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It’s the early 1800s in Edinburgh, and Hazel Sinnett is destined to marry her cousin, who will become a viscount. Her mother wants her to focus on ladylike things. But Hazel wants to become a doctor. She has studied the writings of the famed Dr. Beecham, and now that doctor’s grandson is teaching surgery.
Dressed in her late older brother’s clothes, Hazel attends introductory classes. But when she is discovered, she is not allowed to continue. She does, however, make a deal with Dr. Beecham: if she can pass the medical exam, a few months later, on her own, she will be allowed to enroll in the university.
Problem is, Hazel knows she won’t learn enough from books alone. She needs to study corpses. After meeting a resurrection man by chance outside the Anatomist’s Society, she decides to pay him herself to bring her fresh bodies from the cemetery.
Jack Currer, for his part, thinks it’s a strange thing to be getting bodies for a 16-year-old young woman, but she’s paying him well, and he has to get by. He does need her help at the graves, though; the boy who often works with him has disappeared. In fact, as time goes on, he and Hazel hear more stories of the city’s poor going missing. Many never return, but a few relate strange, hazy memories that sound fantastical.
As Hazel and Jack work together, they fall in love, but Hazel has a planned, comfortable future to consider, as well as society’s (and her mother’s) expectations to deal with. Even more pressing, however, is the danger they find themselves in as they investigate what’s happening to the least of Edinburgh’s residents.
Anatomy: A Love Story is just my type of book: it’s one part Regency romance with a heroine who is smart, determined and ahead of her time. The other part is a love story of science and medicine. It’s all steeped in a gothic brew. Luckily, I just discovered it (so glad I browse the Reese’s book club picks occasionally!), and the second book of the duology (Immortality) is ready for me to read.
Rated: Moderate. Profanity includes a few instances of moderate profanity, a handful of uses of mild language, and fewer than 10 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes a few scenes of kissing and a possibility that a couple has had sex, but there are no details and it’s unclear. Violence occurs occasionally, and there are a lot of descriptions of dead bodies, after they are dug up and have started to decompose, and as they are being cut up for anatomy studies. Some bad people are doing bad things to both cadavers and living people, some of the latter leading to death. There’s a good amount of blood in a few scenes.
