A Matter of Grave Concern
In 1830, Abigail Hale efficiently oversees her father’s medical school by day; by night she efficiently procures cadavers for the school. Abigail’s deepest desire is to become a surgeon, a career forbidden to women. Maximillian Wilder is a grave robber with the manners of a nobleman. Pretending to be a down-on-his-luck gentleman, Max (aka: Lucien Cavendish, the Duke of Rowenberry) is actually searching for his half-sister, who was last been seen in the company of Big Jack, the head of the body-snatching gang. When Max forces Abby to stay with the gang, she discovers his secret and throws in with the body snatchers so she can help Max find his sister. Ultimately this leads to trust and love. The couple is granted an imperfect, if more realistic, happiness: Max’s mother, the dowager duchess, refuses to accept middle-class Abby. This is an engrossing story, part romance, part mystery, and part history. The characters have dimension—they step outside the normal constraints of romance. We see the seedier part of the so-called Romantic era, when medical studies were considered wicked, and life was both hard and cheap.
