The Anatomist’s Wife #BookReview #BriFri

Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish - reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I reviewed And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander. That makes today's post my fourth book review for British Isles Friday in a row. That may be a record. I sometimes have to resort to a film review or news round-up because I don't read that quickly!

Book: The Anatomist's Wife by Anna Lee Huber
Genre: Historical mystery
Publisher: Berkley Books
Publication date: 2012
Pages: 368

Source: ebook, borrowed from the library

Summary: Lady Darby, Keira, retreated to a Scottish castle, the home of her sister and brother-in-law, after her husband died. She felt chased by salacious tales, far surpassing any actual guilt. From her perspective, she was tricked into marrying Sir Anthony who wanted to exploit her artistic talents to illustrate his anatomy textbook. He needed Keira to draw the details of human corpses. That's titillating stuff for 1830s London society, bad enough for a man and beyond the pale for a woman, even if the woman had no choice in the matter.

When Alana and Philip throw a country house party, they hope to ease Keira back into society but their stodgy guests aren't very cooperative. And, then, one of them is found dead in a bloody puddle in the garden maze. Lady Darby is a convenient suspect. Can her hard-won anatomy skills back up the investigative skills of another guest, Gage Sebastian, to free her from suspicion before she's arrested for a crime that she didn't commit?

Thoughts: The Antatomist's Wife drew me in. And, I needed a book like that, right now! I think it was the characters and, more than that, their relationships with each other. Hanging out in a Scottish castle, and the surrounding woods and lakes, added to the charm.

Appeal: There's history, mystery, and a touch of romance in The Anatomist's Wife. If you enjoy all three of those, as I do, this one should work for you. There's a bit of Halloween macabre lurking in this story, in case the real-life exploits of Burke and Hare are something you want to revisit at this season.

Last week, I looked for advice on whether to keep going with the Lady Emily series after reading And Only to Deceive. I don't have to ask that question this week - I started the second in the Lady Darby series, Mortal Arts, as soon as I finished the first book. There are eight books in the series, so far, with a ninth expected to be published next year. So, I have some catching up to do.

About Joy Weese Moll

a librarian writing about books