No Place for a Lady by Gil Paul ~ Book Review

When Lucy met Captain Charlie Harvington at the young age of 18, he swept her off her feet.  Only knowing each other a very short time, Charlie proposes and Lucy accepts much to the dismay of her older sister, Dorothea.  Dorothea is 10 years older than Lucy and has taken care of her younger sibling since their mother passed away when Lucy was just a young teen.  Knowing that Charlie will be heading to the war in Crimea, and as his wife, wants Lucy to go with him Dorothea is doing everything she can to persuade Lucy to stay behind.  But with no support from their father who has dementia, Dorothea is fighting a losing battle and Lucy marries and leaves resenting Dorothea's control and interference.

While Lucy is off at war supporting her husband, Dorothea works at a hospital at home in London.  When the opportunity comes up to apply to work with the famed Florence Nightingale in the Crimean hospitals, Dorothea sees it as an opportunity not only to work and learn from Florence Nightingale but as a chance to try and find Lucy hoping she is still alive.  When she arrives there she is thrown into the hard work of nursing the injured soldiers and unbeknownst to Dorothea is closer to Lucy than she imagines.  But Lucy has lived her own hardships and has chosen to hide even from those who know her in the area.  

This was a story that really drew me in.  I have not read a historical fiction yet centered on the Crimean war which was a heartbreaking and horrendous war fraught with many errors leading to the deaths of many.  The author seems to have researched it well and I was surprised to learn that officers were allowed to take their wives and many women did just that, leaving families and children behind and following their husbands, taking care of them in the worst conditions imaginable.  The author did a great job with the roles that women played in the war including not only the officer's wives but that of  Florence Nightingale setting up hospitals and Mary Seacole, a British Jamaican nurse who opened a hotel behind the lines and fed people.  It's a heartbreaking read, and yet hopeful.  There are a couple of descriptive intimate scenes between a couple but it is easy to skim over if that is not a thing you like in your reading.

An interesting find in the story was a Captain that had the same last name as that of my city.  That is the first time ever I have come across that in my reading.

I rated this a 9/10

March Reading Goals Met:  Read My Own Shelves Cover color of the month:  Green