Review: The Oak and the Ash by Annick Trent

Title: The Oak and the Ash

Series: The Old Bridge Inn: Book Three

Author: Annick Trent

Length: 288 Pages

Category: Historical Romance

Rating: 5 Stars

At a Glance: Annick Trent tells such an arresting love story in The Oak and the Ash. This is not a novel full of turbulence and turmoil. Instead, it’s a quiet story that speaks so elegantly.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Radical surgeon George Evans is called to the scene of a midnight duel between an earl and his cousin. Despite the strained atmosphere in the house, George finds he must stay and tend to the injured duellists. Fortunately, his sojourn is made more than bearable by the earl’s quietly competent and oddly attractive valet, Noah Moorecott.

Under his reserved exterior, Noah turns out to have a wry sense of humour and a passion for reading to match George’s own. The more time the two men spend together—whether enthusing over natural philosophy or arguing over politics—the closer they grow, quickly becoming friends, then lovers.

They live in two different worlds, but it seems nothing can keep them apart—until they find themselves on opposite sides in a murder inquiry.

Review: The sharp sting of unrequited love offers the unintended outcome of placing George Evans in the wrong place at the right time. George hadn’t intended to be involved in the aftermath of pistols at ten paces; nor did he intend to be the only doctor on hand to tend the men’s wounds. But when Noah Moorecott comes calling at the inn where George is lodging, in need of a doctor’s help, George is obliged to answer the call.

Annick Trent tells such an arresting love story in The Oak and the Ash. This is not a novel full of turbulence and turmoil. Instead, it’s a quiet story that speaks so elegantly. It begins as the building of a close friendship and then evolves into a tale of a two-tiered system of justice, which causes discord for those caught in the middle: namely, George and Noah. The story reveals the ways in which they become embroiled, then must accommodate themselves and each other when conscience and the truth demand it. There was not a single moment that I wasn’t rooting for them to find their way out of the conflict they faced, while also being entirely engaged in their interests and the political climate they lived in.

From the setting, to the various forms of social oppression, to the fact that, like the title—the oak and the ash both being trees, yet different—George and Noah are both men and yet see things from their own distinct points of view. The best compliment I can give this book is that it compelled me to read the other two in the series, to get to know those characters better as well.