Title: Her Lady’s Honor
Author: Renée Dahlia
Publisher: Carina Press
Length: 253 Pages
Category: Historical Romance, Lesbian Romance
At a Glance: I can’t say that I loved Her Lady’s Honor as much as I wanted to, but it’s not without some lovely moments along the way.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: The war might be over, but the battle for love has just begun.
When Lady Eleanor “Nell” St. George arrives in Wales after serving as a veterinarian in the Great War, she doesn’t come alone. With her is her former captain’s beloved warhorse, which she promised to return to him—and a series of recurring nightmares that torment both her heart and her soul. She wants only to complete her task, then find refuge with her family, but when Nell meets the captain’s eldest daughter, all that changes.
Beatrice Hughes is resigned to life as the dutiful daughter. Her mother grieves for the sons she lost to war; the care of the household and remaining siblings falls to Beatrice, and she manages it with a practical efficiency. But when a beautiful stranger shows up with her father’s horse, practicality is the last thing on her mind.
Despite the differences in their social standing, Beatrice and Nell give in to their unlikely attraction, finding love where they least expect it. But not everything in the captain’s house is as it seems. When Beatrice’s mother disappears under mysterious circumstances, Nell must overcome her preconceptions to help Beatrice, however she’s able. Together they must find out what really happened that stormy night in the village, before everything Beatrice loves is lost—including Nell.
Review: Renée Dahlia scrutinizes the role of women in a male dominated world in Her Lady’s Honor, befitting the era as well as setting the tone of the book. The time is post-World War I, and as the story opens, readers are introduced to Lady Eleanor St. George, whose ship has just docked upon her return to English soil for the first time since the end of the war. Nell is an accomplished veterinarian, assigned to the frontlines in France to doctor the horses wounded in battle, no small achievement for a woman, but that doesn’t mean she was granted the perfunctory respect she’d have received were she a man, either. The patriarchy rules, so Nell has to work twice as hard as her male counterparts to prove she has what it takes to do the job. She earned her stripes, as much as was attainable, under the auspices of Captain Hughes, who, upon injury and his return to Wales, assigned Nell with the task of returning his battle horse, Tommy, safely to his doorstep. Nell succeeds in accomplishing her Captain’s final command, delivering the horse as ordered, which is where she’s introduced to the oldest Hughes daughter, Beatrice, and their relationship begins to build in fits and starts, through mutual attraction tempered by misstep after misstep.
I grew to like Nell quite a lot over the course of the story, and felt a great deal of compassion for her too, for what she’d seen and endured during her military service. She did not return home unscathed or unscarred, suffering the emotional trauma of war as well as recovering from a physical injury, and Dahlia reveals these things in a way that endeared her to me greatly.
To say that she and Beatrice started off wrong-footed would be a bit of an understatement, as Nell initially and quite mistakenly assumes Beatrice is a servant in the Captain’s household. Truth be told, it’s not far off from the truth, as the Captain, who has come home a raging alcoholic, doesn’t hesitate to make clear that his wife and daughters are little more than chattel, but Beatrice is insulted nonetheless, rightfully so, and then jumps to the conclusion that Lady Eleanor is spoiled rotten and couldn’t possibly know the hardships Beatrice has faced. The central conflict between the two women evolves into a sort of “who’s had it worse” competition at times. Nell’s post-war trauma when coupled with the disparity of the social and economic standing between her and Beatrice, is a barrier.
Unfortunately for Beatrice, her issues come across more as a chip on her shoulder, though there’s little doubt her circumstances are fraught with the indignity of the way her father, and society as a whole, dismisses her worth. Her resenting Nell for the mere circumstances of her birth didn’t do much to win me over to her side, so I had a much harder time warming up to her, and, in the end, I didn’t. While she undeniably had her sweet and gentle moments, some of her reactions to Nell and the verbal lashings Beatrice handed out under the appearance of teaching Nell a lesson about what it means to be born without a silver spoon in your mouth were just so abrasive that it left me wondering why Nell kept making the effort. That’s not to say that Beatrice didn’t deserve to grind her ax—she had more than enough reason to, being the daughter of an abusive father—but I felt that she took her anger and frustration out on the wrong target much of the time.
Added to the romance is a murder which can’t be classified a mystery, given that there was a confession not long after. It did, however, add a touch of poignancy to the story and was the catalyst for Nell and Beatrice finally finding a more level playing field on which to build their relationship. I can’t say that I loved Her Lady’s Honor as much as I wanted to, but it’s not without some lovely moments along the way.
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