Title: The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics
Series: Feminine Pursuits: Book One
Author: Olivia Waite
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Length: 219 Pages
Category: Historical Romance
Rating: 4 Stars
At a Glance: Triumphant, affirming, and making science sexy one page at a time, The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics makes all the right steps and comes to a lovely conclusion.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: As Lucy Muchelney watches her ex-lover’s sham of a wedding, she wishes herself anywhere else. It isn’t until she finds a letter from the Countess of Moth, looking for someone to translate a groundbreaking French astronomy text, that she knows where to go. Showing up at the Countess’ London home, she hoped to find a challenge, not a woman who takes her breath away.
Catherine St Day looks forward to a quiet widowhood once her late husband’s scientific legacy is fulfilled. She expected to hand off the translation and wash her hands of the project—instead, she is intrigued by the young woman who turns up at her door, begging to be allowed to do the work, and she agrees to let Lucy stay. But as Catherine finds herself longing for Lucy, everything she believes about herself and her life is tested.
While Lucy spends her days interpreting the complicated French text, she spends her nights falling in love with the alluring Catherine. But sabotage and old wounds threaten to sever the threads that bind them. Can Lucy and Catherine find the strength to stay together or are they doomed to be star-crossed lovers?
Review: Women in the sciences was unheard of when this novel takes place. Science was dominated by men who thought the branch of study and academia—in this case, astronomy—was not a woman’s place. Olivia Waite uses the historical setting to her advantage to broach the subject of how women did indeed influence science anyway, but still remained in the shadows while men took the credit and enjoyed the accolades.
Lucy Muchelney is driven to change that, thanks to her father, and Catherine St. Day, Lady Moth, is compelled to help her achieve it.
It would be a mistake to assume The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics is a simple romance novel. It’s romantic, don’t get me wrong, but it’s so much more. In fact, it’s the more that made me want to fist-pump with glee all the way to the finish. Every challenge Lucy met and each way she and Catherine found to keep forging ahead not only built their relationship but opened new doors for others, leaving a trail of opportunity behind them. It wasn’t easy, but it was so worth it in the end. And a little help from a friend didn’t hurt in the slightest.
Waite draws such graceful characters in both Lucy and Catherine. They are each a study in fragility and fierceness, Catherine a widow whose timidity is owed to an abusive husband; Lucy at loose ends after her father’s passing and demands from her brother that it’s time to give up her passion for the stars and settle down in marriage. Nothing that built up between the two women was planned or expected, which made it all the sweeter when it happened.
Triumphant, affirming, and making science sexy one page at a time, The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics makes all the right steps and comes to a lovely conclusion.
You can buy The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics here:
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