with religious dogma. But this looks like a lovely interesting love story and I’m all in!

  9. Laura says:

    @Lynn–if you haven’t read it, The Weight of Ink is a gorgeous novel (not a romance) about a young woman trying to find her voice within her Jewish faith in 17th century England and a 21st scholar trying to save her voice over 300 years later.

  10. Stefanie Magura says:

    @Katherine Heloise:

    I can’t speak to the quality of her books, but Roseanna White has three past series all set within the Edwardian/ World War I era if this is the first you’ve read of her.

  11. Randall M says:

    I’ve got to admit I don’t think I could read this one without knowing what happened to Beth. Because I would be spending the entire book worrying about her. Even if we never meet her before Libby starts receiving her mysterious packages.

  12. Ruth Anderson says:

    I’m so glad to see Roseanna White featured here as she is one of my absolute favorite inspy authors. If you like this might I suggest her Shadows Over England series? SPIES!!

  13. @Ruth – I’ll definitely give those a look. Inspies are not my usual fare, because I’m a theology nerd and can get very cranky if I don’t like a book’s take on this, but this was really lovely.

    @Lynn – The Weight of Ink sounds fantastic too, I’ll definitely look into that.

    @Randall – For what it’s worth, I’m an anxious sort of person with an unpleasantly vivid imagination and a tendency towards nightmares. I didn’t have an issue with this story. It’s not the sort of book where horrible, terrible things happen to people, either on or off the page.

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