The elements that I loved about the first Emily Wilde book are still present in this story and I couldn’t be happier. Emily is still a delightfully grumpy scholar, which is still the perfect foil to Wendell’s lackadaisical sunshine viewpoint of the world. Their banter is still adorable and so fun. Emily is still single minded with her research, for the most part, but in the “Map of the Otherlands” we finally see Emily grow more emotionally, occasionally. Our girl still has work to do. But in this book, Emily, Wendell, and her niece all embark to Austria in search of Wendell’s Faerie door, which will finally lead him back to his home kingdom. But before they get very far in their search, assassin’s sent by his step-mother, and a threat from Emily’s professorial supervisor immediately complicate things and make the journey all the more urgent.

I’ll just come out and say it: I need more sapphic regency romance like this one! You have Lucy, a burgeoning astronomer trying to take up the mantel of her deceased father all while recovering from crushing heartbreak. And then the Countess of Moth, Catherine, who thought she was done with scientists after her husband’s death, until Lucy shows up on her door demanding to be allowed to undertake the challenge of translating the latest French astronomer’s text into English. Smart, artistic women forging a way for themselves in “proper society” on their own terms where they are given their due AND can remain independent without having to marry themselves off? 10000% yes please! There was only one thing about this book that made it drag at times…

This was my first Edwardian historical fiction romance and I have to say, it was kind of charming. You still have the formal gowns and bodices of regency romances, the demure courtship practices, and the flowery language that makes historical fiction romances so delicious, but there are just enough modern touches (like cars) to give it a bit of a twist. In “Proper English” we follow Pat, who is about to embark on a new adventure with leaving her family home now that her brother is married. With no desire to marry a man, Pat needs to figure out what her new purpose is now that she’s not managing a household estate. She has dreams to open a shooting school for women, or perhaps becoming a lady’s companion, but nothing is grabbing her yet. She hopes that a house party where she can shoot and show off her marksmen skills with her brother, their family friend, and a few others will be just the break she needs to figure out what new direction her life will take. That’s until the house party gets crashed by her friends’ fiancée, and a slew of guests neither she nor her brother were expecting. As Pat’s passions kindle for Fen, a locked door “whodunit” murder mystery threatens to destroy not just her blossoming romance, but her brother and her friends' life as well. You’ll come to this book for the sapphic romance, but stay for the murder mystery, trust me.

I’m familiar with the Island of Doctor Moreau in the way that most people are: I’ve heard of it, know the basic story of a mad scientist doctor making human/animal hybrids through vivisection, and that’s about it. It’s a “classic” so of course I haven’t read it cover to cover. But that didn’t stop me from being intrigued by the re-imagining of said classic with the added bonus of the doctor’s daughter (who doesn’t exist in the original). When you add that it's set in a historical fiction backdrop during nineteenth century Mexico, and the conflict between the native Maya population and the Spanish/European colonizers, then I'm sold! With that setting, Doctor Moreau’s hybrids have a much more chilling, and all too real, purpose: a form of slave labor to the wealthy landowner and patron of our mad doctor. The writing was lovely and I thought fit the time period the book is set in perfectly, and I loved the parallels made between the hybrids and how most indigenous populations are treated by colonizers. So why didn’t I love this book?

“Two Rivers” is a slice-of-life antebellum story like no other. It offers an intimate look at the life of the enslaved on a rice plantation outside of their forced labor duties. But even describing it as such doesn’t quite capture the weight of this book. While the narrative follows many characters, the 84-year-old Uncle Posey is front and center for much of the story, experiencing loss, love, and the struggles of life. The author doesn’t need to show the horrors these men and women faced while in the fields. Instead, Rogers shows us the more domestic side of the enslaved lives when they are swapping stories and meals, with Posey—originally—merely wanting to keep grave robbers from stealing his sister’s body, and finding love and peace again after being a widower for so long. With his sons gone—sold after a failed rebellion—Posey knows too well that there is no such thing as a “good” master.  Even if he is treated with kindness, he knows that such kindness is meaningless. With characters like Posey in the situation they’re in, the reader is shown the brutal and uncomfortable relationship between the enslaved and the enslavers on a “friendly” plantation.  For a historical fiction, this book gave me hints of “Stamped from the Beginning” with its window into the origins of racism, as well as “Kindred” with the story’s more intimate look at the lives of the enslaved when they aren’t being forced to labor for another’s gain.