2020 Victorian romance. Neville Cross has always got on with animals
better than with people, particularly since the injury that made it
hard for him to speak. Clara Hartwright is a lady's companion with
unconventional plans for the future. Will they turn a brief
acquaintance during a Christmas visit into something more?
Yes, of course they will. This is a romance. But as always the
question is how we'll get to the predestined ending and what else
will happen. This is the Victorian age, so Neville's disability
readily leads to most people dismissing him as stupid and useless –
and indeed his growth here takes him out of the safe and accepting
space he's found for himself and out into a world that he reasonably
expects to dismiss him. More seriously, even people sympathetic
towards him are prone to see him as an overgrown adolescent…
Meanwhile Clara has taken on an elderly pug, who of course needs
special care, and guess who's the guy who ends up dealing with
all the animals…
I enjoyed the intertwining stories, but I never found myself entirely
caught up in the romance; what should have been visceral and emotional
engagement ended up coming over as something rather flatter. Matthews
doesn't insert the bedroom scenes that many romance writers do, and I
wonder whether in removing all that she's also dialled back the actual
love a little too far. There's emotion here, desperation, relief, but
always for me at a slight distance.
Good fun nonetheless and I'll read more by Matthews.
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